Search

This paper will use the mass media theory of framing to assess three major Japanese newspapers-Yomiuri, Asahi and Mainichi -editorials (694) concerning Japan’s homeland security from 9/11/01-2/29/04. Based on the kinds of topics addressed by the editorials surveyed, I utilized five frames - national interest, cost/consequence, threat, responsibility and human interest. This period was selected because it includes 9/11, the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, new Japanese legislation related to homeland security and anti-terrorism, PM Koizumi’s historic visit to North Korea, the killing of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq and finally the dispatch of more than 1000 ground, air, maritime SDF forces to Iraq for humanitarian and reconstruction assistance. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of this data for future Japanese homeland security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Second World War killed approximately fifty million people, while it led policies and institutions to improve people’s health. This paper will ask why and how these events occur ironically at the same time and rethink the development of health insurance policy. This paper will also examine how war mobilization formed and consolidated the Japanese and American health insurance systems. It is through an examination of the Japanese war experience, the fifteen-year war, that we understand how and why Japan reached a nearly comprehensive national health insurance system with a unique structure. On the other hand, the American war experience, what people call "Big One," largely shaped the subsequent policy path that relied largely on the private health insurance. This paper takes the United Kingdom and Germany as shadow cases to illuminate the Japan-US comparison. Richard Titmuss pointed out a half century ago that total war would lead to the development of social welfare policy. More recently, Jytte Klausen argues that war creates a new notion of what the state can and should do in economic and social policy (see also Kasza, Kryder, Skocpol, and Sparrow). However, historical and comparative political scientists have made only limited efforts to theorize the effect of war experiences on welfare state development. War, like any other single variable, cannot explain such development alone. Nonetheless, war prompts the state to intervene in promoting policies and institutions to improve people’s health. Most simply, state leaders who seek victory at the international level must attempt to improve people’s health to produce good soldiers and good munitions and to control or stabilize social demands. Titmuss saw how the events in the United Kingdom and its war experiences led to the expansion of social policies, including the Beveridge Report released in 1942 and the establishment of the National Health Insurance in 1946. However, his work did not prompt further comparative study as scholars turned their attention to other variables in the discussion of welfare state development, such as industrialization, labor power, culture, and policy and institutional path dependence. When scholars do study the impact of war, they tend to treat it as a simple and identical exogenous shock and do not address how variations in war experiences affect policies and institutions. In contrast, this paper puts forward an argument about how a war’s duration, depth of mobilization, casualties, battle sequence, and war-fighting regime influence health policy development. Thus, this paper seeks to contribute to an understanding of those factors that influence the formation and the consolidation of health insurance systems in various countries by incorporating the Japanese and American cases into comparative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the impact of public opinion on presidential decision-making in foreign policy. Although a good deal of research looks at this general question, beyond the broad distinction between crisis and non-crisis decisions, the literature is largely inconclusive. We begin from this central distinction, utilizing the International Crisis Behavior Project’s criteria as the starting point for case selection. To observe in detail how differing patterns of public attentiveness influence foreign policymaking, we compare four cases: the 1991 Gulf War; the 1999 U.S. intervention in Kosovo; the U.S. response to Ethiopian famine in the mid-1980s; and U.S.-Japanese economic relations between 1988-1992. To move beyond the broad question of “public opinion and foreign policy,” we propose a more precisely specified analytical model, conceptualizing foreign policy decision making as a five-stage process: problem representation, option generation, policy selection, implementation, and policy review. At each decision stage, the question is asked: How influential was public opinion on a president’s decision? The model generates several testable hypotheses. For instance, foreign policy crises tend to produce a public that is highly attentive throughout all stages of the decision process. While strategic imperatives often overwhelm domestic political considerations in the early stages of a crisis, the relative importance of public opinion as a decision premise tends to increase during later stages, with presidents apt to sacrifice strategic effectiveness to pacify a highly attentive domestic audience during the implementation phase. Conversely, salient non-crisis foreign policies produce a selectively attentive public, whose greatest influence is likely to be on the president’s selection of policy rather than the manner in which that policy is implemented. Freed from the constraints of an attentive public, presidents are afforded considerable autonomy in implementing non-crisis policy in a manner consistent with their vision of the national interest, even if the general public does not share that same vision. This paper outlines the model and provides a brief overview of each of the cases, then assembles data on aggregate public opinion from a wide range of surveys and polls, and analyzes the resulting time series to compare the pattern of public involvement to the model’s predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After fifty years of Cold War division, East Asia has gained greater coherence and substance as an emerging economic, even political, entity. This paper examines the role of hegemony in East Asia’s ongoing post-Cold War reorganization. In particular, where the US and Japan once claimed much of East Asia?s economic and political attention, long-term trends suggest an ongoing reorientation on the part of East Asian states around China?s growing economic and political presence and that China will increasingly become the center of gravity for East Asia I focus on the US, Japan, and China as the three powers that have or are most likely to assume the hegemonic organizing role detailed in international relations theory. The paper examines these major powers, with a particular focus on their shifting relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Though a coalition of weaker powers, ASEAN has played an important, if not unusual, role in defining and at times, leading regional processes. This was especially the case for much of the 1990s; however, financial crises, as well as ASEAN?s political and economic limitations, have also forced the organization to look outside itself for additional economic and political leadership. The paper begins with a brief discussion of the 1990-1997 period, a period characterized by much uncertainty about the post-Cold War priorities and policies of major powers. In particular, I describe how the United States as retrenching hegemon, Japan as reluctant hegemon, and China as rising hegemon set the stage for new thinking about intra-East Asian relations. Their shifting relations underscore political and economic interdependencies between Northeast and Southeast Asia that had been less apparent during much of the Cold War. It is during this period that we find ASEAN playing the important role of facilitator in negotiating changing relations. The second part of the paper then turns to a discussion of developments since 1997, addressing the roles played by 1) the 1997-9 financial crisis and 2) the US war on terrorism in shaping East Asia’s reorganization. This period is characterized by notable Chinese activity and Beijing?s intensified engagement of Southeast Asian states, individually and collectively. Taken together, the paper shows that major powers have shaped in critical ways the contours and organization of an evolving East Asia. East Asia has become more organized ? formally and informally, politically and economically ? but thus far, that process has been defined more by market forces and competitive dynamics between the major powers. In other words, if East Asia is becoming more coherent and organized, it is becoming so more by accident than necessarily by hegemonic design. Recent Chinese policies suggest that China may wish to assume a larger leadership role; however, the question remains whether the United States or Japan would accept China in such a role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper will analyze the ways that Japan has approached nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation in recent years. More specifically, in addition to the diverse approaches that have been taken by Tokyo and Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organizations, my paper will examine the extent to which U.S. policies influence the disarmament and nonproliferation initiatives of the Japanese government in the international arena. Preliminary research suggests that Tokyo is placing more emphasis on nonproliferation than on nuclear disarmament, creating two major reasons for concern. First, the government of Japan, despite its continuing public campaign to promote nuclear disarmament while seeking the assistance of civil society organizations, would be especially sensitive to the policy concerns of Washington, which, as many critics argue, has developed hegemonic global interests. Second, Tokyo would be alienating itself from Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organizations that in recent years have increased their international efforts to promote nuclear disarmament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During Prime Minister Koizumi’s recent visit to the States, Prime Minister Koizumi had been invited to join CIA’s intelligence brief with President Bush for the first time among the Japanese prime ministers. The invitation had been recognized as President Bush’s way of thanking Koizumi for his timely staunchly statement to indicate Japan’s support for U.S. and British actions against Iraq without the U.N. resolutions. Between Bush and Koizumi, they seem to be enjoying the hey day of the alliance, but in reality, what is happening between two countries can be explained that Japan has been much more deeply placed in American Grand Strategy while Japan has not realized that it does not have its own. In this sense, the U.S.-Japan alliance has not the product of American and Japan’s grand strategies. It is a part of the American grand strategy, and Japan happens to be in the strategy. In the aftermath of 911, the United States changed its military policy from the threat based one to the capability based one. Under the circumstances, not having its grand strategy, Japan will soon face the problem of rationally deciding what Japan should do for the sake of Japan’s national interest whenever the United States calls for contribution. In this paper, I would argue that it will be high time to recognize the gap of the image and reality of the alliance between Washington and Tokyo. For the States, it might not become the issue as long as Japan has been following Washington’s order blindly, but for Japan, it means that Japan has missed another prime opportunity to establish its grand strategy after 911 and the swift victory of American and British war against Iraq. In this paper, I will trace back how the expectation and reality of the alliance has shifted since its establishment to the present. Then, I will point out the gap of the image and reality of the alliance between policy makers in Washington and Tokyo and its impact on the future U.S.-Japan security relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Second World War killed approximately fifty million people, while it led policies and institutions to improve people’s health. This paper will ask why and how these events occur ironically at the same time, and rethink the development of health insurance policies. Scholars explain welfare state development by focusing on industrialization, labor power, culture, and policy and institutional path dependence. When they do study the impact of war, they tend to treat war as a simple and identical exogenous shock and do not address how variations in war experiences affect policies and institutions. This paper contrasts ‘Japanese’ war with ‘American’ war in terms of a war’s duration, depth of mobilization, casualties, battle sequence, and war-fighting regime. It also examines how war mobilization formed and consolidated the Japanese national health insurance policies in the 1930s and the 1940s. This paper has three contributions. First, theoretically, it shows the difficulties of existing studies to take variations in war experiences into their analyses, and suggests a necessity of further studies to understand the relationship between war and health insurance policy. Second, empirically, it examines origins and development of the Japanese health insurance that political scientists have not sufficiently addressed. Third, it sheds a new light on a frequently asked question: Why does the United States not have the comprehensive national health insurance system? