Science, Technology, and Society in Contemporary Japan (review)

Japan’s establishment comprises three sectors – big business, parliament, and the national bureaucracy – which some commentators say are in a three-way deadlock. The economic sphere, overseen by the leaders of big corporations, is subordinate to the public bureaucracy, which controls the private sector through its power to license companies, regulate their activities, and decide upon the implementation of publicly funded projects. However, officials in the bureaucracy are subservient to legislators, especially those of the governing parties, who decide on the bills that bureaucrats prepare for the National Diet and whose ranks many officials join after they have climbed to a certain career level. Politicians, in turn, remain submissive to the leaders of the private sector, because they require pecuniary contributions to individual and party coffers to maintain their political machines. Figure 8.1 summarizes mutual dependence and competition among these three power blocs at the helm of Japanese society. The three-way structure of Japan’s establishment resembles the tripartism of politics, business, and labor, which collectively coordinates the policy-making processes in some European and Australasian countries. However, the Japanese pattern is characterized by the conspicuous absence of labor union representatives. Although the largest national labor confederation, Rengō , has some influence on the state decision-making process, its level of representation is hardly comparable to that of union organizations in other countries. The public bureaucracy enjoys strong influence over both the economy and the politics of the entire nation.

The twentieth century was a period of great success for Japan. It was a century of unprecedented history in which the small, resource-poor, island nation successfully made its emergence onto the world stage. In order to “catch up or overtake” the Western powers, Japan prioritized the needs of the state, the national bureaucracy, and big business. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), a centralized, top-down government-business sector style of administration was established to help modernize the country. Japan caught up with Western industrial powers when it adopted a readymade model of the West, premised on mass industrial production and mass commodity consumption, in the post-World War II (WWII) era and proved to be more successful in its adaptation of this Ford-style mass production model than its Western counterparts. By the late 1980s, Japan was simultaneously the world’s largest creditor nation and the largest foreign aid donor and seemed to have achieved its goal of catching up with Western nations. But Japan also faced a new dilemma as at this particular point in time there was a dearth of readymade models in the West and the country needed to forge its own pathways to achieve new national goals. Japan could no longer afford to maintain its one-size-fits-all policy of developmentalism that had dominated Japanese ways of strategic thinking during the 1960s and 1970s. Various communities in Japan began to emphasize the importance of meeting diverse social needs and argued that Japan needed to be open to, and to be accepted and respected by, the rest of the world.KeywordsSocial CapitalLocal GovernmentMigrant WorkerBaby BoomerSenior CitizenThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

On 9 August 1993, a multi-party coalition government headed by Morihiro hiro Hosokawa replaced Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). During the intervening months, Hosokawa and his ideologically diverse coalition colleagues have battled their way through a number of politically sensitive issues left unfinished by the LDP, including liberalization of the domestic rice market, reform of the electoral system, and tax reductions intended to stimulate the sluggish economy. Now, as they move on to prepare a budget for the new fiscal year and to tackle administrative reform, they face what the three new parties and the traditional opposition parties have described as their primary objective: radical reform of the 1955 System. This reform of Japan's long stable domestic political system involves dismemberment of the special interest relationships between politicians, national bureaucrats, and big business, and promotion of policies that will have a direct and positive influence on the daily lives of the majority of Japan's population. In the area of foreign policy it involves definition of a new position for Japan in the global community and reconsideration of the near total reliance on the United States that characterized Japan's policy during the Cold War. Achievement of this ambitious redirection of domestic and foreign policy, however, will require Japan both to restructure the pattern of national policy formulation and implementation that since the mid-nineteenth century Meiji Restoration has been characterized by strong national bureaucratic control, and to place the parliament, or Diet, in its constitutionally mandated position as the highest organ of state power. That is, the new

