A multidimensional approach to the United States-Japan Structural Impediments Initiative: Gaiatsu, transgovernmental politics, and elite policy networks

Norio Naka, Purdue University

Abstract

The United States-Japan Structural Impediments Initiative of 1989-90 (SII) was an attempt in which the U.S. and Japanese officials tried to solve trade frictions by creating both an international epistemic community and regimes, and accelerating domestic change through a joint bureaucratic structure. The research describes and explains the SII process by using four conceptual models with different levels of analysis, to examine two research questions: why the SII was initiated and what was the relation between the levels of Japanese concessions and the underlying factors. The initial proposition was that the levels of Japanese concessions in the five SII issue areas were related with at least four factors, (1) the levels of U.S. pressure, (2) the size and strength of the transgovernmental coalitions among the governmental subunits, (3) the size and strength of the transgovernmental coalitions among cabinet-level policy-makers, and (4) the level of common perceptions between the U.S. and Japanese working-level officials. Hitherto studies on the U.S.-Japan trade negotiations used the case study method combined with an economic analysis of data. But they did not distinguish those four factors and therefore did not distinguish different explanations with different levels of analysis. Nor did they systematically research the different explanations. The initial proposition with four specific propositions were tested by a case study, combined with a content analysis, using the four conceptual models--the government as a unitary rational actor, the transgovernmental coalition of subunits, the transgovernmental coalition of top-level policy-makers, and the transgovernmental elite policy networks of working-level officials. The research results of the specific propositions, which are not mutually exclusive and complement each other, provide conceptually different explanations which support the initial proposition. This research adds to the tradition of trade negotiation/decision making research. It applies Allison's models to trade negotiation processes, adding the perspective of elite policy networks in the field of international political economy, thereby enhancing the power of describing, explaining and predicting the outcomes of international trade negotiations.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Targ, Purdue University.

Subject Area

International law|International relations|Political science

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