The Politics Of Japanese Foreign Policy Decision Making

The over-expansion of Japan during the early period of Mikado Showa was a big enigma in the modern history of international relations. It's also an important variation in the paradigm of realism. Integrating the basic analysis approaches of history, politics and international relations, my dissertation will analyze the real connotation and the source of interests of such main bodies of Japanese decision makers as Mikado, the Royal Court Group, the Japanese Cabinet, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Military Headquarters of Japanese Land Army, the Military Headquarters of Japanese Navy, and the new Japanese bureaucrats under the particular Japanese political system and the political power structure. Through expounding certain major cases of their interactions, my dissertation will explore their roles, functions and ways of behavior in the process of foreign policy decision making, thus finding the domestic political causes that had led to the over-expansion of Japan during that period.My study indicates that the Japanese characteristic political system structure, featured as an irresponsible system, an indiscriminate decentralizing formation and an absence of unified administration which was embedded in the diversified structure under the unipolar power system, was the primary cause leading to the road of extreme over-expansion of Japan during the early period of Mikado Showa, and that the structure functioned with the help of the typical institutional relations, the decision-making regime and the operation of political process of Japan during that period. The normal operation of political power depended on the state of a concentric framework which was manifested such power interaction patterns as "power spillover" (the authorization of power by Mikado), "power cohesion" (the fulfillment of obligation by various adjuvant groups),"vertical power interdependence", and "horizontal balance of power". The decentralization and balance of political power made it difficult for the competition of bureaucratic organizations to end with a monopoly of power. In addition, the decision-making of different political actors can be contributed to the existence of "the opportunity widow" and "the policy window". Major actors that participated in political decision-making tended to be accepting the logic of "the opportunity widow" and employing the widow way of thinking while making political decisions. Since each member of the political alliance was not willing to become the victim of "the opportunity widow", their debates on state policies inclined to consolidate a tendency, i.e., overestimating the possibility of success brought by offensive and overspread strategy while underestimating the possibility of success brought by defensive measures and the strategy of self-restraint. Under the circumstances of this structure, the problem of substantial contradiction between state policy and makeshift resulted from the mutual aid of members of political alliance in the process of formation of "the policy window" was generally settled by the readjustment and innovation of policies with the cost of mutually accepting the negative effects of the policy ideas of the other side and formed the final comprehensive scheme. Therefore, the final scheme was generally more extreme than the possible idea and plan made by any individual interest group in terms of its promise on over-expansion.From the perspective of the domestic politics variable, the analysis of domestic politics process on Japanese foreign policy decision-making by employing the approaches of bureaucratic theory and window theory will be the most effective way for us to find the reason of "Mikado Showa Case" that was featured as the over-expansion of Japan. This kind of analysis approach is helpful for us to explain why it was so easy for the Japanese political system structure to propel the mutual aid of the different members of the political alliance under the given space-time conditions and to understand the difficulties of forming an inherent capability of readjustment so as to take the measures of self-restraint under the circumstances of the rise of empire cost. On the basis of the research, my dissertation will provide an effective analysis framework for us to precisely comprehend the domestic political cause for the intensity and characteristic of the over-expansion of Japan during the early period of Mikado Showa.