Japan: the harbinger state | Japanese Journal of Political Science

1. State of scholarship about Japan in political science

On this part, I’ll survey the state of Japan research in political science utilizing information on English-language journal publications. The information cowl the final 40 years, a interval that roughly corresponds to Susan Pharr’s tutorial profession. It means that analysis on Japanese politics and international coverage stays sturdy regardless of frequent perceptions on the contrary: over the past 40 years, there was a big improve within the quantity of Japan-related articles and no significant decline in share of house dedicated to Japan in prime journals.

Figure 1 plots the variety of publications associated to Japanese politics or worldwide relations in two units of shops throughout 1980–2020: (1) the highest 15 political science journals and (2) space research journals.Footnote ³ Figure 2 equally plots shares. The primary shift that stands out from the figures is the substantial improve in publications associated to Japanese politics in space research journals, with a very massive improve for the reason that mid-2000s. This largely displays a rise within the variety of space research journals printed: the Japan-share of articles in such journals doesn’t exhibit a comparable improve.

Determine 1. Variety of annual publications on Japanese politics and worldwide relations: space research journals and prime fifteen political science journals (1980–2020).

Determine 2. Share of annual publications on Japanese politics and worldwide relations: space research journals and prime fifteen political science journals (1980–2020).

Opposite to frequent notion, the rise in Japanese politics articles in space research journals has not come on the expense of publications in prime political science journals. The variety of publications about Japan in such journals has largely held regular over the past 40 years. Shares have additionally been largely flat at round 1–2%. The figures understate the affect of analysis on Japan, as they solely depend English-language articles wherein Japan is talked about within the title, summary, or key phrases. Japan is commonly used as a case or supply of knowledge in lots of extra research. Moreover, necessary work on Japanese politics is printed in books and edited volumes, Japanese-language publications, and lower-ranking political science journals, which aren’t a part of the figures.

A complete of 1–2% of articles printed in prime political science journals could look like a low determine, however it is very important keep in mind that prime political science journals are topic to idiosyncratic biases that suppress the amount of publications on quite a lot of substantively necessary matters. A very powerful bias is the one in favor of single-country research of Western states, significantly the USA. For instance, there are extra articles on a single US establishment, Congress, than all articles on Japan, Korea, and India mixed. A easy matter search on the names of current US presidents produces extra prime journal publications than these dedicated to main international locations.Footnote ⁴ Moreover, prime journals have typically uncared for matters reminiscent of monetary crises, local weather change, and pandemics as ‘not of normal curiosity’ regardless of their apparent substantive significance: these matters additionally usually occupy lower than 2% of house in prime political science journals (Lipscy, Reference Lipscy2020).

It’s thus necessary to premise what follows by making it clear that there was no significant decline of Japan research in political science thus far. The amount of Japan-related journal publications has elevated significantly over time. Though the info don’t measure high quality, it’s also clear that the sophistication of such analysis has grown markedly, reflecting rising linguistic and cultural fluency together with quite a lot of theoretical and empirical approaches that had been unavailable to earlier researchers.

Comparatively talking, extra articles about Japan are printed in space research journals lately. This may occasionally contribute to the notion that it has turn into troublesome to publish Japan-related work within the self-discipline’s main journals. Nonetheless, this mirrors a broader sample within the self-discipline that’s by no means unique to Japan research – as a result of larger submission volumes and declining acceptance charges at prime journals, just about each subfield has skilled a relative shift towards specialised journals. This contains normal subfields that aren’t topic to considerations about declining consideration, reminiscent of safety research and worldwide political economic system.Footnote ⁵ Moreover, there was a migration of qualitative analysis towards specialised journals and books throughout subfields as prime disciplinary journals more and more emphasize causal inference utilizing quantitative strategies. The position of Japan-related analysis has shifted analogously.Footnote ⁶

2. Why Japan? Skepticism and responses

Allow us to now return to the opening query: why examine Japan? For a lot of students of political science, a person reply to the ‘why’ query is ample. An educational who research matters reminiscent of political economic system, democratic establishments, or worldwide organizations often solely wants to offer a cursory assertion about substantive significance. Nonetheless, a scholar of Japanese politics faces larger scrutiny. A part of that is ideological, reflecting the ascendance of students deeply skeptical towards space research within the broader self-discipline. For instance, a distinguished colleague as soon as discouraged me from finding out Japan on the grounds that ‘It is not political science should you’re finding out one thing that is a correct noun!’ In accordance with this view, political science is a discipline that develops normal theories and identifies empirical regularities that maintain past a single-country context. To make use of an analogy from chemistry, theories are solely invaluable in the event that they clarify patterns frequent to the 118 parts of the Periodic Desk – there’s little utility in understanding particular states or traits of particular person parts reminiscent of sodium and chlorine or how they could work together.

