Kozo Yamamura and Wolfgang Streeck (eds.) The End of Diversity? Prospects for German and Japanese Capitalism   Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003 401 pages ISBN 0-8014-8820-6 | $ 24,95 | € 21,97 (paperback) ISBN 0-8014-4088-2 | $ 49,95 | € 43,98 (hardcover)     Read preface [PDF], Table of contents [PDF]

 

 
" 'Persistence of many capitalisms' is the key message of this admirably lucid, forceful, and most timely volume by a formidable hybrid team. This is a very well-argued book on divergent capitalisms amidst the seemingly irresistible sway of the globe-flattening Anglo-Saxon market capitalism."
Takashi Inoguchi, Professor, University of Tokyo and Editor, Japanese Journal of Political Science

 

Abstract | Contents | Editors | Contributors

 

 

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

 
 

Editors

 
Kozo Yamamura is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies at the University of Washington. Among his many books is Asia in Japan's Embrace.

Wolfgang Streeck is Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. Together, they edited The Origins of Nonliberal Capitalism: Germany and Japan in Comparison, also from Cornell.

 

 

Contributors

 
Robert Boyer
CEPREMAP, Paris

 
Erica R. Gould
University of Virginia

 
Gregory Jackson
RIETI, Tokyo
 
Ulrich Jürgens
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin

 
Peter J. Katzenstein
Cornell University
 
Herbert Kitschelt
Duke University

 
Stephen D. Krasner
Stanford University

 
Ikuo Kume
Kobe University

 
Wolfgang Streeck
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne

 
Kathleen Thelen
Northwestern University

 
Sigurt Vitols
Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin

 
Steven K. Vogel
University of California-Berkeley

 
Kozo Yamamura
University of Washington–Seattle