In the last 5 years, the demand for new goods has increased dramatically with the consumer products business seeing large gains in online sales and still some growth in brick and mortar stores. These types of manufactured products target different customer purchasing behaviours in areas of convenience, shopping, specialty and unsought goods. Thus, this upward trend in consumer products continues as competition expands globally, emphasis on strategies for innovation gain momentum and there is an ever-increasing focus on customer engagement. At the same time, big business has had an impact on stifling start-ups with expansive market power, widening regulation and an escalated concentration in major industries leading to big companies being able to block new competitors easily. Nevertheless, there is still a need for entrepreneurial new businesses, like start-ups, to help spur/sustain job creation and provide global market competition especially with new products to aid in economic growth. These types of companies have extreme uncertainty which is reflected in the nearly 95% failure rate of start-ups globally. Typically market fit, product/customer value and ineffective product implementation are among the top contributing NPD failure factors. This paper presents the results of a 4-month study from an entrepreneurial simulation to develop new consumer products with groups of university students (up to prototype stage). Students used some of the significant methods in innovation/new product creation that are prevalent in big business as guides. Some form of these creative strategies from Stage-Gate, Design Thinking and Lean Startup are used in most medium to large size established businesses. Studies with university students have shown to be quite useful in simulating/solving real-world problems. In general, students at universities have access to cutting-edge technology, time to explore and are surrounded by individuals from different disciplines and perspectives similar to what they will face in the real world. They also share some of the traits of start-ups by many having high-risk tolerance, ambition and intelligence to try something new. The goal of this exercise initially was to evaluate whether the high degree of uncertainty in a start-up environment would be impacted using either the more rigid linear process practices (derived from Stage Gate) or more flexible iterative process practices (from Design Thinking / Lean Startup). These formalized processes typically occur in the more stable New Product Development (NPD) environments of medium to large size established businesses. Some of the specific research outcomes include: comparisons with time spent developing the product, customer concept acceptance and the amount of data related to costs (i.e. development costs, projected ROI). These can be indicators of product success. Nevertheless, other factors became apparent during the simulation and the findings suggest that further research opportunities around innovation methods and start-up success rates should be pursued.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes An early version of this article was delivered at the conference on ‘What type of capitalism in the post-socialist economies?’ organised by Professor David Lane and hosted by the Jean Monnet Centre and the Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, 12 March 2004. For helpful comments on earlier drafts the authors are indebted to participants in that conference to Duncan Allan, and to referees for this journal. State capture denotes a situation where a set of narrow interests, such as a firm, uses corruption to shape the political and legal environment to its own advantage (Hellman et al., 2000). The term ‘oligarch’ is widely used to refer to Russia's richest businessmen. In the sense of ‘rule by a few’, the term was perhaps briefly applicable in the mid-1990s. Today, however, that meaning is no longer appropriate. We have therefore preferred, when dealing with the recent period, to speak of ‘tycoons’ or ‘big businessmen’. This section draws on Johnson (1995 Johnson Chalmers Japan: Who Governs? (New York, W.W. Norton 1995 [Google Scholar]), Jones (2003 Jones Tobias The Dark Heart of Italy (London, Faber and Faber 2003 [Google Scholar]), McCargo (2000 McCargo D Contemporary Japan (London, Macmillan 2000 [Google Scholar]), Sassoon (1997 Sassoon D Contemporary Italy. Economy, Society and Politics since 1945 (London, Longman, second edition 1997 [Google Scholar]) and Stockwin (1999 Stockwin JAA Governing Japan (Oxford, Blackwell, third edition 1999 [Google Scholar]). There is probably no corrupt practice that does not occur everywhere, even in Finland, but the evidence is that these practices really are less widespread in the countries that score well for Transparency International and for ‘corruption control’ in Kaufmann's governance measures. Mény & Rhodes (1997 Mény Y Rhodes M Illicit Governance: Corruption, Scandal and Fraud in M. Rhodes, P. Heywood & V. Wright (eds), Developments in West European Politics, (London, Macmillan 1997 pp. 95 – 114 [Google Scholar]) point out that circumstances conducive to corruption can increase over time in any country. They cite, for example, the rising real cost of winning elections and, in Europe, the secretiveness and growing complexity of EU arrangements. This is not meant to imply that such links have since vanished. Not, for example, mobile telephone businesses. Additional informationNotes on contributorsPhilip HansonElizabeth Teague writes in a personal capacity and the views expressed here should not be taken as representing the views of the British Government.

