The Nature of the Japanese State
Using an anthropological approach, Brian J. McVeigh shows how a greater understanding of the Japanese state can reconcile an apparent paradoxthat it's both a high-tech superpower and a deeply ceremonial society. He argues that both rationality and rituality constitute a bureaucratic ethos.
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Brian J. McVeigh uses a unique anthropological approach to step outside flawed stereotypes of Japanese society and really engage in the current debate over the role of bureaucracy in Japanese politics.To many in the West, Japan appears as a paradox: a rational, high-tech economic superpower and yet at the same time a deeply ritualistic and ceremonial society. This adventurous new study demonstrates how these nominally conflicting impressions of Japan can be reconciled and a greater understanding of the state achieved.
List of figures and tablesSeries editor's prefacePrefaceAcknowledgmentsNote to the readerAbbreviations1Introduction: where rationality and rituality meet12Demystifying a discourse: the misuses of "Japanese culture" and the production of rationality153The bureaucratized self: public, private, and "civil society" in Japan444Japan's government: the bureaucratic blurring of state and society705Rationality, bureaucracy, and belief in the state1016Japan's Ministry of Education: rationalized schooling and the state1247The rationality of moral education: the state's vision of civil society1598Conclusion: lessons from Japan about state and society180Notes200Bibliography229Index252
