Crisis narratives, institutional change, and the transformation of the Japanese state / edited by Sebastian Maslow and Jason Wirth.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Maslow, Sebastian, editor.

Wirth, Christian, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economic development--Japan.

Economic development.

Japan--Politics and government--1989-.

Japan.

Japan--Social conditions--1989-.

Japan--Economic conditions--1989-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (346 pages)

Place of Publication:

Albany, New York : SUNY Press, [2021]

Summary:

Looking at Japan, traces crisis narratives across three decades and ten policy fields, with the aim of disentangling discursively manufactured crises from actual policy failures.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgments

Conventions

Introduction: Crisis Narratives, Institutional Change, and the Transformation of the Japanese State

From Crisis to Crisis Politics

Debating Crisis and Change in Japan

The Socioeconomic Crisis: The Collapse of "Japan Inc."

The Political Crisis: The Eclipse of the 1955 System and Failed Reforms

The 3.11 Triple Disaster and the Resurgence of "Japan Inc."

Conceptualizing Crisis and Change in Politics

Global Change and Post-Modernity?

Crisis as a Narrated Moment of Intervention

Organization of the Volume

Notes

Part I Narrating Japan's Social Crisis

1 Japan's Melting Core: Social Frames and Political Crisis Narratives of Rising Inequalities

Introduction

The Gap Society Frame and Its Social Resonance

The Politicization of the Gap Society Frame and Political Crisis Narratives

Abenomics: The Return to the Good Old Times?

Conclusion

2 Authoritarian Populism in Everyday Life: The Discursive Politics of Demographic and Lifestyle Changes in Japan

Authoritarian Populism

Gendering Authoritarian Populism

The Discursive Politics of Demographic and Lifestyle Change in Japan

3 Save Our Students? Shifting Subjects of Higher Education Crisis in Japan

The Changing Landscape of University Education

Narrating Crisis in Higher Education

Students and the Pathologization of Crisis

The Destitute Student: Loans in Crisis and "Making Higher Education Free"

Saving the Student, Fixing the System: Shifting Subjects

What Kinds of Students Should Be Going to University?

What Kinds of Universities to Support?

Can We Help Students and Reform Universities?

Part II Narrating Japan's Political and Economic Crises.

4 A Crisis of Democracy: Civil Society and Energy Politics Before and After the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster

The Fukushima Accident and Its Lessons

The Making of Japan's Nuclear Energy Crisis

The Nuclear Village and the Malfunctioning of Japan's Regulatory Agency

Powerless Civil Society

The Vicious Circle of Providing Subsidies for Siting Nuclear Power Stations

Energy Policy Shifts in Germany, Taiwan, and South Korea

Germany's Social Consensus on Denuclearization

Nuclear-Free Homeland Taiwan by 2025

Toward a Post-Nuclear State in South Korea

Japan's Changing Political Culture and the Possibility of an Energy Policy Shift

Few Policy Changes in Post-Fukushima Japan

The Current Status of Nuclear Power Plants and Electricity Supply

Antinuclear Protests after the Fukushima Accident

Rise of the Anti-Abe Protest Campaign

Nuclear Energy Politics after the Fukushima Accident

5 From Leader to Laggard? Crisis Narratives and Structural Reform in Japanese Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy

Entrepreneurship in Crisis and the Shift Toward a Science &amp

amp

Technology Policy

Changing Views on Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Koizumi's Radical Structural Reforms and Advocacy of the Start-Up Scene

The Shift toward an Innovation Policy

Abenomics and the Promotion of Silicon Valley as a Blueprint for Japan

Japan's Start-Up Ecosystem: The Silicon Valley Model Executed?

A "Brimming Entrepreneurial Powerhouse" like Silicon Valley?

Risk Capital Opportunities on the Rise

Changes of the Japanese Labor Market and Social System

Large Corporations and "Open" Innovation

The Changing Role of Universities

6 Contradiction and Discontent in Japan: Abenomics and the Failing Politics of Economic Reform.

Introduction

Unpacking Abenomics

The Three Arrows: Quantitative Easing, Fiscal Stimulus, Structural Reform

Abenomics 2.0: Minor Tinkering, Failure Management, and Consensus-Building

Appealing to the Youth, Women, and Non-Regular Workers?

Wage Increase Appeals and the Postponement of Tax Hikes

Voters First

Toward a Disorganized Model of Capitalism: Precarity, Insecurity, and Instability

Continuing Precarity and Insecurity in the Workplace

Unsatisfactory Work and Deteriorating Working Conditions

Deregulation and Liberalization of the Labor Market: Hidden Agendas

Gender Inequality

Poverty and Inequality

Suffering Rural Economies

Contesting Abenomics

Contesting Working Practices

Contesting Inequality, Poverty, and Rural Economies

Part III Narrating Japan's National Security Crisis

7 "Failures" and "Crises" in Japanese Foreign Policy: The Democratic Party of Japan's Rule 2009-2012

Failures and Crises in Foreign Policy

Hatoyama and the Futenma Base Relocation

Kan and the 2010 Senkaku/Diaoyu Trawler Collision Incident

Noda and the 2012 Senkaku/Diaoyu Island Purchase

8 From Ashes to New: The Delegitimization and Comeback of Japan's Official Development Assistance

ODA and the Economic Success of Postwar Japan

The Delegitimization of Japan's ODA

Three Narratives of ODA Crisis and Reform

The Economic Argument

Lack of Appreciation

The Military Threat

The Comeback of ODA

ODA and Japan's National Security

ODA and the Return of Neo-mercantilism under Abe

9 A State of Crisis: North Korean Missiles, Abductions, and the Transformation of Postwar Japan

Understandings of Japan's Response to North Korea.

Japanese Security Narratives in Response to North Korea's Missile Threat

The Abduction Issue and the (Re)Framing of the Japanese State

Contradictions of a "Weak State"

Making Japan Strong Again

The North Korea Crisis as "Lived Experience"

10 "The World Is Marveling at Japan!" Japanese Strategies to Avoid its "Crisis of Confidence"

The Coming Decline of Japan

Coping with Decline

Japan's Coping Strategies

Discovering Japanese "Soft Power"

Claiming Soft Power through Uniqueness: Dealing with the Korea "Threat"

National Narcissism as a Coping Strategy for "Greatness"

Conclusion: Narrating Japan's Crisis, Narrating Japan's Rebirth

What Crisis, What Decline?

Crisis and the Recovery of Institutions

Embracing Crisis for the Transformation of the State

Contributors

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781438486109

1438486103

OCLC:

1268121763