Abstract
Discussion of ways in which government can regulate industry and promote its prosperity is as old as political economy itself. The aim of this preliminary chapter is therefore to locate the discussion contained in the following chapters within a comparative and disciplinary context. This is a context which is presented as an analytical exercise aimed at those interested in practical and in theoretical issues. It was not written as a guide or blueprint of the succeeding chapters. We would expect the contributors of this volume to share or sympathise with much of the approach advocated here, although in some areas, particularly the analysis of organisational ‘culture’, there would be a diversity of view. The first section of this chapter places the discussion in the theoretical context of comparative political economy. It comments on theoretical directions in the field and remarks upon some widely acknowledged contrasts between Japan and other industrialised capitalist economies. The second section confronts the analytical problem in comparative work of striking a balance between generality and specificity. How do we combine general national comparison with the treatment of individual cases? It is suggested that a deliberate use of levels of analysis offers one suitable solution.
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Notes and References
S. Wilks and M. Wright (eds), Comparative Government-Industry Relations: Western Europe, the United States and Japan (Oxford, Clarendon, 1987).
S. Wilks and M. Wright, ‘Conclusion: Comparing Government-Industry Relations: States, Sectors and Networks’, ibid; M. Wright, ‘Policy Community, Policy Network and Comparative Industrial Policies’, Political Studies, xxxvi (1988) pp. 593–612.
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See R. Boyd, Government-Industry Relations in Japan: A Review of the Literature (London, ESRC, 1986);
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For instance, C. Johnson, L. Tyson and J. Zysman (eds), Politics and Productivity: How Japan’s Development Strategy Works (New York, Ballinger, 1989);
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For instance, E. Tinberger, Revolution from Above: Military Bureaucrats and Development in Japan, Turkey, Egypt and Peru (New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1978).
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As in H. Patrick and T. Rohlen, ‘Small-Scale Family Enterprise’, in K. Yamamura and Y. Yasuba (eds), The Political Economy of Japan: Volume I, The Domestic Transformation (Stanford University Press, 1987) pp. 331–84.
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See Chapter 1; and M. Atkinson and W. Coleman, ‘Strong States and Weak States: Sectoral Policy Networks in Advanced Capitalist Economies’, British Journal of Political Science, 19 (1989) pp. 47–67.
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See C. Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle; R. Samuels, The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1987);
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See J. March and J. Olson, ‘The New Institutionalism: Organisational Factors in Political Life’, American Political Science Review, 78 (1984) pp. 734–49;
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S. Wilks, ‘Institutions and Cultures in the Comparative Analysis of Political Economy’, paper to graduate seminar, University of Stanford, and to the European Consortium for Political Research, Joint Sessions of Workshops, Paris, 1989;
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For welcome precision see M. Archer, Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1988).
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J. Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite (Princeton University Press, 1974) p. 300.
K. Van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York, Knopf, 1989) p. 306.
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Wilks, S., Wright, M. (1991). The Comparative Context of Japanese Political Economy. In: Wilks, S., Wright, M. (eds) The Promotion and Regulation of Industry in Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12218-9_2
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