Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T09:14:00.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two-level games and bargaining outcomes: why gaiatsu succeeds in Japan in some cases but not others

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Leonard J. Schoppa
Leonard J. Schoppa
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Get access

Abstract

One of the strengths of Robert Putnam's two-level bargaining game model is its ability to capture how international negotiations make it possible for negotiators to pursue synergistic strategies aimed at improving their prospects for a favorable deal by reshaping politics in both their own and their counterparts' domestic arenas. While reaffirming the utility of this approach, this article argues that Putnam describes only some of the synergistic strategies available to negotiators. In addition to “reverberation” and “synergistic linkage,” a negotiator can also reshape politics in his or her counterpart's domestic arena in two other ways: (1) by transforming decision making in ways that expand elite participation and bring the weight of public opinion to bear on policies that were previously dictated by small groups of privileged domestic actors and (2) by influencing the way in which policy alternatives are considered in the decisionmaking process. Through an examination of the Structural Impediments Initiative, a set of negotiations through which the United States applied a great deal of foreign pressure (gaiaisu) on Japan, the article makes the case for the above modifications to the Putnam model and argues that “participation expansion” strategies are most likely to be successful when involvement in decision making (before foreign intervention) is limited and latent support for foreign demands exists outside the privileged elite, while “alternative specification” is most likely to work when opportunities exist to link favored policy proposals to already recognized domestic problems.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , Summer 1993 , pp. 353 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, 3–6 September 1992, and at Columbia University's East Asian Institute. I would like to thank John C. Campbell, John Duffield, John Echeverri-Gent, Shigeko Fukai, Haruhiro Fukui, John Odell, Robert Putnam, Herman Schwartz, Bob Uriyu, Brian Woodall, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments and advice.

1. Putnam, Robert, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988), pp. 427–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The collaborative project is led by Evans, Peter, Jacobson, Harold K., and Putnam, Robert, eds., and is entitled Double Edged Diplomacy: International Bargaining and Domestic Politics (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming)Google Scholar. One measure of the positive reviews that greeted Putnam's approach is the range of authors who participated in the collaborative project. Contributors include several scholars interested primarily in security studies and in North-South relations, both of which areas are removed from the sphere of North-North economic relations that originally had served as the basis for Putnam's framework. See also Milner, Helen, “International Theories of Cooperation Among Nations: Strengths and Weaknesses,” World Politics 44 (04 1992), pp. 466–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other recent works applying and/or reacting to Putnam's work include Mayer, Frederick W., “Managing Domestic Differences in International Negotiations: The Strategic Use of Internal Side-Payments,” International Organization 46 (Autumn 1992), pp. 793–818CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lehman, Howard P. and McCoy, Jennifer L., “The Dynamics of the Two-Level Bargaining Game: The 1988 Debt Negotiations,” World Politics 44 (07 1992), pp. 600–644CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Moravcsik similarly emphasizes this aspect of Putnam's approach, arguing that the main advantage of the two-level game framework over other approaches that have tried to combine domestic and international factors is that Putnam's model captures how the two levels simultaneously interact while the other approaches treat one level or the other as primary and then “addr” the influence of the second level. See Andrew Moravcsik, “Introduction: Integrating International and Domestic Theories of International Bargaining,” in Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam, Double Edged Diplomacy.

3. Putnam, , “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics,” pp. 447–48 and 455–56Google Scholar.

4. Evans, in his concluding chapter of the collaborative project, identifies nine hypotheses as the primary contributions of the book, but only three of those address the issue of when synergistic strategies are likely to be successful. Two emphasize that certain strategies (“tying hands” and manipulating information about ratifiability) are rarely likely to work, while one argues that collusion between chief negotiators is more likely to work when a negotiator is a “dove” in relation to his domestic constituents. See Evans, Peter B., “Building an Integrative Approach to International and Domestic Politics: Reflections and Projections,” in Evans, , Jacobson, , and Putnam, , Double Edged Diplomacy, manuscript pp. 4–7Google Scholar. Individual authors also discuss conditions that are and are not conducive to efforts to manipulate domestic “win-sets,” but most of their focus is on efforts by negotiators to manipulate their own domestic politics to make possible a deal they think needs to be made. See the summary of the authors' findings in this area in Moravcsik, , “Introduction,” manuscript pp. 35–38Google Scholar. This article focuses on synergistic strategies through which negotiators may be able to manipulate their counterparts' domestic win-set to their own advantage.