A second kind of skepticism is of the realpolitik selection. Said bluntly, some international locations or areas could also be worthy of devoted consideration due to their geopolitical or financial weight within the worldwide system: understanding the politics and international coverage of China or India could also be justified on geopolitical grounds which can be much less convincing for New Zealand or the Maldives. In accordance with this view, Japan may need deserved particular standing within the late-twentieth century when it grew quickly and doubtlessly threatened US preeminence. Nonetheless, the scenario has modified because the nation progressively descends worldwide rating tables throughout quite a lot of measures, as illustrated in Table 1. Japan continues to be one of many largest economies on this planet, a number one democracy on this planet’s most dynamic area, and key US ally. Nonetheless, it’s plain that Japan’s geopolitical weight on this planet has declined in relative phrases.

Desk 1. Japan’s worldwide rating

3. Harbinger state

I outline a harbinger state as a rustic that engages within the politics of a specific problem previous to different international locations. There are three circumstances that have to be happy for a rustic (or different political unit) to be thought of a harbinger. The primary situation considerations timing: the nation have to be early in confronting a brand new problem or problem relative to different international locations. The problem needn’t be utterly unprecedented: it could signify an unfamiliar section or novel variation inside a given problem space. A key query is whether or not the problem might be addressed unproblematically with commonplace political preparations and coverage cures which were utilized beforehand. For instance, COVID-19 was neither the primary pandemic nor even the primary outbreak triggered by a SARS-CoV virus. Nonetheless, the virus was characterised by a mixture of distinct options – e.g., asymptomatic unfold, airborne transmission, and comparatively excessive virulence – that made it troublesome to include utilizing present containment measures, thus necessitating an unprecedented political response.

Second, there have to be an affordable expectation that the problem in query will emerge with a lag elsewhere. Being early isn’t essentially indicative of being a harbinger. The European Union is commonly heralded as a mannequin of regional integration, however the mission attracts energy from commonalities amongst its member states – reminiscent of liberal democracy, financial growth, and historical past – which can be a lot weaker in different elements of the world. It’s thus plausibly sui generis (Phelan, Reference Phelan2012). The politics of telecommunications regulation in Japan presents one other instance. Though Japanese corporations had been typically far forward of their international opponents in growing options for cellular handsets and different superior merchandise, they had been trapped in a ‘Galapagos’ ecosystem that thrived solely within the Japanese market, a sample described as ‘main with out followers (Kushida, Reference Kushida2011).’ Thus, the problems confronted by telecommunications regulators in Japan didn’t foreshadow rising challenges elsewhere.

Third, a rustic’s standing as a harbinger shouldn’t be established solely via imposition. There are some problem areas wherein being early is advantageous and thus a matter of contestation. Some states play an outsized function in international commonplace setting as a result of their geopolitical and financial energy, which generates sturdy incentives for different international locations to comply with their regulatory lead (Drezner, Reference Drezner2007). Highly effective states can immediately or not directly intervene within the affairs of weaker states, creating followers via coercion. Authorities officers in a harbinger state could definitely see deserves in selling the benefit of its personal response and searching for emulators. Nonetheless, the substitute creation of chief–follower relationships via coercive energy needs to be thought of a unique phenomenon: e.g., the Soviet Union was not a harbinger state vis-à-vis different members of the Warsaw Pact.

Appreciable present scholarship focuses on the experiences of Western states as harbingers for political developments and contestation elsewhere. The UK within the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been typically studied as a frontrunner within the growth of constitutional constraints on authorities authority, which had vital political penalties that later affected many different states (North and Weingast, Reference North and Weingast1989; Schultz and Weingast, Reference Schultz and Weingast2003). Early industrialization within the UK knowledgeable each coverage amongst and scholarship about late-industrializing international locations (Gerschenkron, Reference Gerschenkron1962). Classical work in comparative politics and worldwide relations typically consisted of extrapolating the political growth and relationships amongst Western states into purportedly generalizable theories relevant to all states (Lipset, Reference Lipset1959; Waltz, Reference Waltz1979).

