Japanese Employment Relations in Transition

In exploring why and to what extent the Japanese model of participatory employment relations has changed at the turn of the century, this article criticizes prevalent paradigms of political economy, specifically the paradigms of the neoliberals and the institutionalists, instead proposing a theoretical alternative, that of agents’ refiexivity in international competition. Contrary to the institutionalist arguments for the path-dependent persistence of a national model, the concepts of lifetime employment and seniority in Japan have changed from being sources of competitiveness to objects and conditions for reform. Additionally, in contrast to the neoliberals’ expectations based on the universal relevance of liberal markets, the Japanese adjustments do not converge towards the American liberal market model, but instead generate new divergences inspired but not determined by foreign competitors.