**The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia**

## Jin Sato Soyeun Kim Editors

# The Semantics of Development in Asia

Exploring 'Untranslatable' Ideas Through Japan

## **The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia**

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Jin Sato · Soyeun Kim Editors

# The Semantics of Development in Asia

Exploring 'Untranslatable' Ideas Through Japan

*Editors*  Jin Sato University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan

Soyeun Kim Sogang University Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia ISBN 978-981-97-1214-4 ISBN 978-981-97-1215-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1215-1

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2024. This book is an open access publication.

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## **Acknowledgment**

This project started out as a study group on the History and Future of ODA formed within the Japan Society for International Development in the fall of 2020. The project then benefited from financial support from the Humanities Center of the University of Tokyo which brought one of the co-editors Dr. Soyeun Kim to Tokyo for the summer of 2022. The project also received generous support from JSPS KAKENHI (Grant Number 20H04399) from 2020 to 2023 under the title, Development Studies of Asia and Africa: Some Generalization from Japan Development Cooperation Experiences.

Earlier versions of some chapters appeared in a special issue of the *Journal of International Development Studies* titled "Untranslatable Japanese Development Concepts." We thank the journal editors for giving authors permission to publish these revised versions. The editors wish to extend sincere gratitude to Dr. Wang Muyung and Dr. Sam Bamkin for their dedication to polishing the contents, and for supporting the editing process of this book. Special thanks to Charlie Argon for improving the introductory chapter. Doctoral student Wu Jingyuan was also helpful at the final brush-up stage.

## **Contents**

## **Editors and Contributors**

#### **About the Editors**

**Jin Sato** is a Professor of the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in development studies with a specific focus on the politics of natural resources and foreign aid in the context of Southeast Asia. He served as a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy at Princeton University from 2016 to 2020 and a visiting professor at Columbia University Climate School in 2024. He also served as a policy advisor (JICA expert) to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Royal Thai government (2004–2005) and the President of the Japan Society for International Development (2020–2023). Sato holds an MPP from the Kennedy School at Harvard University and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Tokyo.

**Soyeun Kim** is a Professor at the Institute for East Asian Studies and chair of the postgraduate program in Southeast Asian Studies at Sogang University, Korea. Her research interests are broadly in political ecology and the political economy of development cooperation, with a particular geographical focus on East and Southeast Asia. She is associate editor of the journal *TRaNS: Trans-Regional and—National Studies of Southeast Asia* (2015–present) and served as a civilian non-standing executive board member at the Korea International Cooperation Agency (2019–2020). She holds a Ph.D. in Geography from King's College London, UK.

#### **Contributors**

**Kenichi Doi** Adjunct Researcher at the Center for the Study of International Cooperation in Education at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

**Noriyuki Hashimoto** Department of International Studies and Communications, Yamanashi Prefectural University, Kofu, Japan

**Soyeun Kim** Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang University, Seoul, Korea

**Ryosuke Kuramoto** University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

**Kazuo Kuroda** Waseda University Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies and Visiting Research Fellow at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, Tokyo, Japan

**Yu Oliver Maemura** University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

**Naoki Matsubara** Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

**Lauren Nakasato** Waseda University Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Tokyo, Japan

**Kanako Omi** Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, International Christian University, Mitaka, Japan

**Takatoshi Oyama** Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Institute of Liberal Arts, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Fukuoka, Japan

**Jin Sato** University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

**Hiroaki Shiga** Graduate School of International Social Sciences, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan

**Go Shimada** Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

**Muyun Wang** College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

## **Development: Which Ideas Now?**

#### **Jin Sato**

**Abstract** The practice of development and foreign aid inevitably involves numerous languages and thus requires translation to each the meaning of terms and concepts as all ideas and the words that convey them, are born in particular locations with contextual meanings attached to them. Yet terms are imported—often from West to East, and North to South —without consideration for these contexts. This introductory chapter argues for the need to recover how local actors reinterpret, frame, reconstruct, and reproduce, foreign concepts as they migrate. It also discusses why this is important, and why now. While shifts in thinking occur from time to time, we have been less imaginative in recognizing and overcoming the dominant sources of ideas and concepts that inform our development thinking. This is the reason we focus on the apparently "natural" concepts in Japan and how such concepts travel beyond their place of birth.

**Keywords** Development ideas · Japan · Translation · Vernacular concepts

#### **1 Sources of Development Ideas**

The practice of development and foreign aid inevitably involves numerous languages and thus requires translation in continuous attempts to communicate "the" meaning of terms and concepts. The movement of ideas requires some form of translation because all ideas are born in particular locations with contextual meanings attached to them. In the colonial context, the question of language and power has been addressed intensely. Forced assimilation through language imposition was an important way for the colonizers to exercise their influence (Caprio 2009). Even today, some authors problematize the hegemonic status of English and French in the context of foreign aid. Languages spoken in the Global North are often used when creating guidelines for development and humanitarian sectors without local translations, as a result

J. Sato (B)

University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024

J. Sato and S. Kim (eds.), *The Semantics of Development in Asia*, The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1215-1\_1

often excluding certain locals from accessing aid privileges and burdening local implementers with the "impossible task of translating" (Vitantonio 2022).

What is "translation"? The Oxford English Dictionary provides a simple definition: "To convert or render (a word, a work, an author, a language, etc.) into another language; to express or convey the meaning of (a word or text) using equivalent words in a different language." The editors of this book originally intended to do just that, i.e., to present key Japanese development concepts and investigate how they could be translated into English. We thought this was the sure way toward de-Westernizing development discourse, but we soon realized that the task was not so simple. Many English terms have long been naturalized into our daily conversation. The terms imported from abroad and now being used widely in development discussions include "governance," "advocacy," "accountability," and "empowerment."1 In this circumstance, there is not much point in problematizing the dichotomy of foreign and domestic. New meanings are created as terms are imported without any awareness of a need to translate.

Also, we gradually discovered that most development concepts, regardless of their origins, could be understood only in their practice: semantic translation does not convey the full meaning of the term. A "translation" of development-related concepts, in other words, is a dynamic process of meaning transformation through practice, rather than a one-to-one interpretation of word meanings fixed at a particular time. Local actors reinterpret, frame, reconstruct, and reproduce foreign concepts to make them congruent with local contexts (Swangsilp 2018). While theorists and practitioners of development often talk about whether a lesson learned in one country can be applied to another, "replicability" ignores the process of translation, which can transform the very meaning of "lessons."

The most foundational awareness that the authors came to share was not about the potential or quality of translation; it was the total *absence* of an effort to translate vernacular concepts back into the mainstream development discourse where many of them originated. Enriching our understanding of concepts is an important prerequisite to enriching the practice of development.

In the history of mainstream development thinking, Indian economist Amartya Sen is known as one of the most influential scholars who re-conceptualized the meaning of development. In his essay "Development: Which Way Now?", Sen argued forcefully for shifting the analytical emphasis from aggregate economic growth and income to people's entitlements and capabilities (what people can do or be) (Sen 1983). Sen offered a pivotal breakthrough at a time when the majority of economists assumed an automatic progression from the dominant means of development (economic growth and income) to the ideal ends of development (enhancing the quality of people's lives). Sen and other proponents of human-oriented development introduced a major shift from emphasizing aggregate GDP to achieving human freedoms and security in societies. Sen won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 as the first awardee from Asia, and the first from India.

While shifts in thinking occur from time to time, we have been less imaginative in recognizing and overcoming the dominant *sources* of ideas and concepts that inform our development thinking. Even for Sen, much of his empirical observations are based in non-Western societies including China, India, and certain parts of Africa, yet his theoretical reference points had always been in Western literature, such as the political philosophy of Aristotle and John Rawls (Sen 1999).

People of non-Western communities themselves have been accustomed to using concepts that originated (or seem to have originated) in the West to explain and discuss the development trajectory of their own societies. For example, the "developmental state" (Johnson 1982) and the "East Asian miracle" (World Bank 1993) became fashionable concepts to characterize economic development in Asia in the 1980 and 1990s. While there has been some provocation, putting forward "Asian values" as something different from Western-style development (Cauquelin et al. 2014), subsequent development discourse has largely helped to gloss over the unidirectionality of this conceptualization, treating the Asian societies (and the "Rest") solely as recipients of ideas from the West, with little agency attached to the vernacular concepts.

Inspired by Sen's seminal article written over 40 years ago, we should now ask "Development: Which *Ideas* Now?" That is, from where do we obtain ideas about development, and to where do we apply them? From modernization theories in the 1950–60 s to Marxist-inspired critiques in the 1970s, and then on to the search for alternatives that incorporate concerns for gender, the environment, and human wellbeing in general, the recent tendency is more toward a pluriverse of development (Khotari et al. 2020). Pluriverse development must accompany pluriverse ideas of how to understand and carry out development.

This book initiates this task by focusing on the apparently "natural" concepts that have been used widely in Japan. Many of the concepts we chose to include in this volume have been in use for a long time, such as *doboku* (civil engineering); some of them are more recent such as *kokusai-kōken* (international contribution). Certain concepts are exported abroad such as the Trinity, while others are imported such as *ōnāshippu* (ownership). Regardless of their historical and linguistic origins, we chose them because they characterize Japanese development and aid that can hardly be captured in the English concepts that are prevailing today. What we also found interesting was that there was a "translation" issue even among Japanese language speakers about what exactly these concepts mean. *Kaizen*, for example, is a Japanese term but its definition varies even among Japanese speakers.

Although we were initially preoccupied with challenging the Western dominance of the development discourse and how to uplift the significance of non-Western ideas, we came to a deeper appreciation of the ambiguity of the concepts that had been naturalized into Japanese society and culture. We realized that the question is not so much of attempting to overcome the West-to-East direction of the movement of ideas, nor a reverse effort to make the West understand "untranslatable" vernacular development concepts. The preoccupation with either importing or exporting development ideas has missed the essential aspect of self-understanding about the very meaning of development. In other words, local language users are not necessarily aware of the meaning of the concepts they use, and this realization came forward thanks to our efforts to translate and discuss them in English.

How can we communicate non-Western concepts to English-speaking readers if we ourselves hardly understand them? Before moving on to the discussion on Japan's own struggle with remaining Japanese concepts and their repercussions, let me discuss the general absence of interest in these vernacular development concepts.

#### **2 How Did We Leave Behind Our Own Development Ideas?**

The field of development studies is full of specialized terminology originating from the West. Empowerment, governance, gender, advocacy, and capacity development are just a few examples of such terms that are widely used. Thanks to the popularization of SDGs as major slogans that have gained recognition beyond the development industry, sustainability and sustainable development are perhaps the most recent concepts to have captured the minds of the general public who want to do "good" for the global community.2

On the other hand, the uncritical popularity of imported ideas marginalizes the significance of vernacular concepts. Interestingly, many of those vernacular concepts continue to survive despite the continuous inflow of foreign concepts. We chose to highlight some of the key vernacular concepts in Japan to offer a more decolonial approach to understanding development and aid practices. What we aim to do is to seek pluriversal development alternatives (Demarica et al. 2023; Acharya 2016; Menon 2022) through the appreciation of vernacular concepts. An important step toward the pluriverse is to reject simple dichotomies. West–East and North–South dichotomies have been convenient but binding frameworks that constrain us from other possible development imaginaries. An additional step is to focus on the movement of those ideas in shaping development practices beyond the location of their birth. "Vernacular concepts" often transcend national and cultural boundaries. Interestingly, seemingly "vernacular concepts" may have originated abroad. The concept of *kaizen*, for example, pre-existed as a term to mean "improvement," before another layer of meaning was added to imply an *approach* to improve production. This new meaning was brought to Japan from the US during the Occupation period after WWII. It was adopted and expanded by Toyota, and is now entering Africa as an important "Japanese" concept in the global development context. The discussion of "vernacular" concepts thus intended to invite their users on a journey of self-discovery by considering the movement of these untranslated terms.