5. In addition, the United States criticized the operation of the price mechanism in Japan. As negotiations proceeded on this topic, however, it became clear that the problem of price differentials between Japan and foreign markets was more a result of other structural barriers than a cause of the trade imbalance in and of itself. The SII talks on this subject therefore concerned the monitoring of price differentials as a way to measure progress. Given that substantive policy changes were not at issue in this case, it is not treated here as a separate case.

6. Like the authors of the collaborative volume, I defend my reliance on the case-study method with the argument that the two-level game model remains in the early stages of development and requires empirical analysis as a first step toward developing a stronger theoretical base. See Moravcsik, , “Introduction,” pp. 23–24 and 33Google Scholar.

7. The Super 301 provision of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988, itself a milder alternative to the blatantly protectionist Gephardt amendment, was clearly targeted at Japan. It required the U.S. Trade Representative to identify “priority” unfair trading countries and demand reforms in the unfair policies of those nations under the threat of sanctions. While the Bush administration had no choice but to name Japan on its Super 301 hit list in May 1989, it chose to limit the damage to U.S.-Japanese relations by targeting only three specific Japanese industries under that provision. Instead of including broader and more controversial Japanese structural barriers under the Super 301 framework, the administration proposed to deal with these through a less coercive series of talks (the SII). For an insider's account of Bush administration maneuvering on this issue, see Fukushima, Glen S., “Nichibei keizai masatsu no seijigaku: 4” (The politics of U.S.-Japan economic friction: 4), Asahi Journal, 1 02 1991, pp. 26–29Google Scholar. See also Destler, I. M., American Trade Politics: System Under Stress, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1992), pp. 88–97 and 131–33Google Scholar; and Mastanduno, Michael, “Setting Market Access Priorities: Super 301 and Japan,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, 3–609 1992Google Scholar.

8. When the Japanese hesitated to go along with President Bush's SII proposal as originally framed, the administration further mollified the Japanese by agreeing to talk about structural sources of the trade imbalance on the U.S. side of the Pacific. Despite the fact that this made the SII talks technically bilateral, my research indicates that neither party took the American side of the bargain very seriously. It is true that the Americans made commitments of their own as part of the SII deal. They pledged to reduce the U.S. budget deficit, to promote private saving, and to seek to attain certain targets for improving their education system, among other commitments. The list of American promises, however, included few steps the U.S. government was not already planning to take and was also outlined in very vague terms. In fact, according to participants on the Japanese side of the negotiations, there were few illusions about the ability of the Japanese to affect American fiscal or education policy, even as they were going through the charade of proposing American concessions. This nebulous nature of the U.S. side of the talks explains why I have focused exclusively on the Japanese-side issues. I consider the SII talks an example of coercive bargaining, where one side makes threats and bargaining focuses on how much the other side will concede. For other case studies that examine coercive bargaining through the lens of the two-level game framework, see the following chapters in Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam, Double Edged Diplomacy: John Odell, “International Threats and Internal Politics: Brazil, the European Community, and the United States, 1985–1987”; Robert Pastor, “The United States and Central America: Interlocking Debates”; Lisa Martin and Kathryn Sikkink, “U.S. Policy and Human Rights in Argentina and Guatemala, 1973–1980”; Miles Kahler, “Bargaining with the IMF: Two-level Strategies and Developing Countries”; and Ellis Krauss, “U.S.-Japan Negotiations on Construction and Semiconductors, 1985–1988: Building Friction and Relation-chips.”

9. The Japanese general government deficit in 1979 amounted to over 4 percent of gross national product (GNP), but after a decade of fiscal austerity the deficit had been turned into a surplus amounting to 1 percent of GNP in 1988; see Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 1988/89 OECD Economic Surveys: Japan (Paris: OECD, 1989), p. 45Google Scholar. According to Lincoln, Japan's shift to fiscal austerity was one of the more important reasons for the emergence of the U.S.-Japanese current account imbalance in the 1980s; see Lincoln, Edward, Japan: Facing Economic Maturity (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1988), p. 212Google Scholar.

