| Bemerkung |
Ideas, Interests, and Institutions in Contemporary Japanese Society
This module offers an advanced examination of contemporary Japanese society by exploring the dynamic relationship between its institutional structures, the organised actors operating within them, and the ideas that shape social and economic life. The central question guiding the module is: How do institutions, interests, and ideas interact to produce stability, contestation, or change in today's Japan?
While the module provides students with a systematic foundation in Japan's core socio-economic institutions (including the employment system, education and labour market transitions, corporate governance, and the social security system), the emphasis throughout the module is on the dynamics – or absence thereof – in how these institutions are continually shaped, contested, and potentially transformed by actors pursuing interests informed by ideas. The module introduces key theoretical frameworks for analysing these dynamics, drawing on approaches from political economy, comparative institutionalism, and social theory.
These analytical lenses are then applied to a range of empirical arenas, which may include labour market politics, corporate governance reform, gender and family policy, welfare state restructuring, civil society, and Japan's position in a comparative and global context. Throughout, the module maintains a comparative perspective, situating Japan's case alongside those of other advanced industrial democracies and in the wider region.
14h-16h – Lecture and discussion
16h-18h – Research exercise
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