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Political Economy: Policymaking and Industrial Policy in Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Ellis S. Krauss
Ellis S. Krauss*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Extract

The Importance of Japan's Political Economy: The importance of Japan's political economy probably will be more obvious than any other subject concerning Japanese politics. Being the world's second largest economy and the United States' greatest overseas trading partner, and with increasing Japanese investment in America, the politics and policy-making that affect Japan's industry and economy probably have a more direct impact on the lives of more Americans than any other subject concerning a foreign country that American students can study.

With increasing friction over trade and investment beginning to undermine the United States-Japan relationship, one that former Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield liked to call the most important bilateral relationship in the world, Japan's political economy has become the stuff of daily newspaper headlines for many Americans. How much, how, and how well the Japanese state intervenes in the economy to promote economic growth has probably received more attention in the United States in recent years than any other topic concerning Japan. Words previously unfamiliar to American ears, such as “industrial policy,” “targeting,” “MITI,” keiretsu, and so forth, are now common in the American media and in policy debates in Washington about the origins of Japan's massive trade deficit with the United States and what the United States can and should do about it. No college graduate, indeed no American citizen, can claim to be politically literate today without some knowledge of this subject.

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Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 1992 , pp. 44 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1992

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Footnotes

*

I wish to especially thank Steven Anderson and Shigeko Fukai for their very helpful comments and suggestions on the first draft of this article.

References

Bibliography and Further Reading

H = Hardbound edition

P = Paperbound edition

Japanese Companies and Industrial Organization

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Patrick, Hugh and Rosovsky, Henry. Asia's New Giant. Major and huge edited work about Japan up until the 1970s, with articles on economy and economic growth especially useful. Too large and outdated to be used as a text, but of help to instructors as background and in preparing lectures. Series on The Political Economy of Japan (see below) supercedes in terms of more recent material.Google Scholar
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Also handy is a booklet put out by the same organization: Japan Information Resources in the United States, 1990.Google Scholar