The concentrate on choose Western international locations within the present literature isn’t wholly unjustified given their early industrialization and expertise with related societal and political transformations. Nonetheless, the standing of Western international locations as harbingers can now not be taken with no consideration. International locations such because the UK and USA have misplaced their standing as clear financial and technological frontrunners, due to the speedy growth and transformation of different international locations, together with non-Western states reminiscent of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and more and more China. Democratic establishments are underneath intense stress within the USA and European international locations in methods largely acquainted to specialists of democratic backsliding in different elements of the world (Levitsky and Ziblatt, Reference Levitsky and Ziblatt2018). Students are more and more questioning worldwide relations scholarship that presumes the unproblematic generalization of Western-centric theories (Kang and Lin, Reference Kang and Lin2019; Zvobgo and Loken, Reference Zvobgo and Loken2020).

Within the the rest of this text, I’ll take into account the standing of Japan as a harbinger state. I’ll argue that Japan has emerged as a harbinger throughout a spread of problem areas and take into account among the the reason why this can be the case. It’s not my intention to claim that Japan’s standing as a harbinger is exclusive. Different states certainly play a similar function relying on the particular problem space. The observations on this article are written with Japan in thoughts, however they thus have wider implications for the examine of different international locations and political models.

4. Japan as a harbinger state

In 1979, Ezra Vogel emerged as maybe essentially the most influential early advocate of the concept Japan presents necessary classes for different states, together with these within the West. In Japan as Quantity One: Classes for America, Vogel deliberately highlighted areas of Japanese energy – reminiscent of steerage by an elite paperwork and emphasis on consensus – that had been mirrored by evident weaknesses in America (Vogel, Reference Vogel1979). Much less subtle, oftentimes uninformed revisionist narratives that overhyped the virtues of Japanese political, financial, and social establishments proliferated within the Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties.Footnote ⁷

In 1979 – the identical 12 months Vogel printed Japan as Quantity One – the Ministry of Worldwide Commerce and Trade provided a cautionary commentary, noting that ‘a turning level is coming, a transfer away from an industrial sample of “reaping” applied sciences developed within the seedbeds of the West, to a sample of “sowing and cultivating” that shows larger creativity. With the century of catch-up modernization at an finish, from the Nineteen Eighties onwards we’ll enter a brand new and unexplored section.’Footnote ⁸ This prescient evaluation foreshadowed the difficulties Japan would face because it sought to transition to a rustic on the financial and technological leading edge. In 2007, Komiyama Hiroshi, then President of the College of Tokyo, argued that Japan had transitioned from an period of catch-up to frontrunner as a kadai senshinkoku (a complicated nation in drawback administration) in areas such because the atmosphere, vitality, drugs, and training (Komiyama, Reference Komiyama2007). This language has been more and more included into Japanese authorities paperwork because the nation confronts challenges that haven’t any clear precedent elsewhere (Ministry of Inner Affairs and Communications (Japan), 2010; Ministry of Overseas Affairs of Japan, 2012; Cupboard Secretariat (Japan), 2014).

You will need to emphasize the excellence between Japan as a chief and Japan as a harbinger. Students reminiscent of Vogel noticed in Japan options that had been admirable, efficient, and price imitating. Nonetheless, for essentially the most half, these options haven’t truly discovered emulators. Slightly than reflecting an early response to common challenges, the institutional strengths highlighted had been typically deeply rooted options of Japanese political, financial, and societal establishments. Even when Japan was a real chief on account of those establishments – a extremely debatable proposition – exporting them would require wholesale reorganizations in different international locations of equally well-established establishments, which might encounter fierce resistance. As Nobutaka Ike famous in his critique of Vogel’s e-book: ‘The American Congress will surely resist any try to cut back its energy to legislate, and, no matter its benefits, the American public would very probably regard the elevation of the federal paperwork to a place similar to that occupied by its Japanese counterpart as too excessive a worth to pay (Ike, Reference Ike1980).’

