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Communications to the Editor

To THE EDITOR: Theory is in the eye of the beholder in a November 1993 (JAS 52.4:1003-4) review of my book, Welfare Policy and Politics in Japan: Beyond the Developmental State. I argue that a central paradox is that Japan does not embrace the ideology of a "welfare state" as reviewer Steven Reed uses the term. Further, this paradox reflects the beliefs of many citizens: Japanese themselves do not openly have the certainty that policies exist for their welfare needs. First, our theoretical disagreement is not about a flaw in my book as much as with the definition and ideology of a welfare state. My book went to lengths to avoid using ambiguous terms and I strongly disagree about applying the term "welfare state" to Japan as it was in the review. Can Japan be called a "developmental state" and a "welfare state" at the same time? I think not. The core of the difference is that Reed takes the leap to define all state activities toward welfare as a welfare state. I grant that this loose application of terms is followed by comments on some observers of America and various countries in the world. For other political analysts, including myself, the ideology of a "welfare state" is much disputed outside of Europe. In Sweden, the Social Democrats built the prototype model of a welfare state that others in Europe imitated. In Britain, the welfare state encouraged by the Beveridge Report and supported by the Labor Party was an ideological punching bag and a target for program cuts under Margaret Thatcher. In the United States, however, Ronald Reagan had to attack proxy programs for the poor in particular and not nationwide "social security" in general nor any welfare state model because of the lack of American national health insurance. Note here that there is no single "Western model of welfare state development" to elaborate, as the reviewer implied. To return to Japan (with an eye to similarities to America), my central paradox is that the Japanese under one-party dominance developed substantial welfare policies, especially national health insurance (kenko hoken), but did not develop the ideology of a welfare state. In my conclusion, I argue that it is wrong to refer to Japan as a "welfare state" when the conservative rulers seeking a "welfare society" refused to do so. Second, the problem of overlap with the work of John Campbell is exaggerated. Campbell's book focuses on the aging and my book covers all areas of welfare, as the reviewer admits; thus the books are complementary. Further, the theoretical foci of the books are different, with Campbell interested mainly in the theories of "policy process" and my work interested in why the state provides welfare policies. I made theoretically informed references to the studies of Campbell, Calder, Samuels, and Pempel about Japan, but my central concern was to characterize particular areas of welfare policies. Here is the rub: Why is Campbell's detailed monograph on areas of the policy process a "better" contribution to theory than broad comparisons of the key welfare policies in Japan with elsewhere? Methods of deep description with highlights of similar elements are common in policy studies and mine are as systematic as any case study. The reviewer missed that the Japanese model of policy coalitions is in