10. Testimony of Charles H. Dallara, leader of the treasury delegation to the SII talks, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Finance, United States-Japan Structural Impediments Initiative (SII): Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Trade, 101st Congress, 2d sess., 5 05 1990 (hereafter referred to as the SII Hearings of 5 March 1990), p. 45Google Scholar.

11. Okada, Keisuka, “Ball is Now in U.S. Court on SII Talks,” Japan Times Weekly, international edition, 9–15 04 1990, p. 1Google Scholar.

12. Ennis, Peter, “U.S.-Japan ‘Structural Impediments’ at an Impasse,” Tokyo Business Today, 04 1990, p. 22Google Scholar. See also interviews with MOF officials, Tokyo, summer 1992.

13. Japan Economic Institute, JEI Report, no. 15B, 13 04 1990, p. 7Google Scholar , and JEI Report, no. 26B, 6 07 1990, pp. 11–12Google Scholar.

14. Cooper, William H., “Japan-U.S. Trade: The Structural Impediments Initiative,” Current Politics and Economics of Japan, vol. 1, no. 1, 1991, pp. 73–81Google Scholar. It is, of course, impossible to specify exactly what proportion of GNP the nation's 430-trillion-yen commitment will equal in the absence of prior knowledge about how fast Japanese GNP will grow over the period of the ten-year plan. The 9 percent estimate is based on my own calculations assuming a 4 percent sustained growth rate over the remaining years of the ten-year plan.

15. Japan Times Weekly, international edition, 7–13 January 1991, p. 1, and 4–10 January 1993, p. 6. “First Annual Report of the SII Follow-up,” 22 May 1991, pp. 1–3, and “Second Annual Report of the SII Follow-up,” 30 July 1992, pp. 1–3; reports provided by the Japanese Embassy, Washington, D.C.

16. Upham, Frank, “Privatizing Regulation: The Implementation of the Large-scale Retail Stores Law,” in Allinson, Gary and Sone, Yasunori, eds., Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 264–94Google Scholar. The OECD notes that new openings of large stores dropped from 1,605 in fiscal year 1979 to 499 in fiscal year 1985; see OECD, 1987/1988 OECD Economic Surveys: Japan (Paris: OECD, 1988), p. 78Google Scholar. Delays of seven to eight years between announced intention to open a store and actual opening were not unusual; see Tsuruta, Toshimasa, “Kokusaika jidai no daitenho was do arubekika?” (What shall we do with the Large Store Law in an era of internationalization?) Ekonomisuto, 13 12 1988, pp. 44–51Google Scholar.

17. The argument that stores like Toys R Us were closed out of the market by the LSL (which came to be a symbolic issue in the SII talks, culminating in the spectacle of George Bush presiding over the grand opening of a Toys R Us store during his January 1992 visit to Japan) only became part of the American argument once the talks were significantly underway; see Shimbunsha, Nihon Keizai, ed., Daitenho ga kieru hi (The day the Large Store Law is extinguished) (Tokyo:Nihon Keizai Shimbunsha, 1990), p. 4Google Scholar.

18. The Japanese also agreed to some other important changes (all implemented), including (1) restrictions on the ability of local governments to limit retail store expansion and (2) legislative changes taking the local adjustment process away from the informal (and nontransparent) local coordination councils and putting it under the control of MITI-run large-scale retail store councils. The Japanese also promised to conduct a basic review of the law in 1993 with consideration given to total deregulation in specific geographical areas, but it remains to be seen whether they will follow through.

19. Japan Times Weekly, international edition, 20–26 May 1991.

20. Testimony of Dallara, SII Hearings of 5 March 1990, p. 45.

21. Ibid. See also Fukai, Shigeko, Japan's Land Policy and Its Global Impact, U.S.-Japan Program Occasional Paper no. 90–01, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1990, p. 46Google Scholar.

22. In the SII agreement, the Japanese government committed to changes in tax and regulatory policy and over the course of the next two years passed a series of legislation that (1) ended the preferential treatment of urban farmland, (2) strengthened the special land-holding tax on idle land, and (3) revised sunshine regulations and the lease laws to encourage more multistory and rental construction. In addition, the government went beyond its official commitment in the final SII report and adopted for the first time a national land-holding tax on individuals and firms with large land holdings. See “First Annual Report of the SII Follow-up,” pp. 11–14. By 1992 it was clear that these measures (combined with probably more important monetary policies designed to limit land speculation) were bringing land prices down so fast (some estimate by 30 percent) that the dominant concern became the need to stop the free-fall; see Friedland, Jonathan and Rosario, Louise do, “Financial Earthquake,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 11 1992, pp. 55–58Google Scholar.

