State restructuring and local power in Japan

Western understanding of the post-war evolution of states in advanced capit alist societies envisions a moment of fundamental transition beginning in t he mid 1970s and indexed by reduced government spending, the privatisation of public services and increased inequality among local governments, Regula tion theory sees the process as a transition from a Keynesian welfare state to a Schumpeterian workfare state necessitated by the shift from a Fordist to a post-Fordist regime of capital accumulation. Japan, a member of the O ECD, and the world's second-largest economy, fits neither the political-eco nomic trends nor the model put forward by Western regulation theorists, Jap an has not experienced the decline in state spending, the privatisation of public activity or the rising inequality among local governments that chara cterises Western OECD nations, The Japanese have selectively incorporated K eynesian and Schumpeterian ideas, but in a spirit much closer to that of wr iters associated with the German historical school, and always within a fra mework rooted in Japan's own historical traditions and exigencies, We docum ent Japan's departure from the Western model of state restructuring and exp lore the theoretical implications.