Policy change in Japan: The Tokyo metropolitan government's regulation of diesel emissions

Since the mid-1980s, Japan has suffered from what is arguably the developed world's worst problem with pollution from diesel-powered trucks and buses. On August 27th, 1999, Japan's laissez faire policy toward diesel emissions came to an abrupt end when the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), under controversial Governor Shintaro Ishihara, announced "Operation No Diesel", a policy advocating stronger local and national regulation of diesel emissions.; This dissertation adopts an interdisciplinary case study methodology to explain Tokyo's sudden decision to locally regulate diesel emissions, the influence "Operation No Diesel" had on central policy, and how Tokyo overcame barriers to regulatory implementation. I also estimate the impact of those regulations on on-road diesel emissions in Tokyo. To explain local and central policy change, I apply an analytical framework integrating two models of the policy process: a punctuated equilibrium model, which describes rapid policy change, and an administrative centralization model, which characterizes intergovernmental relations in Japan. I argue that local policy change was catalyzed by Ishihara's efforts to force the TMG bureaucracy to adopt an anti-central stance following his election in 1999, measures that overturned the institutional basis for policy centralization. "Operation No Diesel," in turn, catalyzed central policy change by disrupting interest group politics underlying the central policy subsystem.; In the second half of this dissertation, I consider how TMG was able to implement its regulations, as well as how those regulations impacted emissions in Tokyo. I argue; that three factors in particular---administrative flexibility, Tokyo's very large administrative capacity, and the hypercompetitive nature of the automobile and petroleum industries---allowed TMG to overcome barriers to implementation. The final part of this dissertation introduces a simplified emissions model suggesting that the bulk of reductions in diesel emissions after 2002 directly linked to central and local environmental policy---70% for PM, and 30% for NOx---are attributable to Tokyo's local regulations.; In closing, this dissertation considers how "Operation No Diesel" challenges the existing understanding of policy change in Japan as incremental, centralized, and mediated by the bureaucracy rather than by politicians.