2013 Volume 25 Pages 49-60
Does the state rescaling theory explain the historical change of spatial policies in Japan after rapid economic growth, and if so, to what extent? This article considers the political and spatial meaning of two major urban and regional policies in contemporary Japan, by using “rescaling” theory. One is Tokyo’s global city formation in 1980s, which was an early-born, competitiveness-oriented, urban locational policy, and the other is Heisei municipal mergers, which was a territorial readjustment at the local scale in 2000s. An analytical framework of state rescaling, certainly, contribute to further understanding how and why both national and local governments have attempted to rearticulate a relationship between space and society in various forms, to solve problems caused by Japan’s transition from economic growth to shrinking. Yet there are several questions to be considered. An explanatory power of state restructuring theory was based upon the growing importance of supra-national scale such as EU in Europe. An increasing flow of capital and labor among East Asian countries has given rise to a relatively bounded economic space also in this region, while it is still difficult to tell about a same scenario of state rescaling, as in Europe. A potential form of governance and its spatial manifestation should be considered.
