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Developments in the Japanese Political Economy since the mid‐1980s: The Second Attempt at Neoliberal Reform and its Aftermath

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2017

Hideo Otake
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THE DECADE FROM THE LATE 1970s TO THE LATE 1980S, WHICH BEGAN with the birth of the Thatcher and Reagan administrations and concluded with the fall of communist regimes throughout Russia and Eastern Europe, and the concurrent rise of the Asian NIES states, was the renaissance era of laissez-faire economic liberalism or neoliberalism. ‘Privatization’, ‘deregulation’, and ‘small government’ became popular slogans globally, borrowed heavily from the policy proposals of neoliberal economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. It was best manifested in the world-wide trend towards privatization, involving more than one hundred countries.

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Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , July 1999 , pp. 372 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1999

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References

1 Wright, Vincent, Privatization in Western Europe, London, Pinter, 1994 Google Scholar.

2 Otake, Hideo, Jiyushugiteki Kaikau no Jidai (The Era of Neoliberal Reform), Tokyo, Chuokoronsha, 1994 Google Scholar; Otake, , Gyokaku no Hasso (The Ideology of ‘Administrative Reform’, Tokyo, TBS Buritanika, 1997. The three chapters of the former were translated: ‘The Resurgence of Laissez‐faire Liberalism in Japan’, in Susan Strange (ed.), Globalisation and Capitalist Diversity, Florence, European University Institute, 1996, pp. 77, 89; ‘La réforme neo‐libérale et le démantélment du syndicat radical au Japon’, Perspectives Asiatiques, 2 (1996), pp. 129–45; ‘Rise and Retreat of Neoliberal Reform: Controversies over Land Use Policy’, in Gary D. Allinson and Yasunori Sone (eds), Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1993, pp. 242–63Google Scholar.

3 Hanley, D., ‘Change and Continuity in the Mitterrand Years’, in Elgie, Robert (ed.), Electing the French President: The 1995 Presidential Election, New York, St Martin’s, 1996, pp. 7 and 23–4Google Scholar.

4 This is undoubtedly an important factor which has contributed to the one of the pecurialities of contemporary Japanese politics, that is, the absence of extreme rightist parties and movements.

5 Nomura, Masami, Koyo Fuan (Fear of Unemployment), Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1998 Google Scholar.

6 As for the Railway unions, see Matsuzaki, Akira, Kokutetsu Kaikaku (Reform of National Railways), Tokyo, Pipurusha, 1998 Google Scholar.

7 Campbell, John, How Policies Change: The Japanese Government and the Aging Society, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1992, p. 315 Google Scholar.

8 The Japanese pension system basically consists of the two types: the EPS and the MAA which cover the relatively well‐off employees in the government and larger corporations, and the NPS, which covers the rest, mostly the self‐employed and the employees in small business, most of whom are less well off.

9 Campbell, John, How Policies Change, op. cit., p. 337 Google ScholarPubMed.

10 Shinbunsha, Nihon Keizai, Nenkin no Gosan (Miscalculation in the Pension System), Tokyo, Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1996, p. 167 Google Scholar.

11 See, for example, Golden, Miriam and Pontusson, Jonas (eds), Bargaining for Change, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1992 Google Scholar.

12 Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, op. cit.

13 Ibid., pp. 180–90.

14 The other side of the coin is that these ineffective sectors, particularly agriculture, distribution and the construction industry, absorb a potentially redundant workforce, keeping the unemployment rate lower. Rationalization would result in greater unemployment.

15 Shukan‐Bunshun, 27 November 1997.

16 Grimes, William W., ‘From the Plaza to the Bubble and Beyond: Japanese Macroeconomic Policy Making, 1985–1997’, unpublished thesis, Department of International Relations, Boston University, 1998 Google Scholar.

17 Sato, Akira, Kin’yu Htan (Financial Collapse), Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 1998 Google Scholar.

18 In a series of opinion surveys, the public continually expressed an overwhelmingly negative reponse to the question ‘whether you agree or not to spend taxpayers’ money to save the financial institutions’. The result of this opinion survey proved to be misleading.