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assumption that the balance of material costs and benefits of nuclear armament for Japan is sensitive to small changes in the scope and credibility of U.S. extended deterrence supports the current role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security and military strategy. This paper scrutinizes this assumption in terms of a constraint that is especially difficult to change: what kind of deterrent strategy can Japan implement against nuclear weapon states? I start with pessimistic assumptions about the need for an independent nuclear deterrent, and optimistic assumptions about the feasibility of building nuclear weapons, both of which are crucial for prediction and advocacy of nuclear armament. The first set of assumptions, in which the United States no longer extends deterrence, and China values victory in nuclear war against Japan, rules out a small force de frappe for Japan. Instead, Japan will need a large retaliatory force, even with an asymmetric counter-recovery strategy against energy resources, transportation, and sea power. This deterrent is not likely to become operational without a decade of investment. In short, a claim that a small nuclear deterrent is necessary and sufficient for Japan contradicts itself. Japan needs either a large nuclear deterrent, or none of its own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores immigrants' rights activism by non-state actors in assisting immigrants and xenophobic activism by ultra-nationalist groups at the local and national level. Three classes of non-state pro-immigration organizations that are concerned with immigrants exist throughout industrialized societies: immigrant ethnic associations, faith-based institutions, and immigrant advocacy groups. Through seven years of fieldwork, I have found that different kinds of non-state organizations predominate in different locations. Immigrant ethnic associations predominate in Sweden, faith-based organizations in the United States, and immigrant advocacy groups in Japan. Less dominant immigrant organizations exist in each country, but are much rarer. The target of activism by non-state actors also differs in these three countries. In Sweden, activists target state elites at all levels, including politicians, bureaucrats, and the European Court. In the United States, faith-based groups partner with local labor unions to target both local and national politicians. In Japan, immigrant advocacy NGOs work with local government officials to target the national bureaucracy and the Supreme Court to influence policy outcomes on immigration. I also observed more xenophobic activisms in both the United States and Japan but less in Sweden. However, xenophobic activism involving armed vigilante groups are larger in membership size in the United States than in Japan. My paper argues that the type of electoral system explains the presence/absence of certain political groups on immigration issues. Political opportunity structure helps identify specific political conditions and associational strategies under which a political and/or social group emerges to mobilize public opinion and influence policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to highlight a conceptual difficulty in Washington's perspectives toward China, exploring key grounds of the U.S. thinkers in modern history and today. It compares the views with Beijing's current thoughts and approach in initiating what Beijing once called a "peaceful rise" or "peaceful development." This paper then runs a case study of Beijing's multilateral practice in the context of East Asian regionalism in order to assess what Washington may need to refocus on. The central argument maintains that the difficulty of the U.S. to draw a practical policy toward China is attributed to a conceptual difference between Washington and Beijing in thinking of how leadership is obtained and exercised. It points out a limit on the power-oriented nature of Washington to simplify the complexity surrounding Beijing's approach; it especially highlights the insufficient attention of Washington to China's role and impact on neighboring states in the process of regional integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States and Japan have maintained their strategic alignment for nearly an half century. This is the longest alliance ever for Japan and the second longest one for the United States besides NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). However, theoretical understanding of this bilateral relashionship is relatively poor. In particular, existense of the alliance after the Cold War generated further explanative disturbance. This paper attempts to grapes U.S.-Japan alliance as an "security community," modeled by Karl Deutsch in the 1950s, that is more convincing theoretical framework than neorealism, neoliberalism and constructivism. Although his model was created upon "transatlantic" relationship between the United States and Western Europe, the author considers the model is largely applicable to "transpacific" alignment. This paper argues a mechanism of peaceful change on multilateralism, military planning, and common definition of threats by examining institutions, norms and identity between the two countries in the 1990s. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing demand for natural resources has become an issue of primary importance in China's foreign policy, and has led many observers to argue that conflict with the United States and other states in Asia is growing more likely. This paper evaluates the historical record on that question: under what circumstances have the resource needs of previous rising powers led to conflict with other states? I propose two independent variables: the ability to extract natural resources at home and the openness of the international trade system. In cases where the rising power has a large domestic resource base, and can supplement domestic production with easy access to foreign resources through trade, rising powers are less likely to generate conflict. In situations where the rising power has a limited resource base at home and the international trade system is closed, on the other hand, are more likely to lead to war. The paper evaluates three cases. For the United States in the late 19th century, massive domestic reserves and the first great era of globalization led to a "peaceful" rise. For Japan in the 1930s, an extremely poor resource base and rising trade barriers contributed to conflict. Finally, the paper turns its attention to China and argues that this important contemporary case more closely resembles the rise of the United States than that of Japan. China's domestic resource base remains quite large, and the international trade system is unprecedented in its level of openness. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the policy transformation of pension regimes is presented which is prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Conference, in Toronto, Ontario, on September 2-6, 2009. The paper discusses topics including the recent pension reforms in the U.S., Great Britain, Sweden and Japan, and the relationship between income inequality and pension regimes.