Revisionist scholarship characterised Japan as a supply from which to attract inspiration reasonably than a harbinger for what was to return. It was thus pure that the style light away after the Nineties together with Japan’s financial stagnation and concurrent US financial reinvigoration. There have been a number of areas the place sensible Japanese enterprise practices had been included extensively and have become worldwide requirements – e.g., kaizen (incremental enhancements), just-in-time stock administration, and varied design rules. Nonetheless, reasonably than discovering Western emulators, the establishments that purportedly contributed to Japanese management – e.g., sturdy bureaucracies, lifetime employment, keiretsu, weak shareholder rights – got here underneath stress and have themselves been the goal of main reforms (Reed et al., Reference Reed, McElwain and Shimizu2009; Hoshi and Lipscy, Reference Hoshi and Lipscy2021).

It’s also necessary to emphasise {that a} harbinger state isn’t the identical as a bellwether state, which might be outlined as a state that predicts how others will reply to a difficulty or problem. The simplest options won’t essentially emerge in a rustic first confronting a novel problem. If something, first-mover standing could result in a gradual means of failure and experimentation as a rustic discovers the shortcomings of present coverage responses and searches for efficient options (Lipscy and Takinami, Reference Lipscy and Takinami2013). The Japanese authorities has typically tended towards cautious experimentation and muddling via reasonably than decisive options. Nonetheless, the harbinger’s coverage response will provide necessary classes for different states confronting the identical problem with a lag. For students, finding out the politics of the harbinger state will likely be informative for understanding the character and rising sample of political contestation in different international locations.

After all, Japan isn’t a harbinger throughout all problem areas. It will be absurd to assert Japan is a step forward of different international locations within the politics of gender equality or house coverage (Pekkanen and Kallender-Umezu, Reference Pekkanen and Kallender-Umezu2010; Metal, Reference Steel2019). In different circumstances, Japan has confronted international challenges in tandem with different international locations, such because the Nineteen Seventies oil shocks (Ikenberry, Reference Ikenberry1986; Meckling et al., Reference Meckling, Lipscy, Finnegan and Metz2022). In but different areas – such because the administration of compensatory insurance policies and protests – the nation could exhibit not less than some patterns of political interplay which can be comparatively distinctive (Pharr, Reference Pharr1990; Calder, Reference Calder1991). In what follows, I’ll briefly survey three broad areas wherein Japan has confronted some points early and thus might be plausibly described as a harbinger state. The record is neither meant to be definitive nor complete. I may also take into account among the the reason why Japan is a step forward of different international locations in some points however not in others.

4.1 Financial transformation

Probably the most extensively studied area of Japan as a harbinger is maybe its two financial transitions: the expansion miracle that catapulted the nation to one of many largest economies of the world and the lengthy stagnation that adopted the bursting of asset worth bubbles in 1991. Throughout each transitions, Japanese financial insurance policies attracted widespread scholarly consideration, inspiring voluminous literatures on the sources of speedy financial progress for late-developing international locations, relationship between the federal government and personal sector, and the challenges of deflationary monetary crises and stagnation.

Japan was not the primary nation to industrialize, but it surely was the primary to take action outdoors of the West as a late-developing nation. Japan’s efforts to handle speedy, catch-up growth thus turned a subject of appreciable curiosity and spawned tutorial literatures that contributed theoretical insights to quite a lot of subsequent scholarship. Early scholarship concerning the developmental state and industrial coverage generated theoretical concepts rooted in cautious examine of Japan (Johnson, Reference Johnson1982; Samuels, Reference Samuels1987; Okimoto, Reference Okimoto1990). This literature considerably influenced subsequent work on late growth and progress miracles (Amsden, Reference Amsden1992; World Financial institution, 1993; Rowen, Reference Rowen1998; Oi, Reference Oi1999; Doner et al., Reference Doner, Ritchie and Slater2005). Within the coverage area, the governments of many growing international locations, significantly these in East and Southeast Asia, sought to study and adapt classes from Japan’s export-oriented developmental technique (Haggard, Reference Haggard1990; Amsden, Reference Amsden2001). Theoretical approaches developed from cautious examine of Japanese financial establishments throughout this period formed literatures that stay extensively influential to today. For instance, Masahiko Aoki’s pioneering recreation theoretic work on institutional complementarities in Japan was included as a foundational characteristic of the kinds of capitalism (Aoki, Reference Aoki1988; Corridor and Soskice, Reference Hall and Soskice2001).