Big businesses and economic growth: Identifying a binding constraint for growth with country panel analysis

Japan's aggressive economic development has led many Americans to fear that it will lead to an equally aggressive nationalism reminiscent of the pre-World War II period. Beyond the Rising Sun demonstrates that such fears are unfounded. Although cultural nationalism is strong, Japan today is a stable and peaceful democracy. Professionals, academics, government officials, business people, and the general public will find this challenge to many current views about Japanese politics, people, and U.S.-Japanese relations provocative. There has long been concern that Japan's aggressive economic development might be a harbinger of an equally aggressive nationalism, reminiscent of the dark era leading up to World War II. The media has fueled the image of a newly aggressive Japan by using martial metaphors such as Samurai capitalism that is invading American markets. Moreover, the Japanese are also portrayed as subservient members of a conformist society manipulated by political authority. However, a long-time resident in Japan and scholar on U.S.-Japanese relations argues that contemporary Japanese nationalism has no connection to its prewar embodiment and fears of an authoritarian and aggressive Japan have no basis in reality. Of the many changes in Japan since the end of the war, the most significant has been the development of a deeply ingrained democratic political culture. Although a strong force in Japan today, nationalism is manifested by a strong ethnic, cultural, and racial identification and not by citizen identification with the state. By examining the wide varieties of nationalism in contemporary Japan and by explaining the role that they play in society and politics, academics, professionals, government officials, business people, and the general public will find this analysis invaluable for understanding contemporary Japan. This short text is designed also for use in courses in Japanese politics, contemporary Japanese society and culture, and U.S.-Japanese relations.

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)1 concluded by the Japanese and the Philippine governments on 9 September 2006, was described in the Japanese media as a ‘new step toward opening Japan's lab...

Reviewed by: Gendering Modern Japanese History Anne E. Imamura Gendering Modern Japanese History. Edited by Barbara Moloney and Kathleen Uno. Harvard University Asia Center, 2006. xi + 607 pages. Hardcover $60.00/£38.95/€55.30. My first reaction when I looked at the table of contents of Gendering Modern Japanese History was "Everyone is here!" It was a pleasure to see the range of scholars included in the volume. Although of course not "everyone" could be included in a single work, by the time I completed the book, my initial impression was confirmed. This is a volume with breadth and depth that contributes to scholarship on a wide array of subjects. On the microlevel it offers something for readers from many disciplines, and on the macrolevel it offers many things for many readers. In its entirety or chapter by chapter Gendering will be used in research and in the classroom by historians and social scientists. It sheds light on many aspects of the long twentieth century in Japan and provides a foundation for the study of the twenty-first. I fully expect that it will become a basic source cited in every related publication. In their introduction, Barbara Moloney and Kathleen Uno indicate that "this book aims to contribute to both social science and cultural studies of Japan by further historicizing gender construction, gender contestations, and gender ambiguity" (p. 22). They point out that "In Japan's long twentieth century, individuals have constructed and experienced complex, fluid identities, while social institutions and the state have attempted to craft and enforce unitary constructions of gender" (p. 8). The essays contained in Gendering clearly illustrate the complexities and range of gender construction at the microlevel, whether the "ideal woman" in 1920s mass women's magazines of Barbara Sato's chapter, or the range of individual or local responses to the ryōsai kenbo (good wife and wise mother) definition of womanhood cited by Kathleen Uno. The essays both collectively and individually also delineate the development of the state's definition of gender roles and the political context in which these definitions evolved. Gendering provides both macro- and microlevel insight into the state's interest in identifying gendered behavior at particular historical periods as "modern" or as "traditional" while at all times defining the current gender expectations as "Japanese." As a whole, the volume takes its place beside such edited collections as Gail Bernstein's Recreating Japanese Women, 1600-1945 (University of California Press, 1991), Kumiko Fujimura-Fanselow and Atsuko Kameda's Japanese Women: New Feminist Perspectives on the Past, Present and Future (New York: The Feminist Press, 1995), and James E. Roberson and Nobue Suzuki's Men and Masculinities in Contemporary Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa (London and New York: [End Page 119] RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). Individual chapters and sections offer an even wider range of scholarship than can be found in these earlier works. The book is divided into five sections: "Gender, Selfhood, Culture"; "Genders, Bodies, Sexualities"; "Gender, Empire, War"; "Gender, Work, Economy"; and "Theorizing Gender." Each section is filled with new insights on gender and the state. Of particular note, the individual chapters focus on complexities rather than binary analysis, and the authors provide ample cross-references to other chapters, thus tying the book together in a way that is rare in an edited collection. Below, I will illustrate the volume's richness by referring to a few examples from its sixteen chapters. On the one hand, this book provides a narrative of the construction of gender and gendered citizens in the context of Japan's development from late Tokugawa to the end of the twentieth century. Underlying that more-or-less unitary political macrolevel narrative are the particular and complex cases that comprise each chapter. In the early part of the narrative, the Meiji government was concerned with obtaining international respect. It modernized and produced categories of people (educated women, internationally minded gentlemen) in order to show how civilized and enlightened Japan had become. Yet, at the very core of this institution building, as Martha Tocco's chapter on Meiji women's education shows, boundaries between "traditional" and modern were permeable. Meiji education for women was not so much a...

