Agriculture and Political Reform in Japan : The Koizumi Legacy

Given former Prime Minister Koizumis reformist zeal, agriculture might have been expected to be high on his list of targets for so-called structural reform. However, an investigation of the record of his administration on agricultural policy reveals only modest achievements in terms of policy innovation for agriculture and farm trade. To some extent Japans farming sector has been impacted by processes of fiscal reform and deregulation as well as cutbacks in rural public works. Koizumi-initiated reforms to the policymaking process have also served to reduce the power of individual ruling Liberal Democratic Party politicians as representatives of special interests. However, the bureaucratic, party and interest group actors within the agricultural policy community retain their independent policymaking authority over the farm sector. Furthermore, the vertically segmented nature of Japans policymaking process will continue to limit the possibility of trade-offs between agriculture and business over issues such as Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).agriculture, Political Reform, Japan

Power and Pork

Politics and government; Economic policy; Japa

The strategies of influence : Japan's agricultural cooperatives (Nokyo) as a pressure group

Nokyo, Japan’s mammoth farm organisation is the subject of this thesis. The focal point of interest is Nokyo’s role as a pressure group and the relationship between this and other aspects of its diverse activities. The approach is primarily empirical: the thesis seeks to elucidate Nokyo as an organisation functioning according to its own logic. This emerges as a compound of historical, legal, administrative, economic and political factors. At the same time, broader theoretical issues are taken up including comparative references to patterns of Japanese interest group behaviour. Special attention is given to the extent of Nokyo's conservative bias and connections between Nokyo and political parties. Chapter 1 considers Nokyo's organisational structure and functions, while Chapter 2 explores Nokyo's policy-related activities in more detail. Chapter 3 examines historical aspects of Nokyo's official representation in the Diet; types of agricultural cooperative electoral participation are surveyed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 takes up the issue of rice as the traditional focus of pressure from the agricultural cooperatives, with other commodities such as fruit and livestock products discussed in Chapter 6 in the context of the agricultural trade liberalisation debate. Throughout, Nokyo is seen as a group heavily committed to its own economic priorities, but exercising massive political clout as a result of the interaction between certain organisational attributes and external environmental factors. In policy terms, Nokyo's primary interest is in agricultural support prices. Related to this are the twin issues of rice as regulated by the Food Control system - Nokyo's chief source of official patronage - and protection of domestic farm producers from foreign competition. Japanese agriculture is seen as a highly managed and controlled industry with a substantial political content - both cause and effect of Nokyo's involvement in the policy-making process

Sustainability-oriented innovation: a systematic review

types: ArticlePre-print draft of article submitted to International Journal of Management ReviewsIn this article we systematically review the literature relating to Sustainability-Oriented Innovation (SOI), and present a model to help understand different types and phases of SOI in companies. SOI involves making intentional changes to organizational mind-sets and values, as well as the products, processes or practices that produce environmental and/or social benefits in addition to economic value. The model distinguishes between contexts of Operational Optimization, Organizational Transformation, and Systems Building, and is populated with a range of innovation practices illustrating what firms do to become more sustainable. The model is developed from a review of 127 articles from the academic and practitioner literature and focuses on the period between the two Earth Summits (1992-2012). The systematic review forms the foundation of this paper, but we supplement and populate the model with instances of SOI activity drawn from more recent practitioner literature to provide richer insights into contemporary pioneering SOI practice."This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Sustainability-oriented Innovation: A Systematic Review, International Journal of Management Reviews, 2015, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijmr.12068/abstract. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

The motivations for the adoption of management innovation by local governments and its performance effects

This article analyses the economic, political and institutional antecedents and performance effects of the adoption of shared Senior Management Teams (SMTs) – a management innovation (MI) that occurs when a team of senior managers oversees two or more public organizations. Findings from statistical analysis of 201 English local governments and interviews with organizational leaders reveal that shared SMTs are adopted to develop organisational capacity in resource‐challenged, politically risk‐averse governments, and in response to coercive and mimetic institutional pressures. Importantly, sharing SMTs may reduce rather than enhance efficiency and effectiveness due to redundancy costs and the political transaction costs associated with diverting resources away from a high‐performing partner to support their lower‐performing counterpart

'Loosening the Ties That Bind: Japan’s Agricultural Policy Triangle and Reform of Cooperatives (JA)'

The process of reforming the organization of agricultural cooperatives (JA) under the Abe administration in 2013-2015 reveals the extent to which Japan’s “agricultural policy triangle” still functions as a key element of government decision-making for agriculture. The triangle consists of Liberal Democratic Party agricultural “tribe” Diet members (nōrin zoku), bureaucrats from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and JA executives. The paper shows that while the “agricultural policy triangle” played an important role at key junctures in the JA reform process, the loyalties and links that had hitherto bound the three parties in an “iron triangle” of vested interest in agricultural support and protection have been eroded

Power and Pork: A Japanese Political Life

Power and Pork: a Japanese political life aims to tell the ‘inside story’ of a Japanese politician—Matsuoka Toshikatsu—one of the more controversial members of Japan’s national Diet. Matsuoka belongs to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as a representative of the Lower House constituency of Kumamoto No. 3, one of Japan’s regional electorates. His behaviour has been the subject of much speculation and commentary in the media. The book details Matsuoka’s political stratagems and policy activities as an archetypal ‘traditional’ politician representing farm and rural interests. As an old-style, old-guard LDP Diet member, Matsuoka is the kind of politician that former Prime Minister Koizumi targeted in his attempt to reform his own party and the policymaking process. Matsuoka’s reversal of fortune under Prime Minister Abe with his appointment to the post of Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries raises questions about the durability of Koizumi’s reforms. The scope of the work is contemporary Japanese domestic politics, including electoral processes, zoku influence, pork barrelling and ‘money politics’ as exemplified by one of its key players. Power and Pork gives an account of how Matsuoka has catered to local, sectional and clientele interests in order to build and retain his political power base. One of the most important conclusions of the book is that individual ruling party backbenchers can exercise extraordinary influence over government policy in Japan