ABSTRACT
Debates about contemporary Japan have a particular resonance to the ear of the European expert: the role of the state in economic development, the relationship between party and bureaucracy, the influence of international relations, and many other issues are important in the literature on both East Asia and Europe. The social science debate has serious implications for contemporary conflicts over policy and politics in international relations. Japan’s trade surplus with the US and other countries is an item of international tension. A large school of observers of Japanese political economy stress the primacy of politics in Japan, but weigh relationships differently in explaining outcomes. The political economy of Japan links elections, bureaucrats and civil society into a complicated web of interconnection and interdependence which seems paradoxical at any given point of entry. Japan has, in some degree, supplanted France as the locus of discussions about distinctive forms of political economy in the late 20th century.