Those perspectives developed to see the angles and motives of voting are used to see how much confidence survey respondents have in institutions: They are (1) prospective perspective (i.e., assessment of prospective macro-economic conditions); (2) retrospective and sociotropic perspective (i.e., assessment of macro-economic conditions and social weather in the recent past), (3) retrospective and pocketbook perspective (i.e., assessment of macro-economic conditions and one’s own pocketbook in the recent past); and (4) affiliated group (i.e., voter’s identification with a certain socio-economic group). Using the Asia-Europe Survey data carried out in 2000 in both 8 countries in Asia and in 9 countries in Europe (in total 15,607 respondents) on such institutions as parliament, parties, government, courts, leaders, police, civil service, military, big business, and mass media, most importantly I have empirically validated the primacy of the retrospective and sociotropic perspective followed by the prospective perspective among 15,607 respondents. Secondly, I have discovered the non-democratically and meritocratically recruited institutions such as courts, police, civil service and military enjoy the high confidence: i.e., having positive responses larger than negative responses from all the four perspectives.

In contemporary Japan, the phrase ‘oya‐koh‐koh’–‘filial piety’ is seldom used by young and middle‐aged persons. This is because before and during World War II, the then ultra‐nationalistic Japanese government placed extreme emphasis on the importance of filial piety in parallel with loyalty to the Emperor and to the nation. Therefore, after the war, Japanese people had a strong tendency to regard filial piety as a phrase having a negative connotation that recalls the memory of the terrible and merciless pre‐war rule by the then ultra‐nationalistic government. However, as far as the value is concerned it can rightfully be said that the virtue that the phrase ‘oya‐koh‐koh’–‘filial piety’ did stand for is still maintained and even upheld in contemporary Japan. Another important reason why filial piety receives little attention in contemporary Japan can be found in the highly developed social security and social service programs for the elderly. Owing to these programs Japanese adult children are now only required to care for their parents within the limits of their physical and financial ability.

Research Article| March 01 1996 Pork Barrel Politics, Networks, and Local Economic Development in Contemporary Japan Haruhiro Fukui, Haruhiro Fukui Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Shigeko N. Fukai Shigeko N. Fukai Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Asian Survey (1996) 36 (3): 268–286. https://doi.org/10.2307/2645692 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Haruhiro Fukui, Shigeko N. Fukai; Pork Barrel Politics, Networks, and Local Economic Development in Contemporary Japan. Asian Survey 1 March 1996; 36 (3): 268–286. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/2645692 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAsian Survey Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1996 The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This book contains updated versions of a set of papers presented at the International Conference on Agriculture and Economic Development-A Symposium on Japan's Experience which was held in Tokyo, July, 1967. These papers make a comprehensive reappraisal of Japan's agricultural development and its relevance to economic growth over the last 100 years. They emphasize long-term studies in analyzing Japan's agricultural development, with the century following the Meiji Restoration as the historical setting. Intensive consideration is also given to the Meiji Era, 1868-1912. Part I considers the historical phases of Japan's development, and attempts to give a comprehensive exposition of Japan's long-term growth. Part II deals with productivity growth and technological progress; Part III treats agricultural population and labor force; Part IV includes papers dealing with exports of primary products, credit and financial institutions, farm-household savings, the impact of Land Reform, and food consumption patterns. Originally published in 1970. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