This study investigates the relationship between the media and public opinion by analyzing the Iraq War coverage of two leading U.S. and Japanese newspapers: the New York Times and the Asahi. Specifically, this work has two sections. First, I analyzed all the content of the two news papers' articles regarding the war from October 1, 2002 to December 31, 2004. This work reveals that these two print media, although both liberal in their general orientation, treated the Iraq War differently. Among other things, the study quantitatively finds that they are quite distinctive in the degree of negativity about the U.S. policies toward Iraq (The negativity was tabulated in ratio to the total number of negative articles out of all stories in the subject area being explored.)The Asahi is strongly negative throughout the period of analysis, the New York Times is supportive until the end of the actual battle, but in a later stage, particularly, the end of 2003, the New York Times also becomes gradually critical of their government. In some months, the New York Times was even more negative than the Asahi, and the negativity gap between the two papers grew smaller towards the end of year 2004.Second, this work statistically examines whether media's impact is significant in shaping public opinion. This work constructs a statistical model to test hypotheses about the media's impact on public opinion during the Iraq War. Variables in the model include: the data of content analysis of two news papers, misery index (consumer price index and jobless rate), sentiment toward their leaders (presidential supporting rating in the United States and Japanese Cabinet supporting rating in Japan, respectively) and public favorability toward other nations. The result discovers that poll data of Japanese sentiments about the United States show a decline in positive feelings towards the United States as the ratio of negative stories of U.S. Iraq policies carried by the Asahi rose. In addition, the Asahi's critical assessments of the Japanese government's Iraq policies showed a moderate negative congruence with public support for their Cabinet. Also, there was a moderate negative relationship between the New York Times' unfavorable coverage of the U.S. government's policies of Iraq and presidential approval ratings. Finally, as a conclusion, this study ponders ramifications of media's content toward public policy process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question "what are the similarities and differences between U.S. trade frictions with China, Japan, and South Korea that account for different U.S. retaliation patterns?" This paper develops six independent variables and their relative measurements from U.S.-Japan and U.S.-South Korea cases and the literature, and examines their impact on U.S. retaliation to China. Our results indicate that four out of six independent variables have decreased the probability of U.S. retaliation since 2001. Furthermore, the U.S. has lost the necessary political, economic, and military leverage to retaliate to China, although it has had two of the three "motivations" to do so. This paper suggests that U.S. leverage over China has deteriorated for two major reasons: (1) U.S.' "illusion" of the latter party's ability/willingness for cooperation and of its own capabilities to retaliate; and (2) China's accumulation of relative gains at an unprecedented rate after 2001. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On December 7, 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. The government responded to American advances in the Pacific by selecting policies of war rather than policies of peace. Why did Japanese decision-makers choose the path of military confrontation rather than the path of diplomacy? What prompted them to confront the United States at Pearl Harbor? Was it the configuration of the international system, or the capabilities and resources of nation-states that compelled them all to choose war? Or were structural circumstances fluid enough for people to disagree, and for differences among decision-makers to reflect variations in the cognitive costs of making judgments?This paper will review Japanese decision-making dynamics in 1941, and investigate whether structural conditions or the cognitive calculus theory of decision-making best accounts for the foreign policy preferences of individual actors. It will draw attention to deliberations at several levels of government, including within the military services themselves, and consider whether the transparency of American provocations forced all decision-makers to routinely choose force, or if the ambiguity of American actions prompted some people to prefer diplomatic initiatives while others preferred military solutions. In particular, it will explore the proposition that because all individuals are cognitive misers or cognitive processing cost-minimizers who unconsciously prefer judgments that are mentally cheap to those that are mentally dear, differences between civilian and military actors predictably reflect the influence of three different cognitive cost-cutting cues: decision stage (problem definition or solution definition), decision role assignment (leader or advisor), and a decision-maker’s level of substantive knowledge (novice to expert).By examining the evolution of Japanese foreign policy over the course of several months, this paper will not only assess whether and when the cognitive calculus theory of decision-making can offer a most useful explanation for this case, it will address whether the actions of Japanese officials in 1941, like those of British decision-makers in 1938 and American decision-makers in the Cuban missile crisis, the turn toward peace in Vietnam, and the 9/11 responses of 2001 (four cases already investigated), reinforce and extend the power of the theory. It will consider whether the cognitive calculus explanation can account for the preferences of different individual actors, in different states, facing different national conditions, and different international circumstances. This paper will conclude with a discussion of the implications of this work for future scholarly and policy efforts. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immediately after liberation from Japanese occupation, numerous experts were deployed from the United States to survey the postwar landscape of the Philippines. They were sent to collect images of and collect statistical information on the extent of damages to Philippine agricultural and manufacturing industry, transportation and shipping facilities, urban and village structures, and natural resources. This collection of information urgently framed the Philippine Islands as "utterly devastated." Within the U.S. congress, immediate calls were made not for short term relief, as originally thought, but rather for long term plans of rehabilitation and reconstruction in the Philippines. From 1945 to 1946 discussions of a Rehabilitation Act were steadily pursued. By 1946 the "original Rehabilitation Bill had been expanded, the kinds and amounts of claimants had been extended and definitions broadened, the amounts appropriated had been multiplied over five times." Bundled along with the disappointing Bell-Trade Act of 1946, the Rehabilitation Act still ushered in a sense of optimism in the immediate postwar Philippines. By the sheer amount of money it provided, numerous projects and institutions were planned to aid in gaining the newly independent Republic the international recognition it deserved. Yet at the same time, inhabiting the shadows of optimism was the anxiety of mismanagement of money. In 1947, one particular group, the Joint Philippine American Finance Commission made up of both Philippine and American members reported their findings and recommendations. Their findings conclude that the initial years of Philippine independence was of critical importance in the "economic development" and stable future of the nation. Chief in their concerns was the potential mishandling of rehabilitation loan money entering the young nation. In response the joint commission makes several recommendations. Of utmost importance is the principle proposal of a Central Bank. The establishment of the Central Bank of the Philippines, as the chief authority on national currency, can ensure that all of their other recommendations are followed. This paper thus proposes to look at the emergence of the Central Bank as an object produced out of the uncanny postwar discourses of economists. These postwar discourses center on the anxiety over the twofold possibilities of misrecognition of money as well as a collapse into a non-modern economy. In the imaginary of economists, the existence of a Central Bank guided by techno-knowledge and sound management, acts as the bulwark against such devastating possibilities. Furthermore, the potential success of the Central Bank is demonstrative of the potential success of a sovereign Philippine political economy. Yet in order to legitimate the existence of a Central Bank, this paper asserts that through disciplined economic research, a recurring non-modern economic world is created by economists. This non-modern economic world is then historically presented as inhabiting the present postwar space of the Philippines. Furthermore, it also threatens to subsume it. It does so in two interrelated ways. The first is the potential misrecognition of money as speaking a language other than the value of capital. The second is the discourse created by economists in order to produce uncanny effects through the economy. These two methods intertwine in order to combine, what they imagine as a chaotic and fragmented space of islands: peasants, rebellions, decrepit banks, atrophied agricultural industries, and other non-modern elements, into a unitary and coherent whole. The name of this object is the Philippine national economy. And like any object, once solid and tangible, it can be continuously manipulated, managed, and exploited by both state and international banking institutions... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, nuclear debates in the United States have centered on the “unspeakability” of nuclear war drawing this silence from the apocalyptic power of nuclear technology. This “unspeakability” is mirrored institutionally and, ultimately, this silence leads to depoliticized and sanitized policy paths and political realities. This can manifest itself in greater secrecy in policy decisions concerning nuclear technology and the phenomenon of “nuclear reclusion” in the public realm. Given the undisputed destructive power of nuclear weapons, the US tendency toward depolitization and secrecy short circuits democratic accountability. I will examine two cases toward this end: This paper compares the memorialization of nuclear weapons in Japan and the US. How do our collective memories differ? Can methods of remembering history lead us toward different policies or aid us in creating memories of the future that include open debate and de-sanitized nuclear policy? This paper seeks to analyze how nuclear memory operates within the democratic state, and how we bridge the apparent incongruity with global nuclear realities and the (re)creation of democratically accountable nation-states. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the re-posturing of U.S. forward presence in Japan is presented. It asserts the possibility of mismatches between the U.S. global strategy and the local re-posturing process. It addresses existing theoretical works on U.S. forward presence. It discusses the Cold War origins of U.S. military bases in Japan. It examines the strategic implications of the re-posturing strategy for Japan.

