The Theory Of Interest Groups Influence On Japan's Trade Policy

Interest group theory is one of the most important components of modernpolitical system, which has significant effect on governmental policy making. Withthe globalization increasingly progressed, interest group theory not only plays animportant role in domestic policy-making, but also becomes more and more importantin foreign policy-making. Therefore, this paper takes Japan’s interest groups as theresearch object. Based on the interest groups theory as well as the summary andcritical analysis of relative documents, the author explicitly discusses the role thatinterest groups played in the process of Japan’s trade policy-making and alsocombines the theory with the latest case. The contents of this thesis are composed ofrelative literatures review, interest groups theories as well as the distinctiveness ofJapanese interest groups, case study, and a brief conclusion.In October2010, Japanese government firstly put forward its plan of participatingin TPP. According to Japanese government’s judgment, Japan would benefit from thefree trade agreement (FTA) if takes part in TPP, can especially promote its economicgrowth and the recovery of earthquake disaster. However, Japan’s TPP policycontinued to be under stagnate status. The main reason exists in the conflicts betweendomestic interest groups. Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) which represents theindustrial interests prefers free trade policy, while Nokyo (Japan AgricultureCo-operatives) insists on trade protection in order to protect its agricultural market.This thesis get the idea that it is the different preferences of domestic interest groupsthat lead to a dilemma as to whether to put the TTP policy into practice or not. As aresult, this thesis takes the gaming equilibrium of Keidanren and Nokyo as a casestudy, discussing the impact that Japanese interest groups have on the trade policy.The mechanisms Keidanren and Nokyo function on policy are mainly the three aspectsas follows: firstly, lobbying the administrative or legislative agencies directly;secondly, propaganda to the public media to get support from the masses; lastly,allying the same interests to resist the opponent groups. In this paper, the author usesthe above three mechanisms to prove that the great influence Nokyo has greatlyimpeded the advancement of Japanese TPP policy.The major innovations of the paper lie in three points as follows. Firstly, thispaper breaks a priori hypothesis of the supremacy of national interest by insisting thediversification of interest entity. The author investigates the foreign economical policy making (especially trade policy in this paper) from the perspective of domesticpolitical process, which represents a new direction of comparative political economicsstudies. Taking Japan’s interest groups as the objective case studies has made somecomplement for the insufficiency of this kind of researches in China to some extent.Secondly, to have a comprehensive review, summary and conclusion on interestgroups theories and the distinctiveness of Japanese interest groups. There alreadyexist researches which discussed on both of the two fields. However, this papercombines the two fields organically which has strengthened the explanative effects.Thirdly, the author selects TPP policy on case study, which is of the most timelinessand political reference. Soon after the TPP policy come out, the multiple interest groupsin Japan immediately responded to it which shows that the great sensitiveness thatinterest groups have on this issue. This provides the latest and most proper materialfor the research hypothesis this paper going to do. So that the case study this paperemployed not only reflects this articles’ aim, but also acts as one significantinnovation of this article.