Strategic Pragmatism: Japanese Lessons in the Use of Economic Theory

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This powerful study suggests that strategic pragmatism has enabled Japan to use Western theories and doctrines more comprehensively and thoroughly than the West. The authors contend that Japan's success depends, in part, upon three factors: the ability to recognize a need for action; the ability to respond to such a need even under less than optimal technological conditions, cutting across theoretical and ideological lines; and the ability to adjust or correct action as soon as failure is recognized. By comparing Japan's policies and structure to patterns prevailing in major Western countries, Japan's `secret' can be translated into concepts familiar to the West. This brilliant and provocative bookis a tour de force that argues that Japanese-type economic policies can be duplicated in other capitalist states and that it is a mistake to believe that such policies can only evolve in the unique environment of Japanese culture and society. Foreign Affairs Japan's rise to economic power has been the focus of much attention and speculation in the West. This powerful study suggests that strategic pragmatism has enabled Japan to use Western theories and doctrines more comprehensively and thoroughly than the West. The authors contend that Japan's success depends, in part, upon three factors. The first is the ability to recognize a need for action. Next, the Japanese are able to respond to such a need even under less than optimal technological conditions and can cut across theoretical and ideological lines. Finally, they are ready to adjust or correct action as soon as failure is recognized. Western countries should look at the global significance of Japan's economic performance and learn from their model of action. By comparing Japan's policies and structure to patterns prevailing in major Western countries, Japan's 'secret' can be translated into concepts familiar to the West. Economists, government officials, and business policy makers will find this new approach to Japan's success a worthwhile study. Strategic Pragmatism opens with an explanation for Japan's economic performance. The book then presents the interesting way in which Japan makes functional cuts across doctrines. There is a chapter addressing adaptation and how Western economic concepts are incorporated into Japanese policy. Goal attainment includes such topics as neo-classical infant industry protection and mercantilist aspects in the policy of industrial development. Pattern maintenance is followed by integration, and then the relation of structure and action. Finally the authors develop a model demonstrating how Japan derives a sense of direction from the nature of the changing problems to be solved--the heart of strategic pragmatism.

Reviews

.,."brilliant and provocative..."-Foreign Affairs
...brilliant and provocative...-Foreign Affairs
..."brilliant and provocative..."-Foreign Affairs

Author Bio

MICHELE SCHMIEGELOW is Associate Professor at the University of Louvain, Belgium. HENRIK SCHMIEGELOW is a Counselor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bonn.