Welfare society and welfare state in the Japanese-type discourse on civil society

Abstract

This essay is a reexamination of the development of Japanese-type civil society theory from the analytical perspective of “welfare.” In postwar Japan a company-centric society was formed and dramatic economic growth was achieved, when the Japanese-type civil society theory came to uphold a center-left political ideology that examined the deficiencies of the Western–European-type welfare state and welfare state theory in Japan. But the welfare theory in Japanese-type civil society theory ultimately lacked a positive welfare state theory. From the 1970s to the 1980s, we could see the influence of “Japanese-type welfare society theory” that sought to bypass the welfare state and go directly to a welfare society, while Kiyoaki Hirata’s adoption of Gramsci could be positioned as an turning point in the history of this discourse where Japanese-type civil society theory crossed swords with “new civil society theory.”