Building for the Future - A Comparative Analysis of High Speed Rail Development

This paper examines the ability of high-speed rail transportation projects to achieve sustainable development outcomes within the context of governance. It analyzes three case studies - the Tokaido Shinkansen in Japan, China High-Speed Rail, and California High-Speed Rail - to examine the how differences in regime type, levels of democracy, and rule of law affect the successful design, construction, and implementation of these diverse systems. The paper first analyzes the historical context of each project and highlights how the respective systems of government in each country influence the proposal and planning phases of public infrastructure projects. The paper then analyzes how construction timelines and costs are impacted by the myriad stakeholders in large scale projects and how original intentions can be obscured by special interest groups. Then, for the cases of Japan and China, it examines how accountability to safety and quality standards differs greatly from democratic to non-democratic regimes and introduces key efficiency tradeoffs which are central to broader regime type debates. Lastly, the paper examines the success or projected success of each system at achieving its stated goals as well as more generalized outcomes of sustainable development within social, economic, and environmental dimensions. This paper finds that within the context of high-speed rail development, unitary systems provide greater coordination and efficiency in planning and construction, although democratic institutions are necessary to safeguard critical social and environmental goals. It finds that transparency and accountability are directly related to the safety of a project in both construction and operation. Moreover, the paper finds that although local autonomy and decentralized authority are purported to protect the inequitable distribution of gains, many of the outcomes at stake in California were successfully achieved by unitary and autocratic regimes in Japan and China, respectively. Acknowledging the difficulty of comparing systems of at various stages of development, the paper concludes that some level of democracy and rule of law are critical to achieving holistic and equitable sustainable development through high-speed rail. Nonetheless, the tradeoffs of efficiency and decentralization should be weighed carefully, as it is likely that some optimal balance exists.