The State and Industrial Followers: Japanese Versus French Computer Strategy, 1960s–1980s

Within the advanced capitalist world, Japan and France have normally been the main examples of strong, interventionist states. From the 1960s onwards, government policy in each nation attempted to cultivate a domestically based computer industry in response to American dominance. This seemed to be parallel cases of strong states attempting to target an industry in order to catch up. However, by the start of the 1980s it was clear that French policy had failed, whereas Japan was relatively successful. We explain this difference by stressing that Japanese policy was ultimately more market conforming. This occurred because Japanese companies were less dependent on government financing and procurement for their business compared to French counterparts. In short, the Japanese state had less power over its domestic computer companies than did the French state. This national difference in ‘state strength’, i.e., state-business power relations, accounts for a negotiated pattern of industrial restructuring in Japan compared to the predominantly state-led pattern in France.