No.19 Mapping JICA-supported Works on Japan’s Development Experience in Development Studies: Their Particularities and Potentials

Japan’s experience of development and modernization occupies a particular place in the study of development processes. Using the UK-based / Western Development Studies as a mirror, this study examines how research on Japan’s development experience connects to broader Development Studies with international implications, rather than being an isolated country-specific field of knowledge. This study focuses on JICA-supported works (research and lectures) on Japan’s development experience and modernization. JICA-supported works span diverse historical and thematic issues and prioritize the study of a long-term process of structural change and instrumental/specific knowledge, describing different policies. Emphasizing the role of the state and state-building, JICA-supported works focus rather on the long-term process of modernization and development of Japan after the Meiji Restoration, than on a short-term snapshot of policy changes. Resonating with the concepts of multiple modernities and reflexive modernization, JICA-supported works emphasize practitioner expertise, practice, and empirical knowledge, while seeking to avoid a supply-driven promotion of a single development model.

Keywords: Development experience, modernization, Development Studies, Japan.