23. Testimony of Williams, S. Linn, SII Hearings of 5 March 1990, pp. 113–114Google Scholar.

24. See testimony of Commerce Undersecretary Farren, J. Michael, SII Hearings of 5 March 1990, p. 51Google Scholar; and Inoue, Yuko, “FTC is a Referee with a Quiet Whistle,” Japan Economic Journal, 18 11 1989, p. 6Google Scholar.

25. Examples of the “vagueness” of terms include the Japanese government's agreements to “continue to make efforts to eliminate bid-rigging on government projects”; “raise the surcharges against cartels so that they effectively deter violations”; and “actively seek criminal penalties.” See “Joint Report of the Working Group on SII, June 1990,” reprinted in 5/SII Hearings of 5 March 1990, pp. 98–100. Yamamura wrote a similarly pessimistic evaluation of the Japanese government's SII promises in this area; see Yamamura, Kozo, “Will Japan's Economic Structure Change? Confessions of a Former Optimist,” in Yamamura, Kozo, ed., Japan's Economic Structure: Should it Change (Seattle, Wash.: Society for Japanese Studies, 1990), pp. 13–64Google Scholar, especially pp. 55–56.

26. Blustein, Paul, “Top Treasury Official Warns Japan on Monopoly Practices,” Washington Post, 23 05 1991, p. B18Google Scholar. See also “Comments of the U.S. Delegation,” in “First Annual Report of the SII Follow-up,” p. 7.

27. Testimony, of Dallara, , SII Hearings of 5 March 1990, p. 46Google Scholar.

28. See Weisman, Steven, “Trade Talks Fail to Produce Gains for U.S. or Japan,” New York Times, 16 03 1991, p. AlGoogle Scholar; and Ken'ichi, Imai, “The Legitimacy of Japan's Corporate Groups,” Japan Echo 17 (Autumn 1990), pp. 23–28Google Scholar.

29. Fair Trade Commission Executive Office, The Outline of the Report on the Actual Conditions of the Six Major Corporate Groups, 02 1992, p. 19Google Scholar.

30. Within the international relations literature, the realists take this position. Such assumptions can also be found, however, in less theoretical studies of U.S.-Japanese economic relations in such places as the study conducted by the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN). After examining the recent history of U.S. attempts to pressure Japan, the group concludes: “Japanese Government officials have a keen sense of where their national interest lies, and when faced with credible threats of retaliation that adversely affect that interest, they usually choose to accommodate requests from the United States.” See ACTPN, Analysis of the U.S.-Japan Trade Problem, 02 1989, p. 108Google Scholar. Implied is the idea that the Japanese government is a unitary actor that will respond rationally to the realities of power relations.

31. See Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Axelrod, Robert, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984)Google Scholar; and Grieco, Joseph, Cooperation Among Nations (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

32. Sebenius, James K., “Challenging Conventional Explanations of International Cooperation: Negotiation Analysis and the Case of Epistemic Communities,” International Organization 46 (Winter 1992), pp. 323–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Milner, , “International Theories of Cooperation Among Nations,” pp. 488–495Google Scholar.

34. Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph, Power and Interdependence, 2d ed. (HarperCollins, 1989), pp. 30–31Google Scholar.

35. See Japan Economic Institute, “Outlook for U.S.-Japan Trade Relations: An Interview with S. Linn Williams of USTR,” JEI Report, no. 1A, 11 01 1991, p. 2Google Scholar.

36. Much of the work on threat credibility has been done by those, like Schelling, who treat international bargaining as a game between states seen as unitary actors; see Schelling, Thomas, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960)Google Scholar. Odell, however, has emphasized that threat perception cannot be understood without reference to domestic politics since threats too must be “ratified”; see John S. Odell, “International Threats and Internal Politics.”

37. of R. K. Morris, National Association of Manufacturers director for international trade, in U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Finance Super 301: Effectiveness in Opening Foreign Markets: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on International Trade, 101st Congress, 2d sess., 27 04 1990, pp. 79–80Google Scholar.