The authors of this book are fully aware of the "ambiguous" dual status of Japan as both former colonial/imperial power and as a non-Western "Other"/the Rest. As Kim (2023) articulates, "locally-driven theorizing efforts in International Development Studies should be weary of the tendency to conflate decentering with diversification i.e., shifting reference point to East Asia by stressing their difference from traditional donors" (Kim 2023, p. 88), thus simply reproducing the very inequality that the new discourse aimed to overcome. Words shape the world, and those words are always in motion (Gluck and Tsing 2009). By acknowledging *where* ideas come from and how they change their meaning in different locations, we attempt to recover the value of those concepts that had been with us much longer than Western concepts that are now so dominant and popular.

One solution for respecting the vernacular concept is *not* to translate it and proffer the original term with explanations. The founding father of development studies in Japan, Nitobe Inazō (1862–1933), faced a similar problem when he wrote his book *Bushidō*, attempting to explain the spirit of the samurai to the English-speaking world. It is interesting to consider why he did not dare to translate the word "bushidō" as "samurai spirit" or "samurai code of conduct" but chose to use the original term in the title of his book. His own explanation is that "some words have a national *timbre*  so expressive of race characteristics that the best of translators can do them but scant justice, not to say positive injustice and grievance" (Nitobe 1908, p. 4).

Bushidō, like many other local and peculiar concepts and words, must "wear the badge of its singularity on its face" (Nitobe 1908, p. 3). Some of these words and concepts are still circulating widely in Japan. In many cases, even the Japanese themselves may not recognize their historically situated nuances. In development studies, for example, the Japanese term *doboku* (discussed in Chap. **1**)—made up of characters representing earth and wood—is often glossed as "civil engineering" in English. However, the English translation fails to capture its essence, which is centered on the local community's collaborative efforts rather than the skills and techniques required in *doboku* works. Yet this aspect of *doboku* is critical as it has been the backbone of Japan's infrastructure development cooperation with developing countries.

Japanese development ideas were never forgotten. They have been alive with their own ups and downs depending on the socio-cultural conditions of the time. Yet, they have never attracted the attention that they deserve from development scholars since they seem irrelevant to policy-making, implementing projects, and thus doing development. Perhaps more importantly they are not "fashionable" compared to highlighting popular Western concepts. This aspect should not be underestimated since the easiest way to establish a scholarly conversation with the Western community and to publish in English is to use the concepts the Westerners use.

Another possible reason for the absence of explicit and systematic reexamination of local concepts may be due to the emphasis, particularly in Japan, on praxis rather than ideas that are supposed to underpin such praxis. Praxis of development is constrained by local conditions which tends to go against the scholarly incentive to generalize. We claim that ideas matter in and of themselves as well as in their implication for policy and practice. To make this case, there needs to be a systematic and explicit treatment of "forgotten" concepts that have circulated only in certain regions, hidden in plain sight.

#### **3 Why Japan Matters**

Japan provides a powerful context through which questions can be posed about the flow and direction of local concepts. There are three reasons why Japan matters:

First, Japan provides interesting material for discussion that goes beyond the typical dichotomy of dividing up the world such as East and West. Japan's "success" in adopting the Western development model has allowed it to achieve an unprecedented level of economic growth, making it the first OECD member from the non-Western world. Japan's potential to look back at its own development trajectory and contribute to shaping other countries' development provides resources that can be leveraged to position to transcend a simple dichotomy of East/West, North/South. In times when development aid can easily be manipulated to meet ideological ends, the ambiguous (if not neutral) position of Japan should be considered as an asset (see Garon 2017).

Second, Japan became the first major development donor that did not belong to the West. Moreover, Japan is the first non-Western country to achieve the status of a "top donor" in the realm of Official Development Assistance (ODA) which serves as a visible revision to the more conventional treatment of Japan as a mere emulator of the West. Japan also assumed leadership in "East Asian modern" (Prasenjit 2003) initiatives such as effective hygiene programs, mass education, and state-led bureaucracy have been seen as. More recently, disaster recovery has become a key made-in-Japan model that has been applied abroad (Ranghieri and Ishiwatari 2014).

Finally, the wide spectrum of development-related concepts, spanning from ancient times to post-WW2, demonstrates Japan as fertile ground for concepts change as time goes by. The study of these evolving concepts deserves more attention than "shiny" ideas newly arriving from the West. Just as the concept of *kaizen* originally came from abroad, the translation of concepts from Chinese and Korean has a long history, from ancient times up to the Edo period (Maruyama and Kato 1998). Although some scholarly investigations have emerged to critically examine the hegemonic role of English in the field of development studies (e.g., Erling and Sergeant 2013), systematic studies of the international role of non-English development concepts are yet to be seen.

The concepts and lexicons we examine in this book are listed in some glossaries of development and aid-related handbooks and dictionaries published in Japanese. Such concepts grow and shift their meanings in response to the way they are used. Therefore, it is important to review the context in which those ideas have been translated into action in the field of development.

Japan's development assistance officially began in 1954, when Japan joined the Colombo Plan, an intergovernmental organization established in 1950 to promote technical assistance to South and Southeast Asia, as a donor. As described in Chap. 7 on the "request-based approach," Japanese development assistance began on a very different trajectory from that of the West. Most importantly, it was attached to war reparations—an international obligation to compensate for war damages. Unlike the proactive mode of "aid" fueled by the Christian mission to "civilize" underdeveloped pagan countries, Japan's assistance to other developing countries seemed passive and self-centered- "passive," because Japan had to portray itself as a humble country that learned a lesson from the consequences of its aggression, now becoming a modest and democratic country concerned with peaceful economic pursuits, and "self-centered" because Japan's paramount interest immediately after the war was its own economic survival and reconstruction. Economic cooperation had to be linked to domestic economic interests if it was to be supported at all.

Japan strengthened its position as a global donor by joining DAC (the Development Assistance Committee) in the early 1960s. Even today, DAC serves as a central international platform to coordinate aid among US-led Western donors, and also defines what counts as ODA (Official Development Assistance). Gaining membership in DAC was a critical turning point. DAC also became a battlefield where Japan had to defend and justify its aid approaches, which often conflicted with those conducted by Western donors. As Japan's success and economic growth became obvious, so did the Western expectation for Japan to contribute more in aid. Yet Japan continued to emphasize loans as opposed to grant aid, without clearly identifying its own philosophy behind what development objectives should be pursued, and this attracted criticism from the Western community coming from the tradition of Christian "giving" (see Chap. 12).

By the 1980s, Japan had become the largest development donor in the world, and it was around this time that Japan began to face international pressures and expectations as the top donor (Shimomura 2022). There was a need to justify how it conducted its development assistance, particularly in comparison to Western aid donors. Ideas such as the "request-based principle" (Chap. 7) and "self-help support" (Chap. 8) were products of such circumstances. Academic conceptualizations of developmental experience also took place, resulting in the establishment of graduate programs on international development at major universities (Kim et al. 2023). Japan no longer had the luxury to give priority to its own development without offering a visible "contribution" to the world (see Chap. 10). While international circumstances, especially US policies, were always a key factor in Japan's navigation, it had to claim its own "philosophy" of development and aid. Our attempt is by no means to claim that Japanese concepts are unique. To the contrary, we believe that similar attempts can be made in almost all countries around the world, a movement which we wish to initiate with this publication. Japan as a method may be a powerful step toward this move.

#### **4 Overview of the Book**

This book considers development concepts and lexicons that emerged and evolved in Japan, and that had penetrating repercussions on both domestic and international scenes. We organize them according to the socio-political role given to them at specific times into the following four groupings: (1) Concepts and lexicons pertaining to technical assistance and how it should be conducted (*doboku, kaizen, genbashugi*); (2) ideas related to self-identity and the perception of others (Asianism*, hitozukuri, naihatsuteki-hatten, kokusai-kōken*); (3) concepts and norms that characterize Japanese aid strategies (*yōsei-shugi*, ownership, *jijo doryoku*); and (4) Lexicons of practices attracting international criticism from the West and emulated later by China (*kaihatu-yunyu*, yen loans, the trinity approach).

**Fig. 1** Chapter organization. *Source* Authors

Simultaneously, contexts give "lives" to these ideas. Because all of these concepts are "living things" that change their meaning, we encourage readers to keep in mind their roles in particular places at particular times in the history of development and aid. Some ideas such as *naihatuteki-hatten* (endogenous development) emerged out of self-reflection, while others such as *kokusai-kōken* (international contribution) became popular to meet global attention and expectations. Some ideas such as *kaizen*  are adopted by foreign countries, giving them different meanings in those foreign contexts. Figure 1 provides a schematic overview of the socio-political groupings of chapters, in accordance with the time period each idea first appeared in policy vocabulary.

Our focus is not merely on the semantics of words but more on the different expectations and meanings attached to developmental terms which can invite international misunderstanding and conflict. To be clear, the list is by no means a glorification of alternative concepts from Japan. These concepts have their own problems, contradictions, and practical ramifications. Yet bringing these to the discussion of development ideas enlarges the debate, toward the pluriverse, through its recognition of new sources of ideas.

The chapters are organized as follows.

#### **Part 1: Norms of Technical Assistance**

**Chapter 1**, *Doboku* (土木), discusses the evolution of ideas pertaining to infrastructure. *Doboku* is typically translated as "civil engineering." But, as we shall see, it was initially a practice describing collective action in building temples and other local commons' infrastructure by offering labor. The concept faded as development transformed from on-site physical labor to more technical and knowledge-based activities.

**Chapter 2** focuses on *Kaizen* (カイゼン). Perhaps the most popular concept in this book, *kaizen* has been adopted and practiced in businesses around the globe. Kaizen is also rare in crossing over public–private sector boundaries. The Japanese word "*kaizen*" is commonly translated into English as "continuous improvement" or simply "improvement." However, this literal translation obscures important connotations that are difficult to translate. This chapter discusses the meaning of *kaizen*  and why this seemingly simple term is challenging to comprehend not only for nonnative speakers but also for Japanese readers. This chapter also demonstrates the point that appreciating a concept in the local language does not necessarily mean that one really understands it.

**Chapter 3**, *Genba-shugi* (現場主義). Hands-on, field-based, grounded, bottomup—these adjectives come close but do not quite capture the sum of their interactions. *Genba-shugi* has become a key principle of the Japanese approach to development projects that prioritize the on-site local context.  Yet, what *genba-shigu* means still remains ambiguous. This chapter uncovers the practice of *genba-shugi* which has been portrayed as a Japanese approach to problem-solving.

#### **Part II: Reflecting on Self and Others**

**Chapter 4** re-assesses one of the more notorious Japanese concepts in international relations: **Asianism** (アジア主義). This chapter traces the historical roots, development, and diffusion of Asianism from its origins in Meiji Japan as a vision of Asian solidarity in the face of Western encroachment to its current form as a driver of regional economic cooperation. By doing so, it demonstrates that Asianism in Japan can be understood, depending on the context, as Asian regionalism. Rather than a static concept rooted in wartime conceptualizations of Japan as the leader of Asia, Asianism is a term that has shifted over time, along both lexical and semantic axes. By delineating such transformations, the chapter illuminates the ways in which the concept has influenced Japan's foreign policy stance and international cooperation development agenda.

