Selling foreign economic policy: Japanese and American lobbying in United States-Japan economic disputes

Japanese lobbying in the United States recently has received an increasing attention of the scholars, media, and decision-makers. Despite rising criticism against foreign (particularly Japanese) lobbying activities in the United States from the 1980s, scholarly inquiry into the subject in either English or Japanese languages fails to address foreign lobbying in a holistic manner.;The empirical question of the strength of Japanese lobbying closely resembles a more theoretical question of "what perspectives of international relations better explain U.S.-Japan relations?" Nevertheless, depth and volume of case studies are considerably lacking in order to make any general assessment. Two cases are selected from the areas where political and economic significance of the issues have not been met by adequate amount of coverage by scholars. The rice trade dispute was chosen as the most important bilateral agricultural trade issue between the United States and Japan. The semiconductor trade dispute was chosen for its economic significance.;The primary objective of this dissertation is to address the role of Japanese lobbying in American foreign economic policy making in a proper proportion. To do that, comprehensive coverage of major trade disputes is essential. This includes detailed analysis of interest alliances in both the United States and Japan and their roles in policy making of each country. The aim of the analysis is to determine which perspective on U.S.-Japan relations is more consistent with evidence drawn from the two case studies: U.S.-Japan semiconductor trade disputes and rice trade disputes, which are found in chapters III and IV. By studying the decision-making processes of the two countries, guidelines for a more plural decision-making in foreign economic policy can be found. For this purpose, pluralist, organizational politics, corporatist, foreign lobbying, and their variations of decision-making models (presented in chapter II) will be tested in light of the two case studies.