38. Encarnation, Dennis J. and Mason, Mark, “Neither MITI nor America: the Political Economy of Capital Liberalization in Japan,” International Organization 44 (Winter 1990), pp. 25–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the quotation is from p. 25.

39. Rosenbluth, Frances McCall, Financial Politics in Contemporary Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. Rosenbluth argues that “foreign diplomatic pressure is effective only when market forces have already altered domestic costs and benefits or when there is a perceived threat of retaliation” (p. 53) and that policies in the end reflect “the ever changing landscape of power and interest” in the domestic politics of specific sectors (p. 94). Although she does recognize that some limited changes can be forced on Japan by political pressure (membership on the Tokyo Stock Exchange for U.S. securities firms, for example), she emphasizes that such cases are rare and that political pressure is generally effective only when the domestic balance of power has already shifted.

40. See Fukushima, Glen, “Nichibei keizai masatsu no seijigaku” (The politics of U.S.-Japan economic Mcxion), Asahi Journal, series running weekly from 11 01 to 15 02 1991Google Scholar. Even if it were true that there was some collusion between the U.S. and Japanese sides of the type Fukushima describes, I would argue that it was of the type where a single faction within Japanese politics (say MITI bureaucrats) had certain policy objectives and approached the Americans to solicit foreign pressure in order to make it easier for it to achieve those objectives. To say that this faction wanted to make the SII policy changes all along does not suggest that they could have made them on their own without the intervention of the United States. Even if U.S. pressure was orchestrated, it made possible policy changes that would not have been possible in its absence.

41. See, for example, the numerous cases discussed in Destler, I. M., Sato, Hideo, Clapp, Priscilla, and Fukui, Haruhiro, Managing an Alliance (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1976)Google Scholar; and in Destler, I. M. and Sato, Hideo, eds., Coping with U.S.-Japanese Economic Conflicts (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1982)Google Scholar. Orr, Robert M Jr, The Emergence of Japan's Foreign Aid Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, similarly examines the ways in which both U.S. pressure and bureaucratic politics in Tokyo affected Japanese foreign aid policy decisions.

42. In developing his approach, Putnam draws explicitly on the behavioral theory of social negotiation developed by Walton, Richard E. and McKersie, Robert B., A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations: An Analysis of a Social Interaction System (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965)Google Scholar. He is also building, however, on the work of others who have emphasized the interactions between international and domestic politics, including Rosenau, James, “Toward the Study of National International Linkages,” in Rosenau, James, ed., Linkage Politics: Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems (New York: Free Press, 1969), pp. 44–63Google Scholar; Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence; and Gourevitch, Peter, “The Second Image Reversed: The International Sources of Domestic Politics,” International Organization 32 (Autumn 1978), pp. 881–911CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Putnam's own discussion of how his approach differs from these, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics,” pp. 430–433; and seeMoravcsik, , “Introduction,” pp. 14–15 and 21–23Google Scholar.

43. Putnam lists pursuit of national interest, however, as just one of the chief negotiator's aims. Others include pursuit of domestic popularity and pursuit of “domestic policy goals that he prefers for exogenous reasons.” See Putnam, , “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics,” p. 457Google Scholar.

44. Ibid., p. 455.

45. Ibid., pp. 445–48.

46. Ibid., p. 436.

47. Schattschneider, E. E., The Semisovereign People: A Realist View of Democracy in America (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), p. 2Google Scholar.

48. Sebenius, James K., “Negotiation Arithmetic: Adding and Subtracting Issues and Parties,” International Organization 37 (Spring 1983), pp. 281–316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49. Sebenius does not refer exclusively to intergovernmental negotiations. He refers, for example, to the way in which a multinational firm that was engaged in bargaining with its host government altered the parameters for possible deals by arranging its affairs so that additional parties (including the U.S. government) would have a stake in the outcome. He does not refer, however, to the type of “party addition” seen in the SI I negotiations where a government (the United States) altered the zone of possible agreement by bringing in additional domestic (that is, Japanese) players.

50. Although it is possible to conceive of some cases in which international negotiators might alter parameters by reducing the number of domestic-level participants involved in making a decision, the tendency of foreign involvement to politicize most issues suggests that in almost all cases negotiators will only be able to expand the number of domestic participants.

