Rearguard regionalization protecting core networks in Japan's political economy

Japan's political economy, characterized by relatively dense networks of cooperation between principal actors, does not fit the Anglo-American model of capitalism described in most modern economics textbooks. Indeed, Japan currently faces intense pressure to change---both from global market and political forces. It thus provides a critical test of the conventional wisdom that globalization, the transnational flow of capital and technology, is undermining the distinctive institutional characteristics of national political economies and thereby forcing convergence. This dissertation suggests that regionalization---cross-border capital and technology flows within a particular region---may sometimes trump globalization. Specifically, it finds that, in the case of Japan, political and economic elites have used the export of capital and technology to Asia to shore up core relational networks under stress in the domestic political economy. In the process, they also maintained the positional power they enjoy in those networks. In this project, I examine the extent of change between 1975 and 1995 in three areas of institutional cooperation: bureaucratic-industry interaction; business-business (vertical keiretsu) ties; and labor-management relations. And I try to isolate the effect of regionalization on change or continuity within these domestic networks of cooperation.