**Chapter 5**, *Hitozukuri* (人づくり), is yet another term that cannot be translated in a straightforward manner. "Human resources development" is the most common translation but it misses the context to which this concept is relevant. *Hitozukuri*  has been a key slogan of the Japanese aid agency along with *kuni-zukuri* (nationbuilding). One basic idea of Japanese development cooperation was that people needed to be "built" for the purpose of nation-building. The chapter explores the origin and political implications of this concept.

**Chapter 6**, **Endogenous Development** (内発的発展), discusses a concept that evolved as a fusion of Western and Japanese ideas about the ownership of development trajectories. By focusing on the contributions of US-trained sociologist Tsurumi Kazuko, the chapter presents the features of an endogenous development theory rooted in the Asian development experience. It then discusses how the theory might be applied in the contemporary development context and concludes by making a case for Tsurumi's *naihatsuteki hattenron* in international development research and practice.

#### **Part III: Japanese Aid Strategies**

**Chapter 7**, *Yōsei-Shugi* (要請主義), examines a less prominent concept in Japanese aid to consider what it might reveal about the Japanese style of development cooperation. This principle simply states that Japan offers aid based on requests from the recipient country, but gained the status of "aid principle" in the late 1980s particularly in contrast to Western donor approaches that give emphasis on norms of the aid providers such as human rights and freedom. Although the request-based principle no longer serves as a "selling point" for the Japanese government today, a similar approach is now adopted by emerging donors such as Thailand and China. By tracing the evolution of aid to the war reparation period in the 1950s, this paper explores how the principle was institutionalized as a mechanism to form a "Japanese style" of aid provision.

**Chapter 8** critically re-examines and attempts to refine the definition of *Jijodoryoku* (自助努力) as a policy principle, by considering its evolution within Japanese and in international ODA policy. *Jijo doryoku,* which translates directly to "self-help effort," is a concept that is utilized to encapsulate the principle that ODA should be utilized for supporting recipient countries to help themselves. The chapter argues that it is better to conceptualize the term as a highly general and abstract term denoting the social-psychological state (i.e., the "spirit") of a recipient, which could be utilized to stipulate and evaluate general conditions for ODA recipients.

**Chapter 9** examines Japan's efforts to lead international development discourse through an idiosyncratic definition of *Ōnāshippu* (オーナーシップ) that emphasizes recipients' responsibility, such as self-help and agency. This chapter argues that the Japanese-style "*ōnāshippu"* (ownership) is a product created in conjunction with Japan's ambition to enhance its presence as a major donor in the aid community since the 1990s. Instead of using direct translations of self-help and autonomy, it deliberately applied the English loanword ownership because it was instrumental for Japan to take an initiative in the international aid community at that time. While the concept of ownership was widely accepted, the particularities of Japan's usage of the term were largely misunderstood. The term continued to be used by the international community as a vestige of Japan's attempts to lead.

**Chapter 10**, *Kokusai-koken* (国際貢献), became popular only since the early 1990s. It is literally translated as "international contribution." This concept is often used when the Japanese respond to an international situation calling for their assistance with certain monetary or human sacrifices. Appearing most often at the intersection of peacebuilding and development cooperation, this concept sheds light on an interesting gap between self-awareness and the actual expectations of the international community.

#### **Part IV: International Criticism and Emulation**

**Chapter 11** highlights *Kaihatsu-yunyū* (開発輸入), yet another challenging concept to translate. Officially translated as the "development and import scheme," it combines resource development with economic cooperation. The origins of the scheme lie in Japan's lack of raw materials for postwar economic growth and the private sector's interest in expanding their projects through the postwar reparation scheme. The idea and practice were then adopted by China much later when it became a major donor. This concept raises questions about the economic and social conditions that allow such "transfer" to happen.

**Chapter 12** discusses **Yen Loans** (円借款), which were subjected to perennial criticism from the United States and European countries. Against the Western norm that development assistance is a form of charity by the rich countries for the sake of poor countries, Japan provided an alternative model not well understood by Western counterparts. While reconsidering yen loans from the position of Japan and recipient countries, the chapter questions the nature of heterodoxy in development discourse.

**Chapter 13** discusses the **Trinity** (三位一体), a concept of combining trade, aid, and investment to achieve a win–win relationship between the donors and recipients of development cooperation. This concept has now become popular in China. The chapter delves into the interpretation of the trinity in development practice in Japan and China and how it has changed over time. Though attracting little attention in Japan in the 1980s when it was first used as an economic cooperation-related concept, the trinity became a focus of debate with the rise of China as an emerging aid donor. In times when other non-Western development donors are rising, the discussion of the transferability of development concepts will provide readers with theoretical tools designed to pursue a global perspective on development through a local lens.

**The concluding chapter** reiterates the significance of this book along the organizing concepts of time and space, and explores the potential of "Japan as Method." By questioning the absence of decolonial debates and the "uniqueness myth," this final chapter argues for pluriverse knowledge production.

As we approached the completion of the book, we recalled the question posed by Sen 40 years ago: "Development which way now?" Our answer is that development should go in many directions against the homogenizing forces. We claim that pluralizing the sources of development ideas should be the first step toward this direction. This book is an effort to propose and begin to respond to the question: "Development: which ideas now?".

#### **Notes**

#### **References**

**Jin Sato** is a Professor of the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, at the University of Tokyo. He specializes in development studies with a specific focus on the politics of natural resources and foreign aid in the context of Southeast Asia. He served as a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy at Princeton University from 2016 to 2020 and a visiting professor at Columbia University Climate School in 2024. He also served as a policy advisor (JICA expert) to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Royal Thai government (2004–2005) and the President of the Japan Society for International Development (2020–2023). Sato holds an MPP from the Kennedy School at Harvard University and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Tokyo.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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## *Doboku***: Changes in the Social Evaluation of Infrastructure Development in Japan**

**Ryosuke Kuramoto**

**Abstract** This chapter discusses the emergence and significance of *doboku* as an essential concept of Japanese development assistance that emphasizes support for developing infrastructure. Through an analysis of historical processes, it shows how the meaning of *doboku* has changed from the construction or repair of large buildings to infrastructure development to a translation of the English "civil engineering," which focuses on technology, without incorporating a philosophy of how or why technology should be built or used. On one hand, such a lack of philosophy leads to a negative image of *doboku* as "crude and muddy." On the other hand, there have also been attempts to re-establish the philosophy of *doboku* through explanations of its historical origins adopted early in the Meiji era. Moreover, *doboku* redeems its negative image in the context of development assistance, since working "in the mud" together with local people is a way to gain their trust. By expanding our perspective on this Japanese doctrine to include development assistance, we can more fully evaluate the unique characteristics and potential of the practical knowledge embodied in *doboku.*

#### **1 Introduction**

A significant proportion of the official development assistance (ODA) provided by the Japanese government consists of support for the development of infrastructure such as roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, airports, railways, dams, irrigation, water supply, sewerage, and telecommunications. The Management Council for Infrastructure Strategy was established by the Japanese government in March 2013, and a policy was formulated to spread Japanese technology and systems—the "Japanese way"—through the use of ODA and related initiatives. The government went on to announce the Partnership for Quality Infrastructure in May 2015, demonstrating to the international community its commitment to promoting efforts to build "quality infrastructure" in collaboration with other countries and international organizations.

R. Kuramoto (B)

University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024

J. Sato and S. Kim (eds.), *The Semantics of Development in Asia*, The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1215-1\_2

This emphasis on support for developing infrastructure is anticipated to continue (Nakamura 2017).

What, then, does it mean to "build infrastructure" in a Japanese context? That is, what is seen as the purpose of building infrastructure, and what are the perceptions of how it should be done? Related to this issue, Aaron Stephen Moore (2013) reveals how important the "technological imaginary" was in the building of domestic and international infrastructure during and after the WWII. According to Moore, in the process of nation-building in Japan, intellectuals, bureaucrats, and engineers used the word "technology (技術)" as an ideology loaded with meanings such as rationality and efficiency in order to define "modernity (近代)" and to mobilize the population toward that goal. As a result, technology as a whole represented a system of power that dynamically incorporates people's hopes and desires into mechanisms of social control. This ideological system of power, Moore argues, was carried over into the postwar period through such key institutions as Japan's management system and the idea of a "construction state," and formed the basis for Japan's overseas development assistance.

On the other hand, if we move away from this policy aspect and look at the actual practice of building infrastructure, we find an inherent logic that cannot be fully understood by the "technological imaginary." The concept of "doboku" is key when considering this logic. In Japan, "*doboku kōgaku*" (the discipline of civil engineering) refers to the techniques and knowledge used to build infrastructure and fundraising. The process of building infrastructure is referred to in terms of "*doboku jigyō*" (civil engineering projects) or "*doboku kōji*" (civil engineering works). The Japanese term *doboku* has been used since the Meiji era (1868–1912) as a translation of "civil engineering" in English. However, the historical background of *doboku* sets it apart from its closest English equivalent. Translating *doboku* merely as civil engineering, therefore, prevents a full understanding of its nuance and connotations. In this chapter, I will highlight the characteristics of the *doboku* concept through an analysis of the historical processes that led to its emergence and significance. Through this work, I aim to contribute to an understanding of both the distinctiveness and the universality of the Japanese approach to building infrastructure in the context of development assistance.

#### **2 The Emergence of Doboku**

The Japanese word *doboku* (土木) and its Chinese equivalent have been used since ancient times. For example, the use of the term *doboku* in Japan can be traced back to dictionaries and texts from the Heian period (794–1185). The mention of *doboku*  in these texts generally refers to the construction or repair of large buildings, such as palaces or temples, or associated techniques. The term *doboku* subsequently fell out of use, however, between the Kamakura and the Edo periods (1185–1868), when Japan was ruled by successive samurai governments. Instead, the term "*fushin*" ("construction" or "public works")—which will be described later—was used to refer to infrastructure building (Fujita 1993; Komatsu 2018; Matsuura 2020).

*Doboku* reappeared from the Meiji era (1868–1912) onward, displacing the term *fushin* of the Edo period and becoming the more commonly used term. A search of the *Yomiuri Shinbun* newspaper database, for example, reveals 3,327 instances of the term *doboku* from 1875 to 1989. By contrast, there are 224 instances of *fushin*, with the term falling out of everyday use (except as an historical term) from 1941 onward. The Japanese term *doboku* (written in Chinese characters) was also adopted into the Chinese language in the twentieth century (Cheng 1997).

What led to this revival in the use of the term *doboku*? The Meiji government, formed in 1968, worked to solidify Japan's centralized national system of government in order to resist external pressure from European countries and the United States. The government sought to build a new nation based on the ideals of enriching the nation, strengthening the military, and encouraging new industries. By enhancing Japan's economic and military strength, the government aimed to build a modern nation. The encouragement of new industries was a means to achieve this aim, and was reflected in policies to protect and foster Japan's industries. Specific policies were many and diverse, but one of the main pillars was the building of infrastructure nationwide. The government actively introduced technologies from Europe and the United States, where the industrial revolution had ushered in modernity, and pursued the building of social infrastructure, such as rivers, railways, and ports as public works. As a result, the modernization of Meiji Japan was accomplished over a short period of time, over a broad area, and in multiple fields simultaneously (Ishizuka 1973; Kitagawa 2020).