51. Ripley, Randall and Franklin, Grace, Congress, the Bureaucracy, and Public Policy, 3d ed. (Homewood, lll.: Dorsey Press, 1984), p. 8Google Scholar.

52. See Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; and Stigler, George, “The Theory of Regulation,” Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science 2 (Spring 1971), pp. 3–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. See Campbell, John C., “Policy Conflict and Its Resolution Within the Governmental System,” in Krauss, Ellis, Rohlen, Thomas, and Steinhoff, Patricia, eds., Conflict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), pp. 294–334Google Scholar; and Rosenbluth, Financial Politics in Contemporary Japan.

54. Lowi, Theodore, “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory,” World Politics 16 (07 1964), pp. 677–715CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55. Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Glenview, 111.: Scott, Foresman and Company), pp. 20–21Google Scholar.

56. John Campbell, writing about policymaking in Japan, has also emphasized the importance of these two streams, although he uses the terms “energy” and “ideas.” His concept of “ideas” is very similar to Kingdon's discussion of how the menu of policy options is narrowed, while part of his concept of “energy” involves the energy necessary to move a problem higher on the agenda. See Campbell, John, How Policies Change: The Japanese Government and the Aging Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57. That the Americans self-consciously set out to increase their chances for a favorable deal by expanding participation is evident in USTR negotiator Williams's recollections about how he and his colleagues purposely sought to make sure that the Japanese Economic Planning Agency and FTC (both of which were seen as sympathetic to the American demands) were included in the Japanese team. He recalls that they made sure the Economic Planning Agency was an equal participant on the Japanese side by giving the agency's American counterpart (the Council of Economic Advisors) equal rank in the U.S. delegation. See Williams, S. Linn “Kagami no naka no nichibei kozo kyogi: Daigokai” (The U.S.-Japan Structural Impediments Initiative in the mirror: no. 5), Shukan daiyamondo, 11 04 1992, pp. 90–93Google Scholar.

58. For example, MOF officials who previously might not have cared about the LSL suddenly had an incentive to encourage MITI concessions on that issue in order to avoid having to concede too much on “their own” issue of public investment (and vice versa). This can be seen as a variety of Putnam's synergistic linkage in that international negotiations linked issues that were previously separated in domestic politics. I have included it here in the middle of a discussion of participation expansion because of my impression that the incentives described above merely reinforced the more important participation expansion effect of the SII negotiations.

59. This last observation reflects my own analysis of the careers of recent MOF administrative vice-ministers and Budget Bureau directors. On MOF, see Ikko, Jin, Okura kanryo: cho eriito shudan nojinmyaku toyabo (MOF bureaucrats: the personal networks and ambition of a super-elite group) (Tokyo: Kodansha Bunko, 1986)Google Scholar.

60. Public investment did not become a firm part of the SII agenda until midway through the first year of talks. Prior to the first negotiating session, the MOF felt it had succeeded in keeping the issue off the agenda when Makoto Utsumi, the leader of the MOF delegation, received a promise from Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles Dallara stating that macroeconomic policy would not be part of the dialogue. By early 1990, however, it had become clear that the rest of the U.S. delegation was insisting that Japan commit a specific amount of public investment. As one participant on the Japanese side put it in the summer of 1990, “the Utsumi-Dallara deal crumbled.” Interview with a member of the Japanese delegation, Tokyo, summer 1992. See also NHK, ed., Nichibei no shototsu (The U.S. Japan collision) (Tokyo: NHK, 1990), pp. 73–74Google Scholar.

61. Interview with Tsuneo Unno, Japanese Economic Planning Agency official, Tokyo, 25 05 1992.

62. Nihon keizai shimbun, 30 March 1990, p. 3.

63. Interview with Unno. This type of comment, which is expressed quite frequently by reformist bureaucrats in Japan, points to the importance of remembering that interactive strategies are not strictly the province of chief negotiators. Domestic actors can also use international negotiations for their own purposes.

