The End of Diversity? Prospects for German and Japanese Capitalism
Kozo Yamamura, Wolfgang Streeck (eds.)
MPIfG Book
Abstract
After the devastation of World War II, Germany and Japan built national capitalist institutions that were remarkably successful in terms of national reconstruction and international competitiveness. Yet both "miracles" have since faltered, allowing U.S. capital and its institutional forms to establish global dominance. National varieties of capitalism are now under intense pressure to converge to the U.S. model. Kozo Yamamura and Wolfgang Streeck have gathered an international group of authors to examine the likelihood of convergence—to determine whether the global forces of Anglo-American capitalism will give rise to a single, homogeneous capitalist system. The chapters in this volume approach this question from five directions: international integration, technological innovation, labor relations and production systems, financial regimes and corporate governance, and domestic politics.
In their introduction, Yamamura and Streeck summarize the crises of performance and confidence that have beset German and Japanese capitalism and revived the question of competitive convergence. The editors ask whether the two countries, confronted with the political and economic exigencies of technological revolution and economic internationalization, must abandon their distinctive institutions and the competitive advantages these have yielded in the past, or whether they can adapt and retain such institutions, thereby preserving the social cohesion and economic competitiveness of their societies.
Contents
Preface
Introduction: Convergence or Diversity? Stability and Change in German and Japanese Capitalism
Wolfgang Streeck and Kozo Yamamura
Germany and Japan: Binding versus Autonomy
Erica R. Gould and Stephen D. Krasner
Regional States: Japan and Asia, Germany in Europe
Peter J. Katzenstein
Germany and Japan in a New Phase of Capitalism: Confronting the Past and the Future
Kozo Yamamura
The Embedded Innovation Systems of Germany and Japan: Distinctive
Features and Futures
Robert Boyer
The Future of Nationally Embedded Capitalism: Industrial Relations in Germany and Japan
Kathleen Thelen and Ikuo Kume
Transformation and Interaction: Japanese, U.S., and German Production Models in the 1990s
Ulrich Jürgens
From Banks to Markets: The Political Economy of Liberalization of the German and Japanese Financial Systems
Sigurt Vitols
Corporate Governance in Germany and Japan: Liberalization Pressures and Responses during the 1990s
Gregory Jackson
The Re-Organization of Organized Capitalism: How the German and Japanese Models Are Shaping Their Own Transformations
Steven K. Vogel
Competitive Party Democracy and Political-Economic Reform in Germany and Japan: Do Party Systems Make a Difference?
Herbert Kitschelt