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Using a new dataset covering interest group lobbying on trade before Diet committees from 1950 to 2002 in Japan, this paper investigates when regional competitions, as opposed to class or sectoral competitions, prevail in trade politics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

My paper analyzes the dramatic dismemberments of the pilot state economic agencies in three "Bureaucratic Nonliberal Capitalist Countries"?Korea, China, and Japan?and compares the transformations of states? economic roles in three cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the diplomatic normalization by the 1965 Basic Treaty with Japan, the Republic of Korea (hereafter, South Korea or ROK) still used Japan's past wrongs and/or South Korea's security contribution to Japan as a means of gaining bargaining leverage over Japan. For example, the Chun Doo-hwan regime (1980-87) in South Korea often invoked history and security to put pressure on Japan in unrelated issues, such as trade and government loan, equating Japanese concessions with evidence of its genuine repentance. After the late 1990s, however, South Korea appears to have discarded this strategy of associating history or security with economic issues in its foreign policy-making toward Japan. Why did South Korea abandon the previously oft-used strategy of utilizing history or security as a method of obtaining bargaining leverage over Japan?In addressing this question, I argue that although not a deterministic factor, a change in the self-perception of South Koreans from "dependent" upon to "competitors" with Japan provided the ROK policymakers with an environment in which with enhanced confidence they seek to separate economy from political issues. More specifically, the disintegration of South Korea's vertical economic structure with Japan since the early 1990s resulted in the alteration in the self-perception of South Koreans from "dependent" upon to "competitors" with Japan. This perceptual change contributed to the promotion of South Korean policymakers' confidence toward Japan, thereby placing psychological constraints on their keeping the strategy of using history or security as a tool to put pressure on Japan in economic issues. The ROK democratization, furthermore, led to the establishment of the institutionalized foreign policy making process, thus placing serious institutional constraints on South Korean policymakers' keeping their former strategy to connect history or security with economic issues in its foreign policies toward Japan. Under democracy, South Korean Presidents still contained the authority to make a final decision, yet they got placed under heavy institutional constraints emanating from other actors, such as diverse government organizations, the National Assembly, civic/academic organizations, and the mass media. Unlike past practices, the ROK Presidents under a democratic system became unable to push through their own policy ideas without taking other voices into account. Under this condition, therefore, it was quite difficult for South Korean policymakers - holding the changed self-perception from "dependent" upon to "competitors" with Japan - to keep using the former history- or security- related negotiation strategy toward Japan. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]