The *Minbukan Doboku-shi* (loosely translated as the Public Affairs Civil Engineering Office) was established in 1869 as a body to administer infrastructure under the Meiji government. Subsequently, after various permutations, the *Minbukan Doboku-shi* was restructured into the *Doboku-kyoku* (Civil Engineering Office) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, continuing to oversee the administration of infrastructure until 1941. The revival of the term *doboku* is attributable to its use in the names of these administrative bodies under the new Meiji government (Twenty Year History of the Ministry of Construction Editing Committee 1968).

Why, then, did the Meiji government adopt the term *doboku* from the Heian era, when *fushin* had been in general use throughout centuries of samurai governments? Regarding this point, Tatsuyuki Fujita (1993) cites the fact that the Meiji government was formed on the basis of the Decree for the Restoration of Imperial Rule, which abolished samurai government and ostensibly reestablished a political system revolving around the Japanese Emperor. He conjectures that the new government therefore avoided the term used during the era of samurai government, opting rather for "*doboku-shi*," the term favored in the Ritsuryō system of the Heian period (Fujita 1993, p. 154), more readily associated with Imperial governance. *Doboku*  thus became commonly adopted as the translation of "civil engineering" as a result of historical chance.

Another important factor leading to the term *doboku* taking root in the lexicon of modern Japanese society was the establishment of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (*Doboku Gakkai*). This organization traces its roots back to the engineering society formed by the first graduates of the Imperial College of Engineering in 1879 with the aim of promoting engineering research and the exchange of knowledge. At the time, the Society covered all fields of engineering, including all seven disciplines taught in the Imperial College of Engineering: civil engineering (*doboku*), electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, construction (architecture), chemical engineering, mining, and metallurgy. With the subsequent trend toward more clearly delineated specializations, however, independent societies were progressively established in each engineering field: the Japan Mining Institute (1885), the Architectural Institute of Japan (1886), the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan (1888), the Society of Naval Architects of Japan, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (1897), and the Chemical Society of Japan (1898). As a result, the remaining members of the engineering society mostly comprised those specializing in civil engineering. It was in this context that the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE) was established in 1914 (JSCE 2014).

The first Chairman of the JSCE, Koi Furuichi responded to this trend toward the clearer separation of specializations in his inaugural speech, arguing that "integration is the essence of civil engineering (*doboku kōgaku*)."

The Society must therefore not limit the scope of its research to civil engineering (*doboku*) alone, but must expand it to include all aspects of engineering. Unlike the previous engineering society, however, which undertook a balanced approach to research across all engineering disciplines, all of the Society's research must focus on civil engineering (*doboku*). In other words, the Society's research must expand outwards in all directions from the core of civil engineering (*doboku*). This is the method and degree of specialization that I advocate for the Society (Furuichi 1915, pp. 3–4).

The overall trend toward specialization was unstoppable, however, and the concept of *doboku* was shaped through differentiation with other engineering fields, especially the field of architecture that similarly emerged during the Meiji era. For example, as described above, under the Meiji government, the building of infrastructure was made the responsibility of administrative bodies with the term *doboku*  in their titles, while the Ministry of Finance—a different body altogether—was made responsible for public architecture. Thus, the administration of infrastructure development was clearly separated from the construction of public buildings. As a result, "*doboku*" (civil engineering) and "*kenchiku*" (architecture) were framed as entirely separate concepts under Japanese law, referring to the construction of infrastructure and the construction of buildings, respectively. Specifically, Japanese *doboku*  engineers design and build roads, dams, bridges, and the like, but not buildings. By contrast, the concept of civil engineering in English refers not only to infrastructure but buildings as well, a difference that indicates the misunderstandings that may arise from directly translating *doboku* as "civil engineering" (Yoshimi 2017).

#### **3 The Lack of a Philosophy of "***Doboku"*

The concept of *doboku* emerged from the names given to administrative bodies in the Meiji government. What, then, was the philosophical and ideological base underpinning this concept? That is, what was seen as the purpose of building infrastructure, and what were the perceptions of how it should be done? I would like to consider this question through a comparison with the English term civil engineering, which also refers to the building of infrastructure, and the term *fushin*, used up until the Edo period.

Civil engineering is a relatively new concept, taking root in English only in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. "Engineering" originally referred to "military engineering"—the manufacture of military equipment and facilities such as cannons, warships, assault towers, and the like. The term "civil engineering" was coined in England, the home of the industrial revolution, as a concept differentiated from previous military engineering.

The Englishman John Smeaton (1724–1792) is said to be the first person in the world to call himself a "civil engineer." In 1771, Smeaton established The Society of Civil Engineers, making the role of civil engineers—building infrastructure associated with the lives of civilians, such as roads, water supply, canals—known to society. The Institution of Civil Engineers was subsequently established in 1818 and granted Royal Chartership in 1828, formally recognizing civil engineering as a profession. The definition of civil engineering presented in the Charter of the time—"the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man"—continues to inform the concept of civil engineering worldwide today (The Institution of Civil Engineers 1978; Takegami 2013; Watson 1988).

In this way, the idea of civilian engineering was at the heart of the concept of the "civil engineer" that emerged in eighteenth-century England. These were the civilian engineers that replaced the artisans and builders who had previously been directly contracted by business operators to build stone bridges and similar projects. Unlike their predecessors, civil engineers incorporated the latest technologies produced in the industrial revolution to undertake the construction of large-scale, complex projects, such as canals. Instead of being contracted directly by business operators, they acquired permits and certification from government administrative bodies, performing a role similar to that of a consultant by directing subcontractors in various trades and overseeing entire projects, from the planning and design stage to construction management (Kitagawa 2020).

Incidentally, "*mintaikei* (民大計)," a translation of civil engineer that appears in an English-Chinese dictionary from the late Edo period, roughly meant "civilian project manager" (Lobscheid 1886). This indicates the historical process whereby the work of measuring and cartography became independent of the military and shifted into the civilian domain, and hints at the extensive range of duties and authorities exercised by civil engineers. By contrast, English-Japanese dictionaries compiled after the start of the Meiji era translate civil engineering as "*dobokujutsu* (*doboku*  techniques)" (Seki 1884) and "*doboku kōgaku* (*doboku* engineering)" (Nomura and Shimoyama 1886). This change in translation is thought to result simply from the of the adoption of the term *doboku* in the names of government administrative bodies from the Meiji era onward, over and above any consideration given to the connotations of the word "civil" in English. In fact, *doboku* is variously translated in Japanese-English dictionaries of the time as "building" (Hashio 1887), and "engineering work" (Brinkley et al. 1896), with no reference at all to the concept of "civil." In other words, the correspondence between *doboku* and civil engineering generally accepted today is but the result of historical chance.

Next, let us turn to the term *fushin*, which is used to denote the building infrastructure up to the end of the Edo period. *Fushin* is composed of the two characters "*fu* 普," meaning common or general, and "*shin* 請," meaning to beg or request. The term came from the Zen Buddhism of China's Tang dynasty, when temples would request the general population to perform duties such as picking flowers for the Flower Festival (to celebrate Buddha's birthday), airing books (to prevent insect infestation), picking tea leaves, and end-of-year cleaning, or where practitioners from Zen temples would enter the community *en masse* to engage in labor. Subsequently, in Japan, the term became linked to *ritagyō* (altruistic practices), one of the most important practices in Mahayana Buddhism for monks to attain the salvation of mankind.

For example, the monk Gyoki (668–749), active from the Asuka period to the Nara period, traveled on foot across Japan, collecting funds and labor far and wide through *fushin* to promote infrastructure projects around the country, in areas such as irrigation, water supply, reservoirs, roads, ports, and bridges. His achievements were recognized in 743 when he was appointed *Kanjin* (an official authorized to collect donations for a temple) by Emperor Shomu for the construction of the Great Buddha statue in Tōdai-ji Temple. He succeeded in collecting a massive amount of money and labor to complete the statue. The activities of Buddhist monks such as Gyoki were partly responsible for the adoption of the term *fushin* to refer to works such as the construction of temples and shrines, as well as roads, bridges, and other structures, through the communal labor of the local population, and thence, to infrastructure projects in general.

Consequently, the term *fushin* does not refer simply to the building of infrastructure; as a concept, it also connotes thoughts and beliefs regarding the purpose of infrastructure projects and the way that they should be carried out. In other words, *fushin* implies a form of social welfare activity based on the Buddhist idea of "*ritagyō"* (altruistic practices), and suggests the idea that infrastructure projects should be carried out through a joint effort by the local community. This ideology can also be observed in the book *Yumenoshiro (Instead of Dreams)* by the merchant-scholar Yamagata Banto, written in the late Edo period.

"Fushin" is composed of the characters meaning common and request. It means to ask for and receive help […] When a carpenter or laborer is employed to build a building, this is called construction. It is not *fushin* (Quoted in Sakado 2008).

This comparison between the meanings of the two terms civil engineering and *fushin* is instructive in a number of ways. First, *doboku* refers to public works projects directed by governments and public administrative bodies: private-sector engineers and local communities are not primarily responsible for their execution. In order to catch up with countries in Europe and the United States—the ultimate challenge for Meiji Japan—it was more effective for public administrative bodies to systematically absorb and implement the latest technologies. Thus, Matsumura (1985) glosses *doboku* as "engineering by bureaucrats."

Second, *doboku* itself was therefore devoid of philosophy. According to Daijiro Kitagawa, the power of science and technology was limited in Japan until the end of the Edo period, due to the use of traditional materials such as earth, wood, and stone, as well as the application of only rudimentary mathematical analysis. As a result, people did not overly rely on technology, aiming instead for more inclusive solutions by mobilizing all of the wisdom and knowledge of nature and society that experience allowed them. These solutions were perhaps not perfect, but they represented the conceptual ability of people able to coexist with contradictions and inconsistencies. Modern engineering, by contrast, contains within it the aspiration to control nature through the power of science (Kitagawa 2020).

Of course, modern engineering technology has close associations with social thought, as illustrated by the involvement of Marxists and socialists such as William Morris and John Ruskin in town planning in England. In Japan, however, from the Meiji era onward, the introduction of modern engineering technology has been accompanied by the abandonment of traditional technologies and the philosophies attached to them. Ryotaro Shiba has characterized this attitude as "the exaltation of technology" ("*gijutsu sukōshugi* 技術崇高主義"—literally "technological sublimism"), describing Japan's lack of philosophy or beliefs regarding how the massive power of *doboku* technology should be used, or how the country should be shaped (Shiba 1996, pp. 151–152). The philosophy and beliefs attached to "civil engineering" and *fushin* have been forced to fade into the background, at least to the extent that the building of infrastructure has become its own goal, as expressed in the *doboku*  concept. In Japan today, building a house is referred to as *fushin*, and there are related terms as "*yasu bushin* 安普請" (to build a house cheaply) and "*fushin dōraku* 普請 道楽" (to enjoy building and repairing a house), but they are no longer commonly used.

