The puzzle of Japans welfare capitalism: a review of the welfare regimes approach

Abstract

There has been little consensus on Japan’s welfare regime since Esping-Andersen’s [1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press] unclear categorisation of Japan as his only non-Western welfare state. This article is the first attempt to analyse academic research published in both English and Japanese. It presents a review of 40 collected studies (including 15 Western, 6 Asian and 19 Japanese articles), reached a wide variety of conclusions, defining Japan as eight different types: We point out that while the majority of Western studies tend to run statistical models including Japan among otherwise ‘Western’ welfare states with little theoretical justification, Japanese scholars tend to focus on Japan as a single case. The two very different approaches may have something to learn from each other, as in thesis + antithesis = synthesis. Now that we are aware of very different approaches to and conclusions about Japan’s welfare regime, the topic appears ripe for greater co-operation between scholars.

The four global worlds of welfare capitalism: Institutional, neoliberal, populist and residual welfare state regimes

“…As for Japan, (Powell et al, 2020: 2) asked an important question amid an atmosphere of scholarly confusion concerning the regime typology of the country: ‘Can Japan best be regarded as one of the three worlds, a fourth world, or a hybrid or unique case? More fundamentally, can the Three Worlds approach, essentially based on Europe, capture a very different nation?’ This question echoes the warning of Ferragina and Seeleib-Kaiser (2011: 11) who argued that ‘as Japan’s political and societal system is rooted in the tradition of neither liberalism nor Catholicism nor social democracy, it seems inappropriate to characterize the Japanese welfare state as belonging to either of the regimes’.…”

Welfare regimes in Asia: convergent or divergent?

“…Japan demonstrates a pronounced leaning toward decommodification features, whereas Afghanistan manifests tendencies considerably removed from paradigms of nuanced equilibrium. Specifically, Japan's relative socioeconomic advancement, when juxtaposed with other later-developing Asian nations, might elucidate the observable disparities in characteristics, even within analogous clusters (Hall and Soskies, 2001;Powell et al, 2020). Conversely, the welfare regime features of Afghanistan can largely be attributed to its constrained integration into the global economic fabric, a result of persistent conflicts since 2001.…”