The Japanese challenge to neoliberalism: Who and what is ‘normal’ in the history of the world economy?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since the end of the Cold War, the US has spearheaded the homogenization of the world economy along neoliberal lines. The US-led neoliberal international order, however, did not go unchallenged. Since the late 1980s, Japan has challenged the foundation of the neoliberal international order by asserting the role of the state in economic development. In the vein of constructivist scholarship with emphasis on the meaning-oriented discursive production of the world that has social effects, I ask the question of what made it possible for Japan to challenge neoliberalism. To answer this question, I examine the Japanese developmentalist discourse to uncover a historically constructed collective meaning that enabled the Japanese challenge to be conceivable as a justificatory foundation. I find a shared, intersubjective meaning called ‘normalcy,’ which the Japanese developmentalists have historically attached to the role of the state in economic development. Here ‘normalcy’ means that state-led economic development has been a normal practice for all the successful industrializers in the history of the world economy. In the eyes of the Japanese developmentalists, what is truly ‘normal’ or ‘universal’ is the proven validity of state-led economic development across time and space. I argue that this shared ‘normalcy’ meaning available in the Japanese developmentalist discourse creates the very possibility of the Japanese challenge.