Focusing on the experiences of Japan, the United States, and Sweden, the paper examines how differing conceptions of citizenship and moral personhood shape policy outcomes. The paper employs this analytic framework to interpret institutional variations in immigration politics, and to then show how these political factors affect each country's welfare policy. It argues that different kinds of policy assumptions are based on distinct political mythologies and their often-implicit philosophical traditions, and that these "moral parables of citizenship and personhood" provoke different kinds of immigrant activism. In Japan, this concept is framed in terms of purity and hierarchy. In the United States, the relevant terms involve civic features of citizens, and the abiding importance of freedom. Finally, in Sweden the abiding terms are a more substantive conception of equality, and again a concern with freedom. Thus Japan's "control policy," which treats immigrants as workers (rather than persons with equal moral standing to citizens) provides the greatest impetus for local activism through informal democratic institutions. In contrast, the United States' "assimilationist policy" and Sweden's "multicultural policy," both of which treat immigrants as potential citizens (albeit in very different ways), provide greater national activism through both formal and informal democratic organizations and processes. As a member of the European Union, Sweden is also witnessing activism at the supranational, multilateral level. As a result, Japan has a greater proportion of immigrant rights NGOs, the United States has more faith-based organizations, while Sweden has focused on immigrant ethnic associations. The paper then addresses how the institutional variations in immigration policies and activism have impacted each country's social welfare policies, particularly for immigrants. Japan's system of universal healthcare covers all except for "polluted" illegal foreigners while Sweden's universal healthcare treats everyone equally. The United States private healthcare system offers excellent services and choices to those who can pay while the government subsidizes faith-based organizations and other private institutions to provide free/low-cost health and welfare services to the needy, including the newly arrived and poor immigrants. These social welfare policies are consistent with each country's interpretation on the concept of the person and its immigration policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the relationship between the media and public opinion by analyzing the Iraq War coverage of two leading U.S. and Japanese newspapers: the New York Times and the Asahi. Specifically, this work has two sections. First, I analyzed all the content of the two news papers' articles regarding the war from October 1, 2002 to December 31, 2004. This work reveals that these two print media, although both liberal in their general orientation, treated the Iraq War differently. Among other things, the study quantitatively finds that they are quite distinctive in the degree of negativity about the U.S. policies toward Iraq (The negativity was tabulated in ratio to the total number of negative articles out of all stories in the subject area being explored.). The Asahi is strongly negative throughout the period of analysis, the New York Times is supportive until the end of the actual battle, but in a later stage, particularly, the end of 2003, the New York Times also becomes gradually critical of their government. In some months, the New York Times was even more negative than the Asahi, and the negativity gap between the two papers grew smaller towards the end of year 2004.Second, this work examines whether media's impact is significant in shaping public opinion. The result discovers that poll data of Japanese sentiments about the United States show a decline in positive feelings towards the United States as the ratio of negative stories of U.S. Iraq policies carried by the Asahi rose. In addition, the Asahi's critical assessments of the Japanese government's Iraq policies showed a moderate negative congruence with public support for their Cabinet. Also, there was a moderate negative relationship between the New York Times 'unfavorable coverage of the U.S. government's policies of Iraq and presidential approval ratings. Finally, as a conclusion, this study ponders ramifications of media's content toward public policy process.This study investigates the relationship between the media and public opinion by analyzing the Iraq War coverage of two leading U.S. and Japanese newspapers: the New York Times and the Asahi. Specifically, this work has two sections. First, I analyzed all the content of the two news papers' articles regarding the war from October 1, 2002 to December 31, 2004. This work reveals that these two print media, although both liberal in their general orientation, treated the Iraq War differently. Among other things, the study quantitatively finds that they are quite distinctive in the degree of negativity about the U.S. policies toward Iraq (The negativity was tabulated in ratio to the total number of negative articles out of all stories in the subject area being explored.). The Asahi is strongly negative throughout the period of analysis, the New York Times is supportive until the end of the actual battle, but in a later stage, particularly, the end of 2003, the New York Times also becomes gradually critical of their government. In some months, the New York Times was even more negative than the Asahi, and the negativity gap between the two papers grew smaller towards the end of year 2004.Second, this work examines whether media's impact is significant in shaping public opinion. The result discovers that poll data of Japanese sentiments about the United States show a decline in positive feelings towards the United States as the ratio of negative stories of U.S. Iraq policies carried by the Asahi rose. In addition, the Asahi's critical assessments of the Japanese government's Iraq policies showed a moderate negative congruence with public support for their Cabinet. Also, there was a moderate negative relationship between the New York Times 'unfavorable coverage of the U.S. government's policies of Iraq and presidential approval ratings... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will historically and theoretically study conditions under which states develop bilateral versus multilateral security alliances. Specifically, the paper will discuss a question on why the United States built mainly bilateral alliances in the Asia-Pacific region while it established a multilateral alliance, namely the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the early Cold War period.Understanding security alliances have been the subject of major research in international relations studies. However, there has been so far insufficient scholarly attention and rigorous archival research focusing on the question I proposed above. The findings of the proposed paper will not only be historical and theoretical, but will also attempt to provide insights on how future Asia-Pacific alliance policy can be managed.This paper argues that the difference between the German rearmament and the Japanese rearmament is a key for solving the puzzle. The nature of the German rearmament is very much different from that of the Japanese counterpart, because the Japanese rearmament was far modest and limited in its nature and scope. The large-scale German rearmament generated more complex interdependent interactions among the United States and its European allies, while the limited Japanese rearmament created less interdependent relations in the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, the Atlantic alliance developed into NATO with multilateralism, while alliances in the Asia-Pacific remained bilateral in nature. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I tackle two puzzles in this paper: why did Japan and the United States begin to develop health insurance policies almost from scratch during WWII; and why did they adopt different systems by the end of postwar reconstruction? For the first question, I argue that the health insurance systems in both countries were developed for making war mobilization more efficient. For the second question, I argue that the differences in each country's wartime experience-the state's projection about the duration and depth of mobilization, the eventual length of the war, the sequence of war planning, and the result of the war-influenced how, and to what degree, the Japanese and American states intervened in health insurance. The goal of this paper is to construct a framework for understanding the relationship between war and health insurance by examining the cases of Japan and the United States. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study on Japan's informal political actors and networks will not only provide a foundation for us to further understand Japanese politics and foreign policy but will also enable us to get a better idea of how networks function in a larger context, namely between Tokyo, Beijing and Washington. Social network is not only an important part of Japanese policy making but also a crucial factor in the China-Japan-U.S. triangular relationship. Instead of providing equal attention to each parties of this triangle, this paper will focus on Japan's informal political actors and networks by examining the process of normalization in its relations with China. In addition to detailed analysis of political actors in Japanese politics and society, it also provides an account of Beijing's reaction in this significant process. In the concluding part, this paper also provides some preliminary analysis in making international comparisons particularly with the United States. Thus, it will also assist us in understanding the networks between the three powers in the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the conference paper titled "The Impact of War and Successful Reconstruction: Evaluating the Bush Administration's Germany-Japan-Iraq Analogy" prepared for the "International Studies Association Convention" held in Honolulu, Hawaii. It examines the legitimacy of the analogical reasoning by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush in the Iraq war based upon on an assessment of the commonalities across Japan, Italy and Germany. The paper mentions different meanings of path dependence theory according to several authors.

This paper uses a comparison of Japanese koenkai and American political machines in order to build an analytical framework with which to better understand reciprocal relationships between those in power and their constituents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-Cold War world Japanese security policy has grasped at nationalistic elements within Japanese society in attempts to "securitize" itself by means of a foreign policy independent of the United States. Working from International Security: A New Framework for Analysis by Buzan et al., this paper examines Japanese security policy in light of Japan’s attempts to securitize itself in non traditional ways that impact traditional security, while focusing on the policy implications of Japan’s ongoing failure to securitize its economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, free trade agreements concluded between developing and developed countries have proliferated rapidly. By including rules for investment and services, these recent FTAs comprise much more than tariff elimination. Why the sudden proliferation of these agreements, when most-favoured-nation tariffs are at a historically low level? This paper identifies the interests behind these agreements, arguing that they are a reaction to the liberalization taking place in advanced developing countries, conditioned by specific institutional features of the global trade regime. Motivated by an accelerating competition over markets and access to foreign direct investment, countries conclude more and more bilateral agreements out of fear of being left behind. The central finding is greatly increased role of interests around foreign direct investment, a factor that has been overlooked in previous analyses. The study is based on comparative case studies of FTAs concluded by Japan, the US, and the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The American scholars might argue that Gaiatsu still plays an important role in the U.S.-Japan alliance in the aftermath of 911. However, the Constructivist’s analysis will show Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s trauma and his complacency are the key factors and weigh more than Gaiatsu in the current U.S.