Harvesting State Support: Institutional Change and Local Agency in Japanese Agriculture

Agriculture in postwar Japan has been a difficult political issue, with inefficient land use and an aging workforce undermining its economic viability. Hanno Jentzsch's book Harvesting State Support examines how local actors have translated abstract policies into local practice, revealing new links between agricultural reform and other shifts in Japan's political economy.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 288 pages
\n Publication date: 20 May 2021
\n Publisher: University of Toronto Press
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Agriculture has been a fiercely contested political terrain in postwar Japan, serving as a prime example of institutional stability and transformation. Inefficient land utilization and an aging workforce have posed significant challenges to the economic sustainability of the agricultural sector. Despite these obstacles, vested interests in the small-scale, part-time agricultural production structure have hindered substantial reforms. However, change has unfolded in subtler ways. Since the mid-1990s, a gradual reform process has begun to dismantle the fundamental pillars of the postwar agricultural support and protection regime.

Harvesting State Support, by Hanno Jentzsch, delves into this transformative process by shifting the analytical focus to the local level. Through extensive qualitative field research, Jentzsch explores how local actors, including farmers, local governments, and local agricultural cooperatives, have translated abstract policies into practical local practices. By demonstrating how local variants are constructed through the recombination of national reforms with the local informal institutional environment, Harvesting State Support unveils new connections between agricultural reform and other shifts in Japan's political economy.

This book offers valuable insights into the complex dynamics of agricultural policy-making and implementation in Japan. It sheds light on the ways in which local actors navigate the political and institutional landscape to shape agricultural reforms and their impact on the country's political economy. It is a must-read for scholars, policymakers, and anyone interested in understanding the complexities of agricultural development and transformation in postwar Japan.

\n Weight: 602g\n
Dimension: 161 x 241 x 29 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781487508548\n \n