Information Technology and Communications Policy in Japan (exec

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

FROM CRISIS TO INFORMATION SOCIETY IN JAPAN


by


Stephen J. Anderson


Associate Professor


Center for Global Communications


Paper delivered at the Japan Studies Association of Canada,
September 30, 1995, University of Victoria, British Columbia


Japan appears to be in the midst of a crisis of national
identity. With the end of the Cold War, Japan underwent changes
in its polity, economy, and society that disrupted the patterns
of its success since 1945. A polity based on the alliance with
the United States no longer skews domestic party alignments, and
factional defections have ended one-party dominance. An economy
that benefited from unfettered access to the US market as a quid
pro quo for Cold War loyalty has shifted more overtly to
diversified bases of global and regional markets as well as
broader economic priorities. And Japanese society itself
reflects the changes from its interdependence with countries
overseas in addition to inherent domestic trends as a wealthy
industrial nation with its workforce rapidly becoming the oldest
population in the world.


Amid such a short-term crisis, Japanese are already deciding
upon their future economic-based efforts as global leaders. This
paper argues that a key aspect of economic growth will be based
on the emergence of information technology and communications
policies that are likely to sustain Japan as a global power. The
basis for reorganization builds upon the strengths of political
concensus, economic infrastructure, and social capital that will
fuel Japan's future economic growth. The degree of success and
final shape of this new identity remain open to question, but
the fundamentals will be based upon a broad sense of
"informatization" or joohooka.


A single key sector of the political economy offers clues about
the direction of larger shifts in Japan. Japan is heading in
directions never before imagined about its social and global
relations. This paper makes an argument that is largely contrary
to the doomsayers in the Japanese media and the
self-congratulatory writers in foreign economic media that
amplify problems in Japan. In the future, Japan is poised to
enter the next century with new politics, restructured
economics, and information technologies applied to its advanced
society. But first we must recall the conventional views that
observe contemporary problems and project an image of crisis in
Japan.


[ for full paper ... http://ifrm.glocom.ac.jp/doc/a01.001/txt1.html   djf]


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