#### **4 Negative Images of "***Doboku***"**

*Doboku* was a concept focused on technology, without incorporating a philosophy of how or why this technology should be used. Essentially, not enough effort was made to establish its social purpose. The question of "what is *doboku*?" was therefore a key issue from the start, especially for the JSCE. In the self-reflective process of addressing this question, the problem of negative connotations of *doboku* became a focus of attention. For example, in 1915, immediately after the JSCE was formed, its members expressed concern over the negative images of "scandal" and "impurity" that had become associated with the word *doboku*. In 1950, Haruo Matsuo conjectured that the crude and vulgar impression associated with *doboku* was due to the meaning of the word in ancient Chinese and Japanese: "careless or unadorned in appearance." He goes on to describe the people employed in *doboku* as follows:

Those employed in *doboku* simply provided labor and were as a whole devoid of culture, education, or refinement...This was not only the case in the distant past. Has it not also been the case until relatively recently? Building and civil engineering contractors are often described on the level as *pan-pan* girls [prostitutes mainly catering to Japanese and US military officers in the confusion of postwar Japan]. Until quite recently, *doboku* was regarded as the standard destination for engineering students who were more interested in drinking than study (Matsuo 1950, p. 1).

Why, then, did *doboku* become associated with these negative images? Satoshi Nakao addresses this question from an ethnological perspective, pointing out that historically, groups in Japanese society that were subject to discrimination, such as the "*hinin*," "*sakanomono,*" and "*kawaramono*," tended to be involved in infrastructurebuilding projects. He mentions the concept of "*bondo*" from the Heian period (794– 1185), a term that refers to the idea that the act of changing the natural shape of the ground through human involvement would invoke the wrath of the local gods, as the background for this tendency. Nakao cites the historical association of groups subject to discrimination with sorcery and supernatural ability as a possible factor underlying their involvement in infrastructure projects. In other words, these groups had the ability to overcome the danger of *bondo* (Nakao et al. 2015; Nakao 2018). This idea also sheds light on the historical involvement of Buddhist monks in building infrastructure, separately from the concept of *fushin* originating in temple construction. Hideyuki Ichikawa, for example, suggests that the leading role played by Buddhist monks in infrastructure projects was attributable to their ability to negotiate with and appease the local gods (Ichikawa 2009).

Another source of the negative images associated with *doboku* is criticism toward public works. As described above, from the Meiji era onward, *doboku* projects came to refer to public works projects directed by administrative bodies. This trend continued during the postwar period from 1945 onward. Infrastructure projects, such as forest and river management, the construction of roads and expressways, ports and airports, the bullet trains and subways, electrical power, water supply, and sewerage were progressively implemented, based on blueprints included in the Comprehensive National Development Plan. This infrastructure helped drive Japan's rapid economic growth in the 1960s.

At the same time, however, criticism of public works, beginning with the movement to oppose the construction of the Nagara River Estuary Weir, extended beyond the debate on individual perspectives such as "development" and the "environment," and emerged as a social issue. This criticism of public works was not limited to technological aspects, but also included social issues, as well as criticism of aspects such as the high-cost structure of public works, the nature of the construction industry, and the public works decision-making process. Anticipating later movements, it became an opportunity to ask wide-ranging questions about how public works should be undertaken (JSCE 2014).

On this point, Kosuke Tanaka has conducted a quantitative analysis of the treatment of public works in newspapers in postwar Japan. According to this analysis, public works emerged as the subject of newspaper reporting in the 1970s, around the time of the Kakuei Tanaka government. Newspapers initially presented a balance of critical and positive opinions, but critical opinions became dominant from the 1980s onward, reaching a peak during the 2000s (Tanaka 2016). These criticisms toward public works can be summarized as follows. The first type is criticism of vested interests associated with public works: specifically, criticism of the opaque systems that governed public works, including aspects such as the cozy relationship between politics and public works, collusion, and the movement of public officials into the private sector, which gave rise to the derogatory term "*dōken kokka*" (the "civil engineering state"). The second type is criticism related to the impact on the natural environment, which takes issue with the destruction of nature arising from projects such as estuary weirs, dams, and the reclamation of tidal flats. The third type is criticism related to public financing, which blames the reckless implementation of public works for a deterioration in Japan's fiscal deficit and debt (Yamaoka 2014; Tanaka 2016).

In response to this critical trend, in 1987, the JSCE held a study group called "A Consideration of the Arguments for Renaming *Doboku.*" Those who advocated replacing the term *doboku* argued that, among other things, "the term has a bad image in general" and that "(therefore) promising young students do not choose to study in this field." No conclusion was reached, however, regarding a new term that could replace *doboku* (Nakase and Kobayashi 1987, p. 24; Fujita 1993, p. 147). Changing tack, the JSCE designated November 18, 1987 "*Doboku* Day" as part of its efforts to improve the image associated with the term.

At the same time, university civil engineering (*doboku*) departments attempted to remedy the decline in the number of prospective students by changing their departmental names to various combinations of the words "environmental," "social," and "urban" (although the term "civil engineering" was retained in the English departmental names)—a trend that continued until around the turn of the millennium (Hitomi et al. 2018). There have also been attempts to renew the image associated with the Chinese characters for *doboku* in Japanese by rewriting them in a Japanese phonetic syllabary (*katakana*). In recent years, these efforts have developed into "*doboku* entertainment" aimed at the appreciation of massive (*doboku*/civil engineering) buildings and structures. The effectiveness of these efforts, however, has yet to be ascertained.

#### **5 Attempts to Establish a Philosophy of "***Doboku***"**

Even as the term *doboku* is plagued by negative images—so much so that an academic society and numerous university departments considered or actually proceeded in changing their names—there have also been attempts to establish a philosophy of *doboku*. These efforts take the form of an explanation of the historical origin of the concept of *doboku* adopted early in the Meiji era, accompanied by an attempt to establish a new philosophy: an initiative that has no evidential basis and, in reality, amounts to the "invention of tradition" (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).

For example, the *Civil Engineering Handbook (Doboku Kōgaku Handobukku)*  compiled by the JSCE in 1989 cites the ancient Chinese theory of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements—wood, fire, earth, gold, and water—of which all things are composed, to expound the idea that earth (*do*) is the central element, while wood (*boku*) represents the season of spring. Thus, in the concept of *doboku*, "the two elements of earth (*do*) and wood (*boku*) were chosen to represent new, advanced technologies that would be crucial for humans and nature" (JSCE 1989, p. 5).

In 2002, Norihito Tambo, then Chairman of the JSCE, suggested that the origin of the term *doboku* lies in the expression "*chikudo kōboku*" (literally, construction from earth and wood), which appears in the ancient Chinese text Huainanzi (Tambo 2002). Satoshi Fujii has adopted this theory of "*chikudo kōboku*" in his attempt to create a systematic philosophy of *doboku*. According to Fujii, *chikudo kōboku* refers to the work of saints to improve living conditions by piling earth (*chikudo*) and building with wood (*kōboku*) to save the people struggling to survive in a harsh environment and enable them to live in safety and security. Based on this interpretation, Fujii refutes the explanation in the *Civil Engineering Handbook (Doboku Kōgaku Handobukku),*  as follows:

This suggests that not only is the work of *chikudo kōboku* (=*doboku*) completely different from the self-interested actions of businessmen only interested in their own welfare or the contemptible acts of politicians hungry for power: it is the exact opposite. It is, in fact, "*ritagyō"* (altruistic practices) itself, practiced by "saints" and "princes," those who seek to ease the labors of the populace. From this, we can see that *doboku* is far from the concept imagined in the recent *Civil Engineering Handbook*, or by those who seem determined to denigrate it (Fujii 2014, p. 10).

Fujii goes on to interpret the English term civil engineering as the work of building civilization. "The work of gradually improving society—advancing it from a barbarian society where people steal from each other at will, and making it gradually more "civil"—is referred to as "civilization." This, then, is the work of "civil engineering (*doboku*)" (Fujii 2014, p. 121)". In this way, Fujii emphasizes the altruism and civilization associated with the concept of "*doboku*." Others have also lauded the concept of "*doboku*" as implying the aspiration to coexist with nature that was lacking from the modern Western European concept of "civil engineering." Mariko Takegami, for example, writes.

 It anticipates the awareness of civil engineers today, as they face issues such as the global destruction resulting from human technologies and the bankruptcy of modernist perceptions of nature. Does it not represent another way forward in the relationship between human technology and nature: an alternative to conquest (Takegami 2013, p. 237)?

I am not concerned with the historical accuracy of these perceptions. Rather, the important point in the context of this paper is that members of the JSCE and others have continued to consider the question "what is *doboku"*—in other words, how should it be pursued, and for what purpose? Even in recent years, the JSCE has established the "Roundtable on Public Peace Research" to consider initiatives aimed at achieving ideal *doboku*. These include: (1) the improvement and enhancement of communication with civic society; (2) the establishment of a broad and comprehensive perspective on the social contribution made by the study of *doboku*; and (3) a reevaluation of the relationship between *doboku* and society and the economy, and the recognition of new domains as the essence of the study of *doboku* (JSCE Roundtable on Public Peace Research 2018). Research into the concept of *doboku* will no doubt continue into the future, in terms of its involvement in politics, economics, society, and the environment.

#### **6 Conclusion: "***Doboku***" Redeemed**

In this paper, I have presented a summary of the emergence and development of the concept of *doboku*. What, then, are the implications of this concept in the context of development assistance? The interesting point here is that the negative image of doboku as "crude and muddy" is conversely perceived in a positive light on the front line of development assistance.

Technical cooperation to build infrastructure is one of the main pillars of Japan's official development assistance (ODA). This is cooperation through the work of individuals aimed at increasing the comprehensive capabilities of people in developing countries to enable these countries to address the development challenges they face. JICA, the organization charged with implementing Japan's ODA, has established programs to dispatch Japanese volunteer workers to engage in technical cooperation overseas, including the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCVs).

The concept of "*genba*" ("on-site" work or fieldwork "on the ground") is emphasized in development assistance (see Chap. 3). Specifically, this refers to efforts to work together with the local communities that are the recipients of the assistance. For example, the JOCV volunteers are aimed at "working together with local communities in developing countries, cooperating to develop the local economy and society." The idea of volunteers engaging in crude, unrefined labor—getting their hands dirty together with the locals—is a crucial part of these efforts to work together with local communities. For example, Hirokazu Ito, who worked on infrastructure development in Myanmar (Burma) during the 1950s as part of Japan's postwar reparations, describes how Japanese engineers, unlike those from Europe or the United States, actually lived inside the local factories. He recalls the positive perception of Japanese engineers expressed by local laborers, as follows:

In the past, the British built roads here, but the British masters never worked with us together in the jungle. There was only a Burmese foreman there to oversee the work. We're happy because the Japanese masters are working together with us. If the Japanese masters work together with us, we're happy to do any amount of work. With the Japanese masters, we're sure to complete the road we're building now (Ito 1963, p. 155).

This is a good illustration of the doctrine of Japanese-style development assistance: working in the mud together with the local laborers is a way to gain their trust, and will lead to the successful completion of the development project. This doctrine is also shared by private-sector aid organizations. For example, according to Watanabe, who analyzed the assistance activities of the Japanese Organization for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement (OISCA) in Myanmar, many of the OISCA's Japanese staff described their assistance work as "crude and muddy." Based on this, Watanabe characterizes the OISCA's central ethical standpoint in terms of "muddy labor." She identifies "muddy labor" as an important way for Japanese staff and local people to come together across cultural, national, and personal boundaries (Watanabe 2019, Chap. 4).

