Challenging the Japanese Developmental State: Uneven Development and Urban Politics of Scale

Abstract

Kevin Cox (2009) criticizes the approach taken by the state rescaling researchers to the neoliberal state rescaling. This study takes up Cox’s points: the state rescaling researchers neglect the effects of uneven development and bottom-up local politics in state rescaling. Following Cox’s framework of politics of scale, in this paper I will examine the way in which such local politics instigate state rescaling in Japan. Uneven spatial development has been the cause of political tensions in Japan since the 1970s. They have been contested through politics of state decentralization, involving issues such as urban-rural disparities, state fiscal health and urban revitalization. Recently, Japan’s state leaders detailed strategic plans to revitalize the national industrial competitiveness and revive the economy. The plans included a combination of selective urban revitalization, in which the leaders focus on competitive industrial sectors and urban centers to achieve developmental effectiveness. In this, the state role to manage the national economy is reemphasized while uneven development under Tokyo’s further growth accepted. This reversion to the traditional developmental state ideology invited urban politics calling for state decentralization with an alternative views on Japan’s state ideology, including state glocalization and neoliberal city-regionalism. This study deals with this recent politics of scale in comparison to previous ones in order to analyze the way in which local interests affect national state territoriality and state scalar division of labor. This study particularly explores the effects of place-based ideologies, such as place-based identity and national values, in state rescaling. Finally, it also briefly discusses the role and limits of urban politics in state rescaling.