Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article asks the questions: Did the DPJ engage in crisis response and management differently than the LDP did? If so, why? If not, why not? In order to try to answer these questions systematically I use an inductive comparative method of choosing three equivalent 'cases' each under the LDP and the DPJ in which they responded to a similar type of crisis. The crises selected were Okinawa bases issues in 1995 (LDP) and 2009 (DPJ), Senkaku Islands under the LDP (2008) and DPJ (2010), and the Hanshin quake in 1995 (LDP) and Fukushima in 2011 (DPJ). This gave me a nice mix of intense, short-term cases to compare; one domestic (disaster-related), and two foreign (Okinawa bases with US; Senkaku/Daiyou conflict with China); coalition governments under LDP and DPJ (2009) of different kinds vs. single-party (other DPJ). A very brief description of each crisis will be followed by some generalizations comparing the two parties' responses. I find that both parties had similar problems with information management, but that there were characteristic and predictable trade-offs of their different party decisionmaking structures and relations with the national bureaucracy. Finally, I mention some of the inherent structural problems of Japanese politics and policymaking that inhibit effective response regardless of the party in power.

Japan's foreign economic policy has undergone two crucial changes in the past decade and a half: first the shift from predominantly US-Japan bilateralism to the addition of regional multilateralism, and the recent extension to regional bilateral FTAs for the first time. To what extent did these shifts in Japan's behavior in the trade area represent a deep shift in the purposes and goals of Japanese foreign economic policy? This article looks at how American policy changes and developments in the US-Japan relationship, and economic globalization, produced the changes in Japan's domestic policy thinking and process that led to these outcomes and to the particular pattern of development of these policy shifts... (Pacific Review/DÜI)

Examines the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation; acknowledges role of middle and smaller powers, such as Australia and ASEAN countries, but argues that Japan and the US played a more major role.

The Importance of Japan's Political Economy: The importance of Japan's political economy probably will be more obvious than any other subject concerning Japanese politics. Being the world's second largest economy and the United States' greatest overseas trading partner, and with increasing Japanese investment in America, the politics and policy-making that affect Japan's industry and economy probably have a more direct impact on the lives of more Americans than any other subject concerning a foreign country that American students can study.With increasing friction over trade and investment beginning to undermine the United States-Japan relationship, one that former Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield liked to call the most important bilateral relationship in the world, Japan's political economy has become the stuff of daily newspaper headlines for many Americans. How much, how, and how well the Japanese state intervenes in the economy to promote economic growth has probably received more attention in the United States in recent years than any other topic concerning Japan. Words previously unfamiliar to American ears, such as "industrial policy," "targeting," "MITI," keiretsu, and so forth, are now common in the American media and in policy debates in Washington about the origins of Japan's massive trade deficit with the United States and what the United States can and should do about it. No college graduate, indeed no American citizen, can claim to be politically literate today without some knowledge of this subject.