In this way, development assistance work "on the ground" highlights the value of practical knowledge concerning *doboku*, and redeems its negative image as "crude and muddy." This practical knowledge of *doboku* has been thoroughly ignored by previous research on the image and philosophy of the term, examined above. Conversely, it is only by removing ourselves from specifically Japanese issues, such as the ethnological background and criticism of public works, that we can see a picture emerging of the unique characteristics and potential of the practical knowledge embodied in *doboku*. It is also a down-to-earth philosophy that developed in the shadow of the ideology of "technology." Development assistance is not only a policy or academic practice, but also a practice that involves local people and nature. In this sense, by taking into account the unique logic of "*doboku*," we can more fully understand the characteristics of Japan's development assistance.

#### **References**

Tenkai [The Development of the Concept of Translation in Modern East Asia]. Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, pp 217–251

**Ryosuke Kuramoto** is Associate Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies on Asia, the University of Tokyo. His research explores anthropological and sociological approaches to religious institutions and organizations in Myanmar and Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Tokyo in 2013. He was previously Associate Professor at the Anthropological Institute, Nanzan University, before joining the University of Tokyo in 2017. He also served as a Visiting Scholar at Nanyang Technological University in 2019–2020.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## *Kaizen***: Why is It so Difficult to Understand?**

**Go Shimada**

**Abstract** Much existing research demonstrates the effectiveness of introducing *kaizen* to developing countries. The Japanese word "*kaizen*" is commonly translated into English as "continuous improvement" or simply "improvement." However, its literal translation obscures important connotations that are difficult to translate. This chapter discusses the meaning of *kaizen* and why this seemingly simple term is challenging to comprehend not only for non-native speakers but also for Japanese readers. This chapter identified three reasons why *kaizen* is challenging to understand. First, there are two different origins of *kaizen*. One focuses on quality and productivity, and the other focuses on worker protection. In many cases, people often mix these two and make it difficult to understand. Second, the worker protection aspect of *kaizen*  cannot be transferred directly to other countries as the management–labor relationship is different. Third, as the nature of *kaizen* is context specific, the entire logic is difficult to grasp. Improving the living standard of developing countries may require supplementing the implementation of the *kaizen* with additional assistance focused on safeguarding the well-being of workers.

**Keywords** Management capital · Kaizen · Workers · Labor union · SMEs

#### **1 Introduction**

*Kaizen*, a method of business management aiming for continuous operational improvements through a bottom-up, hands-on, participatory approach, has been adopted by many Japanese companies. For example, Toyota, one of Japan's leading automobile manufacturers, has adopted *kaizen* and calls it the Toyota Production System (TPS). The Japanese word *"kaizen*" is generally translated into English as "continuous improvement" or just "improvement." However, its literal translation loses important connotations which are challenging to translate. This chapter

G. Shimada (B)

Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024

J. Sato and S. Kim (eds.), *The Semantics of Development in Asia*, The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1215-1\_3

discusses the meaning of *kaizen*, its significance in the context of international cooperation, and why this seemingly simple term is difficult to understand, not just for foreigners but even for Japanese people. This chapter first discusses what kaizen is and how it became an important policy tool in Japan's ODA. Section 3 discusses why *kaizen* became an essential policy tool. Session 4 then identifies three reasons why it is challenging to understand *kaizen*. Section 5 provides a conclusion. Readers familiar with *kaizen* and its background may wish to skip Sects. 2 and 3 and directly go to Sect. 4.

#### **2 What is** *Kaizen***?—Continuous Operational Improvements Through a Bottom-Up, Hands-On, Participatory Approach**

As described at the start of this chapter, *Kaizen* refers to "improvement" or "continuous improvement" and is also known as TPS. *Kaizen* originated from initiatives in Japan after the Second World War with strategic aid from the United States, as discussed later in Sect. 4.1. 1 After the *kaizen's* success in Japan, it was popularized in the United States by Imai's (1986) English-language bestseller *Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success*. It was received with interest, and the Japanese word "*kaizen*" became a commonly used term in Europe and the United States. The interest generated by *kaizen* in the United States was attributable to the historical background of the era. The 1980s was an era of economic stagnation in the United States, and there was a sense of urgency: if US companies could not improve on Fordism, which had been the dominant approach since the Second World War, then they would no longer be able to compete with Japanese companies. In this context, *kaizen* was introduced as the essence of "Japanese business management" and advocated as an improvement on Fordism.

*Kaizen* has been variously defined within Japan and in the context of international development (Hosono, Page, and Shimada 2020; Ohno and Bodek 2019; Sonobe and Otsuka 2014; Imai 1986, 2005; Ohno 1982). However, the concept of *kaizen* as "continuous operational improvements through a bottom-up, hands-on, participatory approach" is common to all these definitions. As illustrated in Fig. 1, this concept is more easily understood in contrast to the "top-down, specialist-led approach" common in Europe and the United States, of which Fordism is a representative example.

Fordism refers to a style of production introduced in the 1910s by the automobile maker Ford. Fordism arose from the management philosophy known as Taylorism. Its salient points include a top-down approach, with management making decisions that workers then implement. Fordism was first introduced in an era of intense labor union strikes. The factory would cease production whenever Ford's skilled workers went on strike. Fordism was devised to enable factories to continue operation by reducing the dependence on skilled workers. Specifically, work was deconstructed

**Fig. 1** Differences between Fordism and *Kaizen* (prepared by the author)

into "simple, repetitive tasks" that even relatively unskilled workers could perform in the following ways.

In this way, Fordism enabled factories to maintain efficient production by employing low-skilled labor without risking a broad group of skilled workers going on strike. The top-down approach is a feature of Fordism, with workers perceived not so much as autonomous actors but rather as subservient to the orders of their superiors. This aspect is very different from the *kaizen* approach.

Unlike in Fordism, workers in the *kaizen* approach are not units that can be replaced at will; instead, they participate in running the workplace through quality control circles (QCC), thereby raising their motivation. The QCCs are groups that voluntarily promote quality control activities on their own. Continuous, incremental improvements in work efficiency are achieved through a bottom-up approach to eliminating *muda*, processes or activities that do not add value (Ihara 2016; Shimada and Sonobe 2021; Hosono, Page, and Shimada 2020).<sup>2</sup>

The critical point here is to find ways to improve the "motivation (*yaruki*)" of workers on the factory floor (*genba*). The *genba* is seen not as the site of tension between management and workers but as a forum for obtaining workers' agreement and encouraging autonomous work. This is quite different from Fordism's approach of "segmenting and standardizing work to transform it into repetitive tasks." Workers at the companies that inspired *kaizen* strive autonomously to find solutions to their problems on the factory floor (*genba*), even amid ambiguity, uncertainty, and imperfection.

At the core of *kaizen* lies a *genba-centered* philosophy (see Chap. 3). Rather than perceiving workers as units that can be replaced, the idea of *kaizen* is to empower workers to improve the company's productivity rather than to replace them (Hosono et al. 2020; Shimada and Sonobe 2021; Shimada 2015). As Shimada (2017 and 2019) discussed, this approach is one response to the concept of "decent work" promoted by the International Labor Organization (ILO). *Kaizen* was influenced by the ILO's Declaration of Philadelphia in 1944, which rejected the view of labor as a commodity and emphasized the importance of cooperation between management and workers to achieve greater productivity. This sparked the movement in postwar Japan toward "productivity improvement," described later in this chapter.

#### **3 Why Has** *Kaizen* **Become a Vital Development Policy in Recent Years?**

*Kaizen* is also an important policy tool for the Japanese government's Official Development Assistance (ODA). The late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe mentioned the importance of *kaizen* when he addressed the opening sessions of the Fifth and Sixth Tokyo International Conferences on African Development (TICAD) held in 2013 and 2016, respectively. He identified *kaizen* as a crucial way of supporting Africa through ODA. Subsequently, private-sector projects have expanded to support *kaizen*  in many African countries, such as Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Ghana. These efforts are not limited to Africa. Beginning with *kaizen* support in Singapore, cooperation on *kaizen* has also been implemented through ODA in other regions in Asia, the Middle and Near East, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere (Hosono et al. 2020; Shimada et al. 2013).

Neither is the use of *kaizen* in Japan's international development cooperation limited to support for companies. It has also been adopted in the context of occupational training, health care (the Better Hospital Services program, for example) (JICA 2022), and a movement for improving living conditions. Essentially, *kaizen*  has been implemented across various regions and sectors, especially in the US and Europe, and is crucial to understanding Japan's international cooperation.

Two factors underpin the increased importance of *kaizen* as a policy for international development in recent years. The first factor is the reevaluation of industrial policy by international aid donors. Industrial policy is government policy intervening in a market, and *kaizen* is considered as one of a tool for industrial policy. In cases of international official aid, it is the government that introduces *kaizen* for private firms (Shimada 2015, 2017, 2019; Noman and Stiglitz 2015, 2017; Noman, Stiglitz and Kanbur 2019; Higuchi and Shimada 2019). There has been an increasing focus on guiding corporate managers in developing countries using *kaizen* as one aspect of industrial policy.

The reevaluation of industrial policy began with the World Bank's revision of market fundamentalism (a neo-classical standpoint in terms of economic theory, often referred to as "the Washington Consensus"). Since the 1980s, the World Bank has argued that governments should not interfere in markets. To this end, it directed policies aimed at reducing the role of governments, advocating "structural adjustment financing" and "business climate improvement." These approaches effectively disfavored policies aimed at introducing *kaizen* as a part of government industrial policy.

The debate on industrial policy between Justin Lin and Ha-Joon Chang provided the catalyst that changed this approach (Lin and Chang 2009). At the time, Justin Lin was Chief Economist at the World Bank. Ha-Joon Chang, a Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, is renowned for his research in economic history, showing that industrial policy was the key to economic development in countries such as the US and the UK. He argued that industrial policy does not necessarily follow the country's comparative advantage (Chang 2002). After their debate on the role of governments, Lin advocated a neo-structuralist economic approach, proposing a more proactive industrial policy in line with the comparative advantage of a country (Lin 2014), but this was met with intense resistance from the mainstream economists within the World Bank, which opposed such intervention. Eventually, Lin chose to leave the World Bank. This debate continued to influence the aid community even after Lin's departure from the World Bank. The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), a major private-sector donor committee, also began discussing industrial policy following this debate.

At the same time, a series of research projects conducted by a group including Prof. Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University), this author, and others began to discuss *kaizen* in contexts such as the revision of the approach to industrial policy and the consideration of approaches to development financing (Shimada 2015, 2017, 2019; Noman and Stiglitz 2015; Noman and Stiglitz 2017; Noman, Stiglitz, and Kanbur 2019).3 As part of this trend, the UK Overseas Development Institute (ODI) also produced a paper considering the role of *kaizen* as a tool of industrial policy (Lemma 2018). The reassessment of the importance of support for companies in developing countries—in the context of this revival of industrial policy by donors—was an essential factor underlying Japan's more active implementation of *kaizen* support.

The second factor behind the increased importance of *kaizen* as a policy in recent years is the change in the tone of the development economics debate that coincided with the reevaluation of industrial policy. Until then, development economists had proposed that the economies of developing countries could not grow because of a lack of funding and technology (the gap approach). This approach changed with the spreading recognition of the greater importance of "management capital"—the ability to manage money, infrastructure, and technology and devise ways to generate profits from them (Bruhn et al. 2010; Shimada 2015; Shimada and Sonobe 2021; Mano et al. 2012; McKenzie and Woodruff 2014; Suzuki et al. 2014; Higuchi et al. 2019). The concept of management capital refers to the ability to manage a company. This could include *kaizen.*4 The acceptance of management capital produced a great deal of research, with organizations such as the World Bank also launching studies, which continue to this day (Dinh et al. 2012).

