The Change of the Policy System in Japanese Politics since 1980s

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1 Earch investigator has made catalogs on books and materials concerning about a research issue assigned to him.2 Each investigator read his research results at the monthly meeting and we had vigorous discussion on it. Besides, we held lectures by foreign political scientists visiting Japan and got useful implications in terms of comparative politics.3 We've got the following results concerning about politics in Japan since 1980s.(1) As for theory, we refined the new institutionalism and the policy network theory.(2) Generally, there are some characters of the recent policy system different from old one, such as participation in policy process by the business sector and foreign governments, delayd adaptation of the government to market pressure of liberalization and internationalization, convergence of policies among political actors, reduction of state's policy tools, convergence on cooperation of labor and capital, and recent labor's participation in policymaking, symbolized by Rengo.(3) A new institutionalist analysis of the industrial policy indicates that so called neo-liberalism trend of 1980s is indeed an extension of out-of-public-area phenomenon of 1970s and suggests the Japanese political-economic system different from the neo-conservatism like the United States and Britain.(4) An analysis of Japan-US trade conflict draws the structure of trade negotiation affected by political power of concerned business association, reform network, US Congress, political leadership, foreign direct investment and policy organization and shows that such a structure is changing because of weakened perception of foreign pressure and lack of the condition of political leadership after 1990s.4 From now, we'll research into how these policy changes develops in the process of political reform in 1990s.