日本政治經濟體制是發展型國家理論之經驗基礎，之後引起政學界對東亞政經發展模式和英美政經發展模式孰優的辯論。然而1990年代日本陷入長期經濟停滯。雖然日本採取不少解除管制、構造改革和財政擴大的政策，但迄今並顯著好轉跡象。日本政經體制在1990年代前後的兩極表現，使日本研究學界重新思考日本政經體制，產生不少理論上的爭論。本文期望藉由對日本政經發展研究的「理論發展」，依理論發展階段、理論微調階段、理論遭受挑戰階段、理論重整階段等四個階段作一批判性的回顧與評論，最後提出未來可能的研究綱領。 Japan’s political economy once was the empirical foundations of Capitalist Developmental Statism or named East Asian model, a rival argument on economic development against the Anglo-Saxon model supported by the liberal or free market orthodoxy. However, Japanese economy was becoming in depression since the last decade of 20th century. Japan takes some political economic reform packages, said deregulation, structure reforms and fiscal expanding, but the economy is still dismal over the first decade of 21th century. The up before 1990s and down after 1990s of Japanese economy forced the Japan researchers rethinking and raising controversy over the nature of changing Japan’s political economy. This article reviews critically the “evolution of theories”in studies of Japan political economy in four stages of theory development: theory building, theory adjusting, theory under challenging, and theory revising, therefore proposes some research suggestions for next decade.
