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Environmentalism and the Growth Machine: The System of Political Economy and “Kogai” Control in Japan
Author(s) -
NAKAMURA AKIRA
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.46
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1468-0491
pISSN - 0952-1895
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0491.1992.tb00035.x
Subject(s) - government (linguistics) , politics , environmentalism , state (computer science) , function (biology) , economics , control (management) , political economy , political science , economic system , economy , development economics , law , philosophy , linguistics , management , algorithm , evolutionary biology , computer science , biology
The primary objective of this article is to examine both the role of government and the function of public administration in the areas of economic development and environment protection in Japan. This article will first elucidate several important mechanisms of Japan's economic growth. In a nutshell, it posits the Japanese government as the spearhead of a growth machine. Subsequently, this article will also describe a number of historical developments, all of which have, in one way or another, helped alleviate the state of pollution, which is called Kogai, in Japan. The major thurst of this article is to expound upon the idea that, despite the incidence of Kogai , the basic structure of the political economy of the country has not changed. Even though the Japanese had to pay a costly price for rapid economic growth in the form of Kogai, the fundamental structure of Japan's growth machine has been left undisturbed. It is primarily for this reason that there has been a growing fear that Japan will soon encounter another period of serious Kogai . An analysis of the Japanese experience seems valuable, for it may reveal several important lessons germane to the basic questions of the role and function of public authority in environmental issues, especially in newly industrialized countries.