Syncretism: The Politics of Economic Restructuring and System Reform in Japan

Japan's post-war economic miracle came to an abrupt halt in the early 1990s, leading to a prolonged period of economic stagnation. During this trying period, as the Japanese political economy struggled to adapt to a rapidly evolving global environment, scholars focused on the question: Has Japan changed?

The contributors to this volume move beyond this old question of change or no change. Each chapter examines a different aspect of Japan's political economy within a longer trajectory and from multiple angles to depict a flexible but resilient system. The book characterizes Japan's process of change as syncretization: practices foreign, domestic, old, and new were selectively adopted, mixed, and matched, creating a new and unique hybrid system.