64. SeeBukkakanrishitsu, Keizaikikakucho Bukkakyoku, Kaihogaia ryutsu shisutemu no kochiku ni mukete (Toward the construction of a liberalized retail system) (Tokyo: Shojihomu kenkyukai, 1988)Google Scholar; Jimushitsu, Rinji Gyosei Kaikaku Suishin Shingikai, Gyokakushin zenshigoto (The complete work of the Administrative Reform Council) (Tokyo: Gyosei, 1990), pp. 202–203Google Scholar; and Keidanren's Keizai Koho Center, “Views on Japan's Distribution System,” KKC Brief 58 (07 1990)Google Scholar (translation of report issued 2 March 1990 and reiteration of opinions first expressed in March 1988).

65. Hosono Sukehiro argues that MITI was never happy with the LSL; see Sukehiro, Hosono, Posuto daitenho (After the LSL) (Tokyo: Nihon Jitsugyo Shuppansha, 1991), pp. 38–40Google Scholar. MITI officials interviewed by the author confirmed that the ministry had long favored reduced regulation but had been thwarted by the political power of small retailers. Some large retail chains such as the Life Store and Daiei chains opposed the law because it slowed their expansion (interview with Life Store chairman Nobutsugu Shimizu, Tokyo, 10 June 1992).

66. Interview with Hiroshi Iyori, former Fair Trade commissioner, Tokyo, 29 May 1992.

67. A source at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo told me that there were planning documents in which the American negotiators strategized about how best to influence public opinion. Although I have not seen these documents, the performance of American negotiators at press conferences after each of the official SII negotiating sessions indicates that the U.S. side set out to present themselves as champions of the Japanese consumer. See Williams's, retrospective articles run weekly in Shukan Daiyamondo, 14 03 to 18 04 1992Google Scholar.

68. In some ways, this participation expansion strategy is similar to Putnam's “reverberation.” Both involve attempts by one chief negotiator to influence the balance of opinion in his or her counterpart's domestic arena. The difference is that while Putnam's term refers to efforts by chief negotiators to persuade domestic players on their counterpart's side to support their positions (to “change minds”), the phenomenon I have described involves the efforts of chief negotiators to empower unorganized interests in their counterpart's domestic arena who were already sympathetic to their positions.

69. Search conducted by the author at the Diet Library using the Japanese term for SII, “nichibei kozokyogi.”

70. Nihon keizai shimbun, series running daily during November and December 1989.

71. Interview with NHK reporters, Washington, D.C., 10 April 1992. Studies of the media's impact on public opinion in the United States suggest that elite opinion of the type represented by this NHK reporter plays an important role in shaping the views of the general public; see Zaller, John R., The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72. Nihon keizai shimbun, 27 March 1990, p. 3. The survey asked respondents how they would respond to the following question: “Citing the bilateral trade imbalance, the U.S. is demanding that Japan review its economic structure and open its markets to overseas products. What is your opinion on this issue?”

73. Shimbunsha, Nihon Keizai, Daitenhoga kieru hi, pp. 92–106Google Scholar.

74. Interviews with MITI officials, Tokyo, June 1992. The term “shoganai” came up often in conversations about Japanese reactions to foreign pressure. One high-ranking government official pointed out, for example, that even LDP politicians react with this feeling when faced with strong U.S. pressure “as long as the U.S. doesn't say something too unreasonable.”

75. Interview with Teiichi Yamamoto, MITI official, Tokyo, 3 June 1992. It should also be noted that MITI helped the social consensus along by offering a large new government subsidy program to rejuvenate shopping districts as an incentive to get key interest groups to go along with reduced regulation.

76. Kingdon, , Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, pp. 122–51Google Scholar.

77. Both Noguchi and Hasegawa were named members of the MOF tax commission subcommittee on land tax policy that paved the way for the 1991 land tax reforms. Their collaboration with Americans preparing for the SII talks is well-known. See NHK, Nichibei no shototsu, pp. 121–25Google Scholar. The above impressions were confirmed in interviews with U.S. Embassy personnel, Tokyo, May 1992.

78. Fukai, Shigeko, “The Role of Gaiatsu in Japan's Land Policymaking,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 111., 3–609 1992Google Scholar.

79. Interview with Tokunosuke Hasegawa, Tokyo, 5 June 1992.

80. This comment should not be taken to imply that there was no negative reverberation in the SII cases or, more generally, in the application of gaiatsu to Japan. Negative reaction to gaiatsu has been growing in Japan, and in the SII cases, MOF officials in particular clearly resented foreign interference.