Equally, Japan’s financial difficulties after the Nineties weren’t the primary instance of a monetary disaster or abrupt progress slowdown. Nonetheless, the deflationary stagnation Japan skilled launched new coverage challenges – reminiscent of a liquidity lure and the zero decrease certain of rates of interest – that might not be resolved utilizing standard macroeconomic coverage responses. Research of Japan’s stagnation started as a largely country-specific train, however the insights gained immediately formed subsequent tutorial debates concerning the political economic system of economic crises in superior industrialized international locations (Bernanke, Reference Bernanke, Posen and Mikitani2000; Grimes, Reference Grimes2002; Hoshi and Kashyap, Reference Hoshi and Kashyap2004, Reference Hoshi and Kashyap2010; Amyx, Reference Amyx2006; Katada, Reference Katada2006; Park et al., Reference Park, Kojo, Chiozza and Katada2018). The US response to the 2008 subprime disaster drew immediately on perceived classes by policymakers who had both studied or helped managed the Japanese disaster, reminiscent of Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, and Lawrence Summers. In comparison with the Japanese response, which was characterised by a gradual means of failure, experimentation, and discovery of novel coverage options, the US response was characterised by the speedy utility of essentially the most profitable Japanese coverage measures (Lipscy and Takinami, Reference Lipscy and Takinami2013). Coverage instruments developed in Japan – significantly unconventional financial coverage measures reminiscent of zero rates of interest and quantitative easing – got here into widespread use throughout the globe.

Japan’s standing as a harbinger in a macroeconomic sense largely seems to be a factor of the previous. Lately, Japan’s economic system doesn’t stand out for speedy progress or stagnation within the combination: on a per capita GDP foundation, the Japanese economic system is now rising at roughly the identical fee as different superior industrialized international locations (Figure 3). This displays the Japanification of different industrialized international locations, with ‘secular stagnation’ setting in after the 2008 monetary disaster, in addition to the modestly improved macroeconomic efficiency of Japan throughout a interval that roughly corresponds to the tenure of the Abe authorities and Abenomics reforms (Hoshi and Lipscy, Reference Hoshi and Lipscy2021).

See Also

When expertise follows artwork – by Benjamin Breen

Determine 3. Distinction in GDP per capita progress fee (nominal, %), Japan vs common of high-income international locations.

Supply: World Financial institution, World Improvement Indicators.

Nonetheless, there are associated areas the place Japan nonetheless stays forward of the curve in confronting financial challenges and thus worthy of continued consideration from political economic system students. Japan’s early efforts to counteract secular stagnation via fiscal coverage measures catapulted its public debt burden to a stage second to none, however predictions of a significant disaster have repeatedly fallen flat (Bamba and Weinstein, Reference Bamba, Weinstein, Lipscy and Hoshi2021). Different superior industrialized international locations will not be far behind, particularly after massive fiscal outlays in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Vital, present scholarship on Japanese fiscal coverage and pork barrel politics has contributed theoretical insights to the broader literature (Patterson and Beason, Reference Patterson and Beason2001; Scheiner, Reference Scheiner2005; Catalinac et al., Reference Catalinac, de Mesquita and Smith2020). Nonetheless, Japan as a harbinger for the politics of huge public debt burdens, their administration, and debates over austerity is an space ripe for additional analysis (Bailey and Shibata, Reference Bailey and Shibata2019).

4.2 Demographic and societal transformation

Setting apart the vicissitudes of macroeconomic progress, Japan can be on the forefront of quite a lot of demographic and societal transformations with vital political penalties. Maybe the obvious of those is an accelerated demographic transition (Kaizuka and Krueger, Reference Kaizuka and Krueger2006). The share of the 65+ inhabitants in Japan is now nearly 30%, by far the very best stage on this planet. Nonetheless, different international locations will not be too far behind, as proven in Figure 4: inside a number of a long time, many main economies will attain up to date Japanese ranges of getting old. Research about Japan are thus nicely positioned to tell rising debates concerning the affect of getting old on quite a lot of salient dependent variables reminiscent of illustration and democratic establishments, policymaking within the context of excessive and rising public debt burdens, assist for financial openness, assist for militarized battle, and redistributive politics between the outdated and the younger (Kweon and Choi, Reference Kweon and Choi2021).

Determine 4. Share of inhabitants aged 65+, present and projected.

Supply: United Nations Division of Financial and Social Affairs (Inhabitants Dynamics), World Inhabitants Prospects 2019. Projections are primarily based on medium variant.