While a trade‐off between larval development and adult life span is key to understand why not all animals develop at their maximum rate and why life histories align along a fast‐slow continuum, it has been rarely studied. More general, the physiological mechanisms underlying life‐history trade‐offs are poorly understood and there is ongoing debate about the mediatory role of oxidative stress. We explicitly investigated the role of oxidative stress in mediating the trade‐off between larval development and adult life span in the damselfly Lestes viridis. We exposed larvae to time stress (by manipulating photoperiods) and manipulated oxidative stress levels using the mitochondrial uncoupler 2,4‐dinitrophenol (DNP) that causes a reduced production of reactive oxygen species. In addition, we considered other costs of an accelerated development in terms of reductions in immune function (the activity of phenoloxidase [PO]) and energy storage (fat content). Larvae accelerated their development but not growth under time stress, allowing to identify costs of rapid development without confounding effects of rapid growth. Rapid development came at the cost of a much shorter life span, which was associated with an increase in oxidative damage to lipids, proteins and DNA. Other costs in the adult stage of a rapid larval development included a lower body mass and reduced immune function, while the fat and protein contents were not reduced. Time‐stressed animals exposed to DNP developed even faster and did not show the increase in oxidative damage. Notably, they did not suffer the costs of rapid development: they had no shorter life span, lower body mass or reduced PO activity. Our results provide strong experimental support for a trade‐off between rapid development and life span and for the mediatory role of oxidative stress in shaping this life‐history trade‐off. Our study highlights that manipulation of mitochondrial uncoupling may be a powerful method to study the mechanistic underpinnings of life‐history trade‐offs. A plain language summary is available for this article.

Preface Part I. Overview: 1. Historical and comparative contours of big business Alfred D. Chandler, Jr 2. The large industrial enterprise and the dynamics of modern economic growth Franco Amatori Part II. National Experiences of Big Business Group 1. Prime Drivers in North America and Western Europe: 3. The United States: engines of economic growth in the capital-intensive and knowledge-intensive industries Takashi Hikino 4. Great Britain: big business, management, and competitiveness in the twentieth century Geoffrey Jones 5. Germany: competition abroad, cooperation at home, 1870-1990 Ulrich Wegenroth 6. Small European nations: cooperative capitalism in the twentieth century Harm G. Schroter Group 2. Followers in Western Europe: 7. France: the relatively slow development of big business in the twentieth century Patrick Fridenson 8. Italy: the tormented rise of organizational capabilities between government and families Albert Carreras 9. Spain: big manufacturing firms between state and market, 1917-90 Xavier Tafunell Group 3. Late Industrializers in East Asia and South America: 10. Japan: increasing organizational capabilities of large industrial enterprises, 1880s-1980s Hidemasa Morikawa 11. South Korea: enterprising groups and entrepreneurial government Alice H. Amsden 12. Argentina: industrial growth and enterprise organization, 1880s-1980s Maria Ines Barbero Group 4. Centrally-Planned Economies in Eastern Europe: 13. USSR: large enterprises - the functional disorder Andrei Yu Yudanov 14. Czechoslovakia: the halting pace to scope and scale Alice Teichova Part III. Economic and Institutional Environment of Big Business: 15. Organizational competences, size, and the wealth of nations: some comments from a comparative perspective Giovanni Dosi and Takashi Hikino 16. Big business and skill formation in the wealthiest nations: the organizational revolution in the twentieth century William Lazonick and Mary O'Sullivan 17. Government, big business, and the wealth of nations Thomas K. McCraw 18. Constructing big business: the cultural concept of the firm Jeffrey R. Fear.