In this way, donors' reassessment of industrial policy and the increased importance of management capital in development economics gave rise to the new focus on *kaizen* cooperation mentioned at the start of the chapter in contexts including Japan's international cooperation. However, it is sometimes difficult to understand what *kaizen* is. The following section will discuss why it is challenging.

#### **4 The Difficulty of Translating** *Kaizen*

#### *4.1 Can* **Kaizen** *Be Implemented Outside Japan?*

The concept of *kaizen* is sometimes considered deeply rooted in Japanese history and culture. Indeed, it has been argued that it is impossible to comprehend *kaizen* without an understanding of Japanese culture. For example, Taiichi Ohno, who codified TPS at Toyota, characterizes the concept of *kaizen* as "difficult to grasp."

It started as part of an attempt to develop original methods suited to Japan's economic climate. Ideas that were practiced and emphasized in this context—like the "*kanban*" system<sup>5</sup> and "automation" written with the addition of the character for "human"—were explicitly **designed to prevent other companies, especially those in developed countries, from understanding them: to make it difficult even to guess at their meaning. In this respect, perhaps it is inevitable that they are challenging to grasp** (Ohno 1978, p. 9; emphasis added by the author).

That is to say, Ohno characterizes *kaizen* as challenging to understand because it was deliberately made to be so. Takahiro Fujimoto (2001) criticizes this ambiguity, arguing that kaizen is neither necessarily a new concept nor unique to Japan, so he believes the popularization of *kaizen* as "Japanese" was an obfuscation. Rather, Fujimoto argues that *kaizen* is nothing more than the basics of industrial engineering (IE). Meanwhile, Womack et al. (1991) refer to TPS as a Lean production system (or Lean method) and conceptualize it as a more universal management method, not limited to Toyota. In light of this discussion, *kaizen*, far from being a difficult concept to grasp, appears to be a remarkably coherent management technique.

In other words, *kaizen* has been discussed in two completely different ways: on the one hand, as a "distinctively" Japanese management method, and, on the other, as a "universal" management technique. Likewise, in the on-site (*genba*) implementation of Japan's international cooperation, there are two different approaches to the *kaizen*  concept, depending on the project. For implementing some projects, it is considered necessary to teach about Japan's culture and other aspects, while for others, only universal methods such as the Lean production systems are taught. For this reason, there are often substantial differences between the content of projects, even among those referred to as "*kaizen* projects." These differences also obfuscate the meaning of *kaizen.*

There are three reasons why these differences in content arose. The first reason is the dual origins of *kaizen*. The concept of *kaizen* has two separate origins. The differences in origins are reflected in the differences in the content of *kaizen* projects. The second is the business management differences between Japanese-style and foreign companies. The third is its context-specific nature. The following three subsections discuss each reason in turn.

#### *4.2 Why Did These Differences in Content Arise?*

First, this section focuses on the first reason mentioned above: the issue of the dual origin of *kaizen*. Two organizations—the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) and the Japan Productivity Center (JPC)—played a significant role in introducing the concept of *kaizen* to Japan. The JUSE focused on "quality improvement," inviting Dr. W. Edward Deming from the United States, who introduced the quality control circle (QCC: small group improvement activities) method to Japanese companies. To this day, Dr. Deming's name is well known in Japan, and the prestigious Deming Prize is named after him, awarded to an organization for its implementation of TQM (total quality management).

By contrast, the JPC was established in 1955 to receive strategic assistance from the United States. The purpose of this assistance was not limited to "productivity improvement" but also explicitly incorporated "worker protection" to support labor unions. The aim of worker protection represents a significant difference between the JUSE's "quality improvement" and the JPC's "productivity improvement." The following section will discuss the cause of this difference before examining how these *kaizen* concepts were implemented in international cooperation.<sup>6</sup>

The emergence of a strong worker protection theme in the JPC's productivity improvement initiatives is attributable to their implementation as a part of the strategic assistance provided to Japan by the United States. This aid was provided in the Cold War context as an anti-communist policy. The United States aimed to keep Japan's labor unions on side with the social-democratic "Western" side rather than with laborfriendly communist Soviet sympathizers. Rising wages were seen as one means to convince workers of the value of social-democratic capitalist principles rather than Marx's communism (for detailed discussions of this point, see Shimada 2017, 2018a, b, c and Nakakita 2008).

From the end of the Second World War until the mid-1950s, Japanese companies were subject to antagonism between management and workers, with frequent strikes. The initial introduction of productivity improvement to Japan through US assistance in 1955 gave rise to a vehement backlash from labor unions, particularly the General Council of Trade Unions of Japan (JCTU, commonly known as Sohyō). Unions were deeply concerned that productivity improvement would lead to reduced employment. To reduce these concerns, labor union leaders were also sent to the United States along with corporate managers such as Taiichi Ohno, who, as Toyota's Vice President, introduced *kaizen* to the company from the US. This was intended to reinforce the idea that productivity increases would be clearly reflected in workers' pay and win over skeptical ("Soviet-leaning") labor union leaders. As Japanese companies had an adversarial relationship with labor unions, they initially deeply opposed involving worker protection or labor unions in productivity improvement. However, at the insistence of the United States (especially the US Embassy in Tokyo), worker protection was included as an objective of US productivity improvement assistance to Japan.

Essentially, the differences between the JUSE and the JPC can be defined as a difference between the JUSE's focus on quality and productivity from a management perspective and the JPC's approach to productivity with consideration for labor unions.

These two original approaches are variously adopted in the implementation of *kaizen* projects. The *kaizen* initiatives currently implemented by JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) and other organizations in locations such as hospitals emphasize worker protection to prevent the infection of healthcare workers. In contrast, little mention is made of worker protection or labor unions in JICA's *kaizen*  projects targeting companies, partly because labor issues are often delicate. Thus, the approach adopted by ODA *kaizen* projects targeting companies is close to that initially espoused by the JUSE.

In fact, *kaizen* did not appear in the names of JICA projects until after the second half of the 2000s. Previously, such projects were all characterized as quality or productivity improvement projects. These projects came to be called *kaizen* projects as a part of domestic publicity to make them easier to understand for Japanese people. However, they rarely incorporate worker protection.

#### *4.3 The Distinctiveness of Japan's System of Business Management*

The second reason for the difference in *kaizen* comes from Japan's distinctiveness in business management. To consider this, let us first examine if *kaizen* is easy to transfer overseas. The answer is "yes and no." To begin with, *kaizen* was initially introduced to Japan from the US as a management method aimed at improving quality and productivity. In fact, it is not a peculiarly Japanese concept but rather a universal management technique, as discussed by Fujimoto (2001). Thus, it can be introduced and transferred from one country to another. In this sense, the answer is "yes."

However, not all *kaizen* aspects can be easily transferred, especially worker protection. Worker protection includes raising workers' wages, improving occupational safety, and, most importantly, encouraging labor unions to form. This is not easy to transfer because of the significant differences between Japan and other countries in employment practices and labor unions. That is why the answer is "yes and no." What are the distinctive factors of Japan's system?

The Japanese business management systems can be summarized under three headings: (1) company-based labor unions, (2) lifetime employment, and (3) seniority systems. Unlike in many countries, where labor unions are formed across an industry or sector (industry-based labor unions), each labor union in Japan is formed in a single company (company-based labor unions). Many large companies in Japan have also incorporated a system of lifetime employment, where employees are expected to work at the same company from when they graduate from university until they reach the designated retirement age, often 60 years old. In addition, the compensation system is structured so that pay increases are based on seniority (age). These systems differ substantially, not only from those of Europe and the United States, but also from those used in developing countries. These are very different from other countries and make *kaizen* challenging to understand.

The relationship between employment and productivity is essential to understanding *kaizen*. An increase in productivity will lead to a reduction in the number of workers. *Kaizen* aims to increase productivity, which will result in fewer workers. Those who engage in *kaizen* will effectively put themselves out of a job. As stated at the beginning of the chapter, *kaizen* refers to "operational improvements through a bottom-up, hands-on, participatory approach." Why, then, would workers be motivated to engage in this bottom-up, hands-on, participatory approach if it might lead to unemployment?

Japanese workers' proactive engagement in productivity improvement is supported by systems such as lifetime employment (workers are guaranteed a job) and company-based—rather than industry-based—labor unions. Even if they have engaged in *kaizen* to improve productivity, their employment has been guaranteed. So they do not have to worry about their job even if they engage in *kaizen*. The nature of relations between employers and workers varies widely in developing countries where international cooperation projects are implemented. While some countries (such as South Africa and many countries in Latin America) have strong, organized labor unions, some do not. In some countries, workers are in a position to oppose management. In others, workers are at the mercy of overwhelmingly powerful employers. In this context, the worker protection aspect of *kaizen*, which is deeply rooted in the distinctive Japanese business management system, cannot be directly applied in a foreign context.

The description of the *kaizen* approach is often understood in Japan in relation to the existence of Japanese company-based labor unions, seniority systems, and lifetime employment. If a country does not guarantee continuous employment for workers, it is difficult for them to engage in *kaizen* because it might result in unemployment in the future. This is why the topic of *kaizen*, although it may appear simple to comprehend, requires an understanding of business management systems specific to Japan. In other words, even if *kaizen* has universal features, it also has distinctive Japanese features.

#### *4.4 The Context-Specific Nature of* **Kaizen**

As discussed so far, even in the Japanese domestic context, two different perspectives on *kaizen* have long existed: the corporate perspective of *kaizen* in terms of quality and productivity and the perspective of workers. This duality is linked to the ambiguity of the term and the various meanings that it has taken on.

The third reason why *kaizen* is challenging to understand is its context-specific nature. There is a pervasive attitude within the basic *kaizen* approach that "important on-site (*genba*) matters must be considered on-site (*genba*)." This *genba-shugi* (a belief in the hands-on or on-site approach) further obscures the meaning of *kaizen*  (see Chap. 3, this volume). As discussed in the previous section, *kaizen* refers to efforts to find appropriate "on-site" solutions to improve productivity, in contrast to production improvements based on Fordism, a top-down approach, or formal solutions prescribed by experts. The direction of *kaizen* improvements is, therefore, completely unpredictable. This makes it a very challenging method from an organizational management perspective. At the same time, *kaizen* does not seek a "definition" or "formula" for its solutions but instead seeks to find "solutions adapted to the specific situation (*genba*)." Solutions will differ depending on the company and specific context.

For this reason, in any discussion of *kaizen*, it is necessary to understand the "context" to comprehend the term's meaning. In other words, *kaizen* is not the "application of a predefined methodology" but rather "the discovery of solutions in the context of each company or specific situation (*genba*)"—not "logic" but "context." In Japan, it is often necessary to "read the room" or "read between the lines" according to TPO (time, place, and occasion). This is undoubtedly also linked to the emphasis on *genba* at Japanese companies.

However, this overemphasis on the search for *genba*-based solutions also produces scattered effects rather than an overall logic. Despite its simple definition, the content indicated by the term *kaizen* defies clear description and has taken on extremely broad connotations. Consequently, *kaizen* has become an enigmatic term. This is not simply an issue of translation: the substance of *kaizen* itself is also plural and context dependent.

#### *4.5 Criticisms of* **Kaizen**

This chapter has identified three reasons for the challenging nature of translating *kaizen*. So far, this chapter has regarded *kaizen* as a useful management tool, but it also attracts severe criticisms in Japan. Though not issues of translation and definition, these conflicting perceptions also partly contribute to the ambiguity of the nature of *kaizen*.

