One World of Welfare offers a systematic, comparative examination of Japan's welfare policies and a critical assessment of previous research. Gregory J. Kasza rejects the view that the Japanese ...welfare system is unique; he challenges the nearly universal belief that the postwar Japanese state neglected welfare to promote rapid economic growth; he rejects the claim that there is a regional welfare model in East Asia; and he uses the Japanese case to question the dominant framework for comparative welfare research. The author explores the relevance of both convergence and divergence theories for understanding the Japanese record and spotlights the importance of international influences on the timing and content of Japan's welfare policies. This book offers a fresh comparative template for research on Japanese public policy. Case studies of Japan have often exaggerated its distinctiveness. Comparative research documents points of similarity as well as difference; it unearths the foreign models that have swayed Japan's policymakers; and it reveals what others might learn from Japan's experience. Most of the welfare challenges that Japan has faced over the last century have resembled those confronting other nations, and the Japanese have often patterned their welfare policies after those of Western countries. Japan's welfare system must be understood within a broader pattern of global policy diffusion.
The concept of welfare regimes has become a centerpiece of comparative
welfare research. Most criticism of the concept thus far has focused on
whether this or that country fits a particular regime ...type or deserves its
own regime category. This article offers a more radical critique of this
concept. It argues that most countries practice a disjointed set of welfare
policies due to the following typical features of welfare policymaking: (1)
the cumulative nature of welfare policies, (2) the diverse histories of policies
in different welfare fields, (3) the involvement of different sets of policy
actors, (4) variations in the policymaking process, and (5) the influence
of foreign models. It concludes that few national welfare systems are
likely to exhibit the internal consistency necessary to validate the regime
concept, and that policy-specific comparisons may be a more promising
avenue for comparative research.
The concept of late development is ubiquitous in political science. Scholars generally use the term to explain the state's role in the economy based upon the timing of a country's industrialization. ...Many consider Japan a quintessential example of state-driven late development. This article surveys the late development theories of Alexander Gerschenkron and Alice Amsden. It then appraises these theories based upon Japan's experience, demonstrating that neither accurately describes the state's role in Japan's industrialization. To be clear, the argument is not that the state played no part in Japan's economic development. The question is whether late development offers an effective conceptual tool for explaining the causes, content, and timing of state action. There are many possible explanations of Japan's industrialization. Late development is only one of them, and not a very good one.
War and Welfare Policy in Japan Kasza, Gregory J.
The Journal of Asian studies,
05/2002, Letnik:
61, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The pacific war (1937–45) marked the most innovative period in the development of public welfare in Japan, comparable to the 1880s in Germany, the 1908–14 era in Britain, and the 1930s in the United ...States. Wartime welfare policy set precedents that shape many aspects of welfare provision in Japan to this day. It is a cruel paradox, but war, despite its immediate, catastrophic effects on human well-being, has played a major role in the evolution of the welfare state.
Perestroika and the Journals Kasza, Gregory J.
PS, political science & politics,
10/2010, Letnik:
43, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
It is fitting to measure Perestroika's impact through the contents of the leading political science association journals. The original Perestroika manifesto railed at the American Political Science ...Review (APSR), and many subsequent Perestroika protests condemned the skewed contents of the APSR, the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), and the Journal of Politics. Large national and regional associations publish and pay for these journals. The position of Perestroika has been that their contents should represent the many types of research that political scientists are doing, which was not the case when the movement began.
Political philosophy has a unique role to play in political science. It focuses attention on the big ontological, epistemological, and normative questions that constitute the foundation of the ...scholarly enterprise. Due to the reification of subfield boundaries, the assault from hard science, the inward-looking perspective of many political philosophers, and political wrangles within political philosophy, it has ceased to play its distinctive role very well in recent years. As illustrated by the recent debate over methodology, the result is that the rest of the discipline has lost political philosophy's vital contribution to our common intellectual life.
Gregory Kasza examines state-society relations in interwar Japan through a case study of public policy toward radio, film, newspapers, and magazines. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived ...program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988. Gregory Kasza examines state-society relations in interwar Japan through a case study of public policy toward radio, film, newspapers, and magazines. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of Cali.
A Response to Jeffrey Isaac Kasza, Gregory J.
PS, political science & politics,
10/2010, Letnik:
43, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The purpose of the present symposium was to evaluate Perestroika's impact. Since the American Political Science Review (APSR), the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), and the Journal of ...Politics (JOP) were all targets of criticism in the movement, whereas other national and regional association journals such as Perspectives on Politics and Political Research Quarterly were not, I looked for change in the former. Comparable data on the past contents of the APSR and AJPS had already been published, so I focused my recent surveys on those two. This focus implies no judgment as to the relative prestige of these journals. They pretend to represent the discipline as a whole and are paid for by all association members, and these are sufficient reasons to address their editorial biases.
