Comparing Beyond Europe and North America

Abstract

The 1982 publication of Chalmers Johnson’s book, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925 to 1975, was a watershed moment in comparative policy studies (Johnson, 1982). The book introduced Western readers to the Japanese developmental experience, precisely at the moment when Japan was rivalling the United States in terms of global economic dominance. Johnson’s book provided in-depth analyses of trade, investment, human capital development and strategic industrial policies to grow Japanese enterprises into world-class competitors. His study revealed how Japanese firms were organized and how they were linked to the powerful state. The book also explained how policy decisions in Japan were made in a hierarchical manner, how power and authority over resource allocation decisions were centralized in a meritocratic bureaucracy, and specifically within what Johnson called the state’s ‘pilot agency’, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). Finally, Johnson’s book intimated that a hard or strong state was helpful, at least in Japan’s experience, in steering national economic development and continual industrial upgrading.