-Japan alliance. It will also mean that what the U.S. and Japan seem to enjoy might not be there once Prime Minister Koizumi stepping down and Japan will not be able to deliver what the U.S. expects. In the aftermath of 911, the U.S.-Japan alliance immediately faced the problem of show the flag incident, but it did not become too big a stumbling block between Washington and Tokyo after all. Washington owed big to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. His trauma concerning the Gulf War and his guts against Hashimoto, his enemy in the LDP, paved a way for Washington’s Gaiatsu (outside pressure) strategy to work. In face of the U.S. and British actions against Iraq, Prime Minister Koizumi staunchly supported their actions even without the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions. On the surface, his decision signaled Japan’s departure from its postwar diplomacy, was welcomed by President George W. Bush, Jr. As a token of appreciation, during the recent bilateral summit, President Bush invited Prime Minister Koizumi for the first time to sit in on a secret meeting of the CIA. On the surface, as Shinzo Abe, Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, secretary of the cabinet stated, In the century and a half since (Commodore Matthew) Perry came to Japan, Japan-U.S. relations have probably never been better. However, in reality, to the constructivists, Japan’s attitude toward the alliance has not changed at all; a dependent and blind follower. Otherwise, Japan should have made its position clearly and opted to turn the cold shoulder to the United States when the U.S. and Britain decided to act without the U.N. security resolutions. What Japan has done since 1945 is to go with the flow of the United States. Washington has no intention to comment on Japan’s action as long as Japan is in her side. However, as a result, Japan has not made an effort to develop an independent spirit and historical understanding. Dependence does not lead to mutual trust and respect. It is high time for Japan to have a realistic look at history to derive lessons that look to the future. For Japan to develop its own perspective, it is important to understand that the nature of the alliance has not changed a bit from the outset for Japan. In this paper, using the Constructivist’s approach, I will trace back Japan’s problem to the beginning of the U.S.-Japan alliance and explain why the problem remains intact more than a half century. By doing so, I will point out the way for Japan to develop an independent spirit to win stronger mutual trust and respect from the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Fuji-Kodak photo film, port business, and NTT interconnection charge disputes, which developed between the U.S. and Japan around and after the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), significantly increased the importance of multilateral trade rules. The Japanese government?s response to U.S. pressure varied in each of these disputes; it was more conciliatory in the NTT interconnection charge dispute than the other two. To explain this variation, this paper presents an argument: the timing of a trade dispute in the development of multilateral rules is an important determinant of the response, because the timing determines the gap between multilateral rules and Japanese domestic government and business practices. The case analyses of the three disputes demonstrate that, since a smaller gap exists in the early and late stages of multilateral-rule development than in the intermediate stage, the Japanese government resisted U.S. pressure more effectively in the former than in the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important ingredient in democratic politics is the realization of political disagreement through patterns of social communication and political discussion. If people fail to encounter contrary viewpoints, their own political views are never challenged, they are never forced to reconsider initially held preferences or opinions, and they are effectively excluded from democratic deliberation. This paper examines patterns of agreement and disagreement within the political communication networks of citizens in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Several questions are addressed. Are there cross-national differences in the patterns of agreement and disagreement that occur among citizens? To what extent are these patterns subject to individual characteristics, opinions, and attitudes? Are they dependent on the structure of citizens’ communication networks? Finally, to what extent are patterns of political agreement and disagreement affected by the levels of aggregate support for a citizen’s political preferences and opinions? The empirical analysis is based on cooperative election surveys conducted in each of the countries during the early 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the military and economic rise of China a threat to powers such as Japan and the United States? This paper examines this question using the theoretical predictions of realist theories (classical realism, neo-realism, and power transition theory), liberal theories (classical liberalism and neo-liberalism), and constructivist theory. While the qualitative analysis of Chinese, American, and Japanese behavior indicates some support for each theory, classical liberalism and constructivism are most strongly supported by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing Baumgartner and Jones (1993) theory of punctuated equilibrium, we examine several terrorist attacks that occurred in the U.S. and Japan during the past decade: the World Trade Center Bombing of 1993; the Sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995; the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995; and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The analysis demonstrates that earlier incidents failed to mobilize sufficient public interest to bring about major change. Only in the aftermath of September 11, was sufficient public attention focused on homeland security to bring about significant change. We also examine the institutional evolution of homeland defense in the U.S. and the creation and missions of the Office of Homeland Security and proposed Department of Homeland Security. The paper concludes with a critical assessment as to whether the new organizations have been given the necessary tools to adequately confront the threat posed by terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]