From “Productivity Revolution” to “Digital Garden Cities”: Recent Shifts in the Dominant Political Discourse on Digitalisation in Japan

Abstract

This article investigates recent developments in the dominant political discourse on digitalisation in Japan with a particular focus on the suggested benefits and risks of digital technologies for workers and consumers. Whereas the discourse in the neoliberal Abe era (2012–2020) pushed for deregulation and flatly suggested economic benefits for “everybody,” there has been a recent shift that locates digitalisation in the countryside specifically with an emphasis on rural revitalisation and public infrastructure development. The analysis reveals a continued marginalisation of the risks of digitalisation and an overemphasis of its benefits. The findings further suggest that the dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) deliberately creates vagueness which allows the presentation of digitalisation as a panacea for various societal issues depending on the party’s political exigencies. The end of the Abe era and the experience of the pandemic mark significant changes that might create more space for equality issues in the future. However, as “digitalisation for equality” pertains exclusively to the rural-urban divide, there is reasonable doubt that this might merely be the newest iteration of pork barrel politics. The analysis further suggests that benefits for workers as well as the dissemination of digitalisation in general might continue to be obstructed by lobby interests.