Fumihito Gotoh - Böcker

This book investigates why the convergence of Japan’s bank-centered financial system to an American-style capital market-based model has lost steam since the mid-2000s, despite financial deregulation during the 1980s and 1990s. Examining the ideational conflict within Japanese elites between the market liberalization and anti-free market camps, it scrutinizes the American and Japanese credit rating agencies operating in Tokyo and explores the differences between the two major industrial associations, Keidanren and Doyukai, which have played a key role as "ideational platforms" for Japanese corporate society. The book emphasizes the concept of "systemic support", whose broadened definition incorporates dominant elites’ support and protection of subordinates in exchange for the latter’s obedience and loyalty. It argues that Japanese society’s anti-liberal, anti-free market norms centered on systemic support are a form of counter-hegemony, and this has resisted American financial hegemony, promoting international capital mobility and capital markets, and prevented capitalist dominance from severing long-term social ties such as management-labor cooperation and corporate group alliances. Yet this resistance has generated growing problems for Japan.With a focus on social norms, bureaucracy, credit rating agencies, industrial associations and corporate governance, this book will provide useful insights for scholars and students of international political economy, sociology, cultural studies, and business studies.

This book investigates why the convergence of Japan’s bank-centered financial system to an American-style capital market-based model has lost steam since the mid-2000s, despite financial deregulation during the 1980s and 1990s. Examining the ideational conflict within Japanese elites between the market liberalization and anti-free market camps, it scrutinizes the American and Japanese credit rating agencies operating in Tokyo and explores the differences between the two major industrial associations, Keidanren and Doyukai, which have played a key role as "ideational platforms" for Japanese corporate society. The book emphasizes the concept of "systemic support", whose broadened definition incorporates dominant elites’ support and protection of subordinates in exchange for the latter’s obedience and loyalty. It argues that Japanese society’s anti-liberal, anti-free market norms centered on systemic support are a form of counter-hegemony, and this has resisted American financial hegemony, promoting international capital mobility and capital markets, and prevented capitalist dominance from severing long-term social ties such as management-labor cooperation and corporate group alliances. Yet this resistance has generated growing problems for Japan.With a focus on social norms, bureaucracy, credit rating agencies, industrial associations and corporate governance, this book will provide useful insights for scholars and students of international political economy, sociology, cultural studies, and business studies.

Despite the growing consensus that the rise of China is transforming international relations, policy makers and scholars have not sufficiently addressed the geopolitical and geoeconomic implications of a new paradigm, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian war. This book fills this gap.This is an original and innovative book that investigates how a new modus vivendi between China and the United States in a post-globalized world requires more economic independence because of the distrust between G20 economies but heightened international cooperation, in order to avert a shift to nationalism and protectionism and to fight financial and climate crises.The book is divided into four parts. Part I investigates the specific features of Chinese and U.S. capitalisms; Part II argues that several flaws observed in the multilateral architecture since the early 2000s have caused global imbalances and increased misunderstanding and mistrust between the two superpowers; Part III analyzes how the China-U.S. rivalry has manifested in Asia, Latin America, and in terms of global development finance and finally, Part IV provides a blueprint for a successful and revamped international order. The book provides an ambitious interdisciplinary analysis of the future of multilateralism and globalization with contributions from economists, lawyers, and political scientists.Due to its multidisciplinary approach, the book will attract the interest of scholars and postgraduate students from wide ranging fields, as well as practitioners working in international organizations, policy makers and more generally educated lay readers interested in the topic.