Structures and Agents of Linear Developmentalism:

Renovation Businesses in the West area of Nagoya Station and “Grassroots Neoliberalism”

Abstract

    In this study, “linear developmentalism” refers to the political-economic system and ideology aimed at economic growth, triggered by the linear shinkansen. Governmental market intervention in linear developmentalism differs from that of Keynesian developmentalism. Neoliberal state interventions assume that a “strong state” deregulates and liberalizes markets and privatizes public space in order to create an effective market economy. The current study aimed to explore the ways in which the community in the western area of Nagoya Station both resist and accept linear development. Renovation businesses in the area's shopping street are conceptualized as “entrepreneurial movements” that counters linear development by using neoliberal national interventions of deregulation, liberalization and privatization. This movement is positioned as “grassroots neoliberalism”.