There are additionally all kinds of social tendencies that had been initially reported as cultural curiosities distinctive to Japan solely to emerge with a lag in different international locations: the shortcoming of youth to attain monetary independence from their mother and father and related social isolation popularized by phrases reminiscent of parasite single and hikikomori (Saito, Reference Saito1998; Yamada, Reference Yamada1999); widespread lack of curiosity in marriage and intercourse described by soshokukei and zesshokukei (Fukasawa, Reference Fukasawa2009); the social isolation of aged residents and their communities described by kodokushi, kasoshuraku (Kanno, Reference Kanno2017); and rising crime dedicated by economically marginalized aged members of society (koreisha hanzai) (Takayama, Reference Takayama2014). Many of those social tendencies might be attributed partially to Japan’s early shift into financial stagnation and speedy getting old in comparison with different international locations. The politics surrounding these points is ripe for early investigation within the Japanese context as they’re already rising in analogous varieties throughout quite a lot of different societies.

4.3 Worldwide relations transformation

Japan has additionally been on the forefront of responding to transformative modifications within the worldwide order and rising worldwide relations challenges. Japan was essentially the most distinguished rising energy within the second half of the 20 th century, ascending from postwar devastation to turn into the second largest economic system on this planet. Regardless of widespread predictions by students within the realist custom that Japan would militarize and pursue confrontation with the USA, Japan’s rise has been characterised by peaceable diplomacy and efforts to raise the nation’s affect and standing via the renegotiation of worldwide agreements and organizations (Waltz, Reference Waltz1993; Lipscy and Tamaki, Reference Lipscy and Tamaki2022). This displays each home coverage and transformational modifications within the worldwide system that on the one hand dramatically elevated the prices of militarized battle and alternatively created avenues for international locations to raise their affect and standing peacefully. As the primary main state to rise inside the context of those transformative modifications to the worldwide order, Japan’s expertise holds necessary classes for different states.

Japan has additionally been on the forefront of a number of worldwide relations challenges related to the rising emergence of Asia as the middle of world financial exercise and geopolitical contestation. Japan was the primary Asian nation to face US mercantilist pressures and strongarming within the Nineteen Eighties over considerations about its export-oriented insurance policies and perceived unfair commerce practices (Schoppa, Reference Schoppa1993). Such stress subsequently unfold to quite a lot of different international locations, and particularly intensified through the Trump administration. Japan’s perceived failures in its response to US mercantilist pressures, such because the Plaza Accord, are sometimes talked about by policymakers within the area as errors to keep away from. Japanese corporations had been additionally compelled to reply comparatively early on to the rise of each peer opponents and complicated provide chains in Asia, which emerged as a significant political problem as kudoka (industrial hollowing out) after the Nineteen Eighties.

Moreover, Japan has been on the forefront of responding to the geopolitical rise of China, which is now seen by many Japanese policymakers because the nation’s principal nationwide safety problem (Liff, Reference Liff2019). Chinese language army spending eclipsed that of Japan within the 2000s, and Japanese public sentiment towards China soured together with rising geopolitical and financial competitors and mounting tensions over territorial and historic disputes. For a lot of the 2000s–2010s, there was a niche between the menace notion towards China of the Japanese authorities and Western counterparts, which led to appreciable anxiousness and Japanese efforts to counter Chinese language affect via a geoeconomics technique and initiatives such because the Quad, Free and Open Indo-Pacific Technique, and High quality Infrastructure (Hosoya, Reference Hosoya2019; Katada, Reference Katada2020). Nonetheless, as China’s rise continues and its geopolitical and financial affect extends past Asia, governments in the remainder of the world additionally started to understand China as a critical geopolitical menace. Apart from elite opinion, public opinion polling on unfavorable views towards China additionally exhibits a sample of early Japanese souring and subsequent international convergence towards Japanese ranges (Figure 5).

Lastly, though on a a lot shorter timescale, Japan arguably performed the function of harbinger for developed democracies in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic originated in China, however Japan was one of many first superior industrialized democracies to expertise contagion, and early protection of the pandemic was briefly dominated by Japan’s response to the outbreak aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship. The scientific proof Japanese specialists and policymakers obtained concerning the SARS-CoV-2 virus from this early expertise, significantly concerning the probably aerosol transmission of the virus, was used to formulate a number of distinct options of Japan’s response – the 3Cs (avoidance of crowded locations, close-contact settings, and confined and enclosed areas), retrospective contract tracing, and the general public distribution of masks (Asia Pacific Initiative, 2020). These measures, which in the end proved prescient, knowledgeable the responses in different international locations because the pandemic unfold extra broadly, although to various levels and with a substantial lag in some circumstances.

