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

Japan's Failed Revolution: Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform

Japan’s Failed Revolution: Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform asks why, despite all the high expectations, the Japanese public’s desire for economic reform, and leadership of a majority coalition in a parliamentary democracy, the reformer Prime Minister Koizumi has not achieved the economic reforms expected of him since he surprisingly attained power over a year ago. To unravel this ‘puzzle’, Aurelia George Mulgan eschews the simplicities of both cultural and rational choice explanations and systematically tests the propositions in the comparative literature on ‘failed reform’. The result is one of the best books ever written about contemporary Japanese politics. It explains how, despite British-style parliamentary institutions, Japan’s very ‘un-Westminster’ traditional policymaking process involving the ruling party and the bureaucracy’s structure and linkage has stymied and will probably continue to stymie even a sincere and active Prime Minister’s best reform intentions. This book should be read by all political scientists, journalists, economists, and students interested in contemporary Japan

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

Japan’s Failed Revolution: Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform

Japan’s Failed Revolution: Koizumi and the Politics of Economic Reform asks why, despite all the high expectations, the Japanese public’s desire for economic reform, and leadership of a majority coalition in a parliamentary democracy, the reformer Prime Minister Koizumi has not achieved the economic reforms expected of him since he surprisingly attained power over a year ago. To unravel this ‘puzzle’, Aurelia George Mulgan eschews the simplicities of both cultural and rational choice explanations and systematically tests the propositions in the comparative literature on ‘failed reform’. The result is one of the best books ever written about contemporary Japanese politics. It explains how, despite British-style parliamentary institutions, Japan’s very ‘un-Westminster’ traditional policymaking process involving the ruling party and the bureaucracy’s structure and linkage has stymied and will probably continue to stymie even a sincere and active Prime Minister’s best reform intentions. This book should be read by all political scientists, journalists, economists, and students interested in contemporary Japan. Ellis S. Krauss Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies University of California, San Diego. The author takes a scalpel to dissect Japan’s dysfunctional political system. She shows with wonderful clarity and depth of knowledge why the Koizumi reforms are not succeeding, and why revolutionary political change is needed as a precondition for economic recovery. The book should be required reading for anyone involved with contemporary Japan. J.A.A. Stockwin University of Oxford

Managing the US base issue in Okinawa: A test for Japanese democracy

The domestic politics of US base management in Okinawa has become more problematic since the September 1995 rape of a twelve-year old Japanese schoolgirl by three American servicemen. More than any other single event in recent times, this act catalysed waves of protest against the presence of US forces in Okinawa and a defiant challenge by the former prefectural governor, Ota Masahide, to the central government’s rights and prerogatives on base related issues. How the Okinawa base problem has been handled by the central government since late 1995 generates insights into the workings of Japanese democracy: the extent to which individual property rights are subordinated to national policies; the level of judicial independence from political interference; the use of economic compensation as an adjunct to more coercive instruments of state authority; the balance of power between central and local governments; the role of bureaucrats as political and electoral agents; the level of state responsiveness to minority interests; and the effectiveness of local protest movements in eliciting concessions from national policy makers. In addition to assertions of superior executive, statutory and legislative authority, political and bureaucratic élites in Tokyo have deployed a twopronged strategy for dealing with the Okinawa base problem: economic blandishments combined with limited relocation of bases and base functions, plus some amelioration of the noxious spin -offs from bases for the Okinawan people. While these concessions represent only a qualified victory for the antibase movement in Okinawa, both the US and Japanese governments now accept that they must respond constructively to popular protests against the US force presence in Japan, that base-related issues can no longer be ignored or shunted aside, and that these issues must be factored into the US–Japan security relationship

'Japan Inc.' in the agricultural sector: reform or regression?

‘Japan Inc.’ is manifested in the agricultural sector as a classic subgovernment consisting of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Liberal Democratic Party, and the agricultural cooperative organisation (Nokyo). This three-way coalition of bureaucratic, party and producer organisations forms an ‘iron triangle’ of vested interest in agricultural support and protection. The agricultural public works component of the agricultural iron triangle is also linked to the larger iron triangle of public works, one of Japan’s most notorious interest coalitions. In the past decade, processes of electoral reform, administrative reform and financial liberalisation have presented each of the elements in the agricultural iron triangle with problems of political and organisational adjustment. At the same time, tripartite policymaking within the agricultural policy subgovernment has been institutionalised, and the LDP’s agricultural leadership is now directly penetrating the agricultural bureaucracy. Similarly, macro-policy trends such as deregulation, trade liberalization and fiscal stimulus have influenced the concessions and benefits flowing to the agricultural and rural sectors both positively and negatively. While a degree of induced marketisation and liberalisation has taken place, a defensive consolidation of the agricultural support and protection regime can be discerned with the passage of the 1999 Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas Basic Law. Moreover, the iron triangle of vested interests in agricultural and rural public works has been strengthened by policies to combat Japan’s sustained economic recession. On balance, therefore, innovation and reform are being offset by factors perpetuating the status quo and even further entrenching the agricultural support and protection regime