The End of Diversity?

by Yamamura, Kozo; Streeck, Wolfgang

• ISBN13: 9780801488207
• ISBN10: 0801488206
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	vii
Contributors	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction: Convergence or Diversity? Stability and Change in German and Japanese Capitalism	1	(50)
Wolfgang Streeck and Kozo Yamamura
Germany and Japan: Binding versus Autonomy	51	(38)
Erica R. Gould and Stephen D. Krasner
Regional States: Japan and Asia, Germany in Europe	89	(26)
Peter J. Katzenstein
Germany and Japan in a New Phase of Capitalism: Confronting the Past and the Future	115	(32)
Kozo Yamamura
The Embedded Innovation Systems of Germany and Japan: Distinctive Features and Futures	147	(36)
Robert Boyer
The Future of Nationally Embedded Capitalism: Industrial Relations in Germany and Japan	183	(29)
Kathleen Thelen and Ikuo Kume
Transformation and Interaction: Japanese, U.S., and German Production Models in the 1990's	212	(28)
Ulrich Jurgens
From Banks to Markets: The Political Economy of Liberalization of the German and Japanese Financial Systems	240	(21)
Sigurt Vitols
Corporate Governance in Germany and Japan: Liberalization Pressures and Responses during the 1990's	261	(45)
Gregory Jackson
The Re-Organization of Organized Capitalism: How the German and Japanese Models Are Shaping Their Own Transformations	306	(28)
Steven K. Vogel
Competitive Party Democracy and Political-Economic Reform in Germany and Japan: Do Party Systems Make a Difference?	334	(30)
Herbert Kitschelt
References	364	(31)
Index	395