Contemporary Government Reform in Japan: The Dual State in Flux [Hardcover]

This book examines several major reforms in Japan - in the postal business, transportation, telecommunications and technology - and evaluates the impact of these changes since the early 1980s. Conceptually, the book presents the dual state as being a fundamental feature of the Japanese political economy that determines government reform dynamics.Introduction: Japan's Struggling Government Reform PART I: THE POLITICS OF GOVERNMENT REFORM Government Reform in Comparative and Historical Perspective The Politics of the Dual State The Dual State and Government Reform PART II: THE POLITICS OF DISTRIBUTIVE NETWORKS Postal Business: Old Guard Politics Die Hard Transportation: Highways, Railways, and Airways PART III: THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICS OF DEVELOPMENTAL NETWORKS Telecommunications Regulatory Reform: Bureaucracy-led Liberalization? Communications Technology Promotion: Vanguard Policy by Old-Guard Ministry

'Most studies of reform in Japan have concentrated on reasons for failure. Kawabata usefully points out that there have been successes, and he compares across sectors to figure out the causes of variation in degrees of success. The key factor is differences in the complicated interactions between the developmental and distributional components of Japanese governance. What makes his analysis convincing are the detailed longitudinal analyses of domestic transportation, telecommunications, and the post-office business.'

- John Creighton Campbell, Professor of Political Science, University

of Michigan The Japanese state has all too often been depicted as something of a chimera by western observers - feared as an omniscient and omnipotent leviathan in the era of rapid economic growth, but mocked as an ailing dinosaur in more recent times of downturn and stagnation. Professor Kawabata offers a lucid analysis of the complex reality with a single, consistent explanation based on the concept of the dual state. Japan's mixed record ol£.