5. The place and why is Japan a harbinger state?

Japan’s place as a rustic one step forward of others probably displays the confluence of a number of components. Though that is by no means supposed to be a complete record, three components appear to face out: selective openness to vary, geographic location, and constitutional and normative constraints. It’s value repeating that Japan isn’t a harbinger states for all points. A number of of those traits additionally probably contribute to Japan being significantly behind different international locations in particular problem areas.

First, to some extent, Japan’s standing as a harbinger probably displays a selective openness to vary. Japan’s administration of its speedy financial progress after World Conflict II impressed many growing international locations partially as a result of Japan’s developmental mannequin adopted facets of Western capitalism whereas sustaining distinctly Japanese institutional foundations. Japan’s expertise contributed to a shift away from naïve, ‘one-size-fits-all’ methods amongst developmental economists in favor of adapting core rules to native establishments and circumstances (Rodrik, Reference Rodrik, Aghion and Durlauf2005).

Equally, an necessary set off for the lengthy stagnation after the bubble years was monetary liberalization coupled with inadequate adaptation of conventional, casual regulatory constructions (Amyx, Reference Amyx2006). Demographic decline partially displays the speedy transformation of Japanese society because of financial growth on the one hand and the gradual tempo of the political system in making authorized, institutional, and normative changes obligatory to advertise gender fairness, ample childcare, and work–life steadiness (Rosenbluth, Reference Rosenbluth2006). This hole between financial and social change on the one hand and governing establishments isn’t distinctive to Japan, which is why the nation might be plausibly described as a harbinger. Nonetheless, the hole emerged early and grew significantly large due to the rapidity of Japan’s financial transformation coupled with lagging institutional change. The gradual tempo of political adjustment to financial and societal shifts contributes to Japan’s standing as a laggard in areas reminiscent of gender equality, minority rights, and immigration (Chung, Reference Chung2010; Strausz, Reference Strausz2019).

Second, Japan’s geographic location additionally probably performs a task. Japan is a number one nation in part of the world that’s on the forefront of each geopolitical competitors and financial dynamism. Japan is thus affected comparatively early by tendencies and challenges that emerge within the area. Japanese protection planners reacted early and sounded the alarm to the geopolitical problem offered by China partially due to geographic proximity. Japan was additionally early in integrating into and managing worth chains within the area, which got here to occupy a central place within the international economic system. Albeit on a shorter timescale, Japan additionally probably encountered the COVID-19 pandemic early as a result of massive journey volumes vis-à-vis China, which might be attributed partially to regional proximity and financial integration. Japan’s geographic location additionally probably contributes to its standing as a laggard in some areas. Japan’s gradual response to local weather change (Aldrich et al., Reference Aldrich, Lipscy and McCarthy2019; Incerti and Lipscy, Reference Incerti, Lipscy, Hancock and Allison2020) could have been extra proactive if the nation was topic to see stress as a member of the European Union or shared a land border with a resource-rich nation, which might give it extra choices to handle vitality safety challenges.

Lastly, Japan’s distinct constitutional and normative constraints could play some function in compelling Japan to pursue coverage trajectories that different international locations solely arrive at later. Japan’s peaceable rise within the postwar order, which defied realist predictions of militarization and confrontation with the USA, was formed by constraints imposed by Article 9 and postwar pacifism but in addition demonstrated to different international locations {that a} nonviolent path to worldwide prominence was possible. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, home constraints on legally enforceable lockdown orders compelled Japanese policymakers to develop an strategy that didn’t sharply prohibit private liberties, contributing to improvements reminiscent of retrospective contact tracing and an early adoption of the 3Cs that got here to be adopted worldwide (Lipscy, Reference Lipscy, Pekkanen, Reed and Smith2023). After all, these constraints additionally put Japan behind in areas the place different international locations take pleasure in flexibility, most clearly within the acquisition and growth of army capabilities. It’s also value noting that being a laggard isn’t essentially a foul factor: one may argue that home institutional constraints have forestalled Japan from turning into a harbinger of democratic backsliding and populist backlash in opposition to the liberal order.