(iPoster) Expectation and Transparency: Rethinking Japan’s Egalitarian Society

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Policy & Urban and Local Politics
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Public Policy

Abstract

This paper argues that two redistribution policies in postwar Japan, the rice price support and the national land development program, contributed to the postwar Japanese people’s perception of their society. As these policies provided citizens with the expectation for future life and the transparency of the decision-making process, Japanese people were satisfied with their egalitarian society though its equality might have been over-estimated. This understanding also suggests that the studies of the developmental state should consider the expectation and transparency as other conditions for the success of development policy.

Author

• Hirofumi Kawaguchi, Keio University