*Kaizen* has been the target of criticism on two points: the intensification of labor and the bullying of subcontractors (Kamata 1973; Aoki 1978).7 The latter has become a social issue. Then Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda was even questioned about the matter at a meeting of the Budget Committee in Japan's House of Representatives (Ihara 2017). These discussions are based on workers' perspectives against *kaizen*, against the paternalistic tone of employers' perspectives. The involvement of workers, which is essential for *kaizen*, occurs *inside* a company (or its union) and mainly among its permanent employees under lifetime employment. However, though lifetime employment is a general feature of Japanese management, a great many workers are *not* employed under stable work conditions. The demands from companies toward subcontractors have sometimes been intense. Rather than management pressuring regular employees, permanent employees, encouraged to raise productivity by their stake in the company, may pile pressure on temporary employees and subcontractors, who often feel as though they can be more easily cut.

This situation is further complicated by the fact that labor unions themselves have assumed different approaches. In some cases, conflicting standpoints result from two competing labor unions established at the same company, one dominated by company management—called the "subservient union (*Goyō Kumiai*)," and the other union called the "second union (*Daini Kumiai*)," which is more combative and archetypically closer to the communist party of Japan. The "subservient" labor unions prioritize adherence to the interests of corporate management. In many companies, joining unions was a crucial step for employees to progress in their careers. In the past, those who chaired such unions—Ichiro Shioji, Secretary-General at Nissan Union, for example—could acquire substantial power inside companies. In the case of Ichiro Shioji, his power was so mighty that he was even called a "labor aristocrat."

At the same time, those "second unions" engaged in combative activities quite distinct from this cooperative approach to industrial relations, taking positions antagonistic to corporate management. Their stance on *kaizen* is also critical because it is regarded as intensifying the workload for workers and bullying subcontractors. Thus, even among labor unions, there was a difference of opinion on the assessment of *kaizen* regarding how employees should be made to work.

#### **5 Conclusion**

As described in this chapter, *kaizen* refers to a management method to achieve continuous operational improvement through a bottom-up, hands-on, participatory approach. However, *kaizen* is sometimes extremely difficult not just to translate but to understand for foreigners and Japanese people alike. Three reasons were identified in this chapter. First are the dual origins of *kaizen*: Dr. Deming's "quality and productivity approach" articulated by the JUSE and the "worker approach" articulated by the JPC with strategic aid from the United States as an anti-communist policy. The existence of these two different streams has led to ambiguity in the term *kaizen*. The second reason relates to Japan's business management system (lifetime employment, company-based labor union, and seniority system). Employment practices, which are a prerequisite for understanding *kaizen*, have historically been very different between Japan and other countries. The last reason is its context-specific nature. *Kaizen* seeks solutions adapted to the specific situation rather than predefined solutions. The term has multiple meanings but is frequently used without recognizing its ambiguity. Rather than being difficult to translate, it is difficult to understand the term unambiguously.

Though there is much-existing research demonstrating the effectiveness of introducing *kaizen* to developing countries, a few points must be considered regarding the transfer of *kaizen* through international cooperation. Japan is home to a characteristically Japanese style of business management centered on company-based labor unions, seniority systems, and lifetime employment. This differs substantially from business management systems in other countries. Worker protection in Japan has been premised on Japanese-style business management. Therefore, the worker protection aspect of *kaizen* cannot be transferred directly to other countries where conditions are different. Neither should *kaizen* in other countries be characterized in terms of how it is implemented in Japan. This is because of the inevitable difference in the level of commitment to, and by, the company between lifetime employees and other employees.

When introducing *kaizen* in a foreign country, it is vital to comprehend it in relation to differences in labor conditions and management practices. Cooperation based on the recognition of these differences will aid mutual understanding. Moreover, introducing *kaizen* overseas may not increase workers' pay as it has in Japan. It is also uncertain whether employment will grow as a result. To improve the living standard of developing countries, it would be necessary to complement *kaizen* with some additional support in the area of worker protection, depending on the country's situation. More research is needed on what kinds of worker protection are needed to support the *kaizen* approach.

#### **Notes**

#### **References**

. .

Aoki S (1978) Toyota Sono Jitsujō [The Real Toyota]. Chobunsha

Lemma, AF (2018) The role of kaizen in economic transformation. ODI Working Paper (533)

**Go Shimada** is Professor at Meiji University and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Development Studies. He is a Board Member of the Japan Society of International Development and the PEP (Partnership for Economic Policy). Before these roles, Shimada was Visiting Scholar at Columbia University and Associate Professor at the University of Shizuoka. He also worked for JICA for over two decades in various capacities: as a Senior Research Fellow at the JICA Research Institute, Special Assistant to the President in the Office of the President, and First Secretary at the Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations in New York. Shimada holds a Ph. D. from Waseda University and an M.A. with distinction in development economics from the University of Manchester.

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## *Genba-Shugi***: Understanding Through a Hands-On Approach**

**Naoki Matsubara**

**Abstract** This chapter discusses the concept of *genba-shugi* by focusing on two contexts in which the term has been used: as an aspect of Japanese-style business management, and in technical cooperation and organizational reform at JICA. This focus on people close to the *genba* (on the ground, in the field, or at the locality) emphasizes the superiority of their know-how and initiative above those of imaginary rivals: Western-style organizations and domestic bureaucratic government bodies. Each of these contexts share a focus on feelings and experiences, against abstract "models" from developed countries or strategic plans of central government, respectively. They are also leveraged to further specific agendas by arguing against their supposed antitheses—Western engineers and business management in the better-known cases; and Japan's centralized bureaucracy in the case of JICA.

**Keywords** Genba · Headquarters · Field offices · Japanese-style management

#### **1 What Gave Rise to** *Genba-Shugi***?**

In Japan's international development aid, the concept of *genba-shugi* (the hands-on approach) is widely used. At times, the recommendations of researchers and highlevel bureaucrats can even be criticized as absurd opinions that have no understanding of what is happening at the *genba*—on the ground, in the field, or at the locality. This is reflected in everyday expressions, such as "*genba* hyakkai", we should visit the *genba* as often as possible, or "everything starts from the *genba*".

However, both constituent words of *genba-shugi*, "*genba*" and "*shugi*", are polysemous. Their meaning depends on the context in which they are used. The purpose of this chapter is to elucidate the various contributions to *genba-shugi* as a concept. Before entering the main discussion, I will begin by reviewing these terms.

In business management, an explanation of the word *genba* has been attempted in English. For example, the Cambridge Business Dictionary (2022) explains the *genba*

N. Matsubara (B)

Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024

J. Sato and S. Kim (eds.), *The Semantics of Development in Asia*, The University of Tokyo Studies on Asia, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-1215-1\_4

as follows1: "In Japanese business theory, the place where things happen in manufacturing, used to say that people whose job is to manufacture products are in a good place to make improvements in the manufacturing process." Rather than the place itself, it implies a space "where events happen, experiences are gained, knowledge is generated and shared, the intrinsic becomes explicit, and intangible becomes tangible" (Macpherson 2013, p. 16). Macpherson (2013), who studies Japanese manufacturing sites, points out *genba* is not limited to "just a physical place," as portrayed in much of the "anglosphere literature."

The term may be used in ways not explained by any of these. For example, the expression "*genba no koe*" (literally "the voice of the *genba*") refers not only to the opinions and comments expressed by people in the *genba* but also feelings and emotions that cannot be conveyed through text. *Genba* is much more than just a place: it also encompasses the people in the place, their movements and interactions, and even physical sensations too subtle for words. Adding the suffix "*shugi*" (roughly equivalent to "-ism" in English) to this term makes its meaning even harder to grasp. This is because *shugi* denotes more than the policies or attitudes of individuals; it encompasses the principles and fundamental rules espoused by groups and organizations. Thus, in addition to defying easy translation into English, the term "*genba-shugi*" is a difficult concept to explain accurately even in Japanese.

Almost none of the previous research on *genba-shugi* provides a rigorous examination of the exact meaning of the term. Rather, it tends to provide hints at the meaning through individual case studies. The business history researcher Yamashita (2010), for example, describes existing research as "dependent on specific case studies and limited data, using *genba-shugi* as a concept to explore their various characteristics" (Yamashita 2010, p. 86). The tendency of the term *genba-shugi* to obfuscate the point being made and the resultant difficulty of using it for rigorous analysis have caused it to fall out of use among researchers. At the same time, however, it has been adopted by businesspeople and politicians as a convenient concept that "enables the user to express a variety of elements collectively" (Yamashita 2010, p. 87).2

The origin of these discussions on *genba-shugi* can be traced back to the time when Japanese companies were expanding their production bases around the world amid a trend toward globalization. When Japanese companies began to transfer their techniques and knowledge, they became aware of differences in attitudes between Japanese technical staff and local engineers at overseas production bases. These differences came to be explained through the use of the term *genba-shugi*. Today, the term is used by engineers and students of business management as well as by politicians and business administrators, especially those at the top of organizations, with the meaning left conveniently ambiguous.3

Questioning the various contributions to *genba-shugi* as a concept, I will specifically focus on three contexts. Section 2 discusses *genba-shugi* in the context of Japanese engineers and business management, where the term has been discussed most vigorously. Section 3 discusses *genba-shugi* as a specific characteristic of Japan's development assistance, particularly technical cooperation. And Sect. 4 discusses *genba-shugi* as used by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the organization responsible for implementing development assistance provided by the Japanese government. This last is studied because the examples presented in Sects. 2 and 3 no longer adequately explain the term, given its recent emergence in the context of politics, public administration, and organizations, as described above. Comparing the various contexts in which the term *genba-shugi* has been used will reveal their shared emphasis on the superiority and initiative of the user.

#### **2 The Discovery of "Japanese-Style" Engineers and Companies in Manufacturing**

The emergence of *genba-shugi*—particularly as it relates to engineers and technical staff—was related to the discovery of different local cultures of production and labor as Japanese companies expanded their production bases overseas from the second half of the 1970s through the 1980s. Until that time, overseas expansion by Japanese companies had consisted of the establishment of foreign sales bases aimed at enhancing sales networks. Subsequently, the dramatic rise in exports by Japanese companies from the era of rapid economic growth until the time of the oil crisis made it necessary to resolve trade frictions with countries in Southeast Asia and Europe, and with the United States (Ueno 1986, pp. 242–245). At around the same time, Japanese companies, facing the challenge of rising export product prices due to an appreciating yen, responded by moving production bases overseas (Ueno 1986, pp. 242–245; Cabinet Office 2012).

These companies attempted to introduce Japanese-style factory systems at these overseas production bases in Southeast Asia, Europe, and the United States by transferring technology to local employees (Ueno 1986, pp. 245–247). The Japanesestyle factory systems refer to systems where engineers enter the production site to improve manufacturing processes and quality control through dialogue with onsite employees. The reluctance of locally hired engineers to personally engage with people and processes on the factory floor (*seisan genba*) became a subject of attention for Japanese researchers in fields such as business management and economic history (Yoneyama 1985; Dore 1987; Imano 1990). These differing attitudes provided ideal research material for academic fields concerned with the different developmental routes taken by Japan compared to those in Europe and the United States. A growing body of literature identified this engagement with the *genba* as a key success factor in Japanese-style business management.

*Genba-shugi* was already becoming widely accepted as a special feature of Japanese companies during the second half of the 1980s. For example, the Japan Economic Research Institute (1987) summarized its vision for the new industrial era as follows: