Paper short abstract:

The 2018 fisheries reform aims to turn Japanese fisheries into a growth sector with a resource management system that is based on international standards. The paper examines the genesis of the reform and analyses, based on the concept of policy diffusion, where the policy content came from.

Paper long abstract:

Coastal fisheries in Japan have been in decline since the early 1990s. Situated mostly in rural areas, fishing communities suffer from depopulation and ageing. Stagnating production levels, decreasing demand and rising imports have led to income insecurities, further deterring young people to enter the industry. Policy makers and fishermen alike have been struggling to find solutions for this complex mix of challenges.

This paper analyses the 2018 reform of the Japanese fisheries policy, focusing on the revision of the resource management system. Aim of the reform is to turn Japanese fisheries back into a growth sector supported by an effective use of marine resources, this being also part of wider efforts to revitalise the primary sector under the Abe administration. Heart of the reform was a substantial revision of the Fisheries Law, establishing a new resource management system consisting of Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and Individual Quota. Management decisions are to be based on sound scientific evaluation and methods that are considered international standard, such as the Maximum Sustainable Yield. Furthermore, fishery rights, governing the use of resources in coastal waters, have also been restructured. These revisions have met with critique by coastal fishermen and some fishery experts, who fear that small-scale fishermen will be pushed out by capital-based private enterprises.

While current research is interested in possible outcomes of the reform, this paper examines how the reform came to be and where the policy ideas manifested in the reform stemmed from. Why reform now? Why choose this management system of TAC and quota and aspire towards "international standards"? Why, in effect, reverse the post-war reforms trying to usher in capital-based enterprises and scaling up of fishery operations in coastal waters?

Based on a document analysis and interviews with stakeholders and experts and using the concept of policy diffusion, I argue that neoliberal ideas and questions of legitimacy in the international community formed those policy decisions in the sphere of modern fisheries policy.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the effects of critical the changes of the meanings of certain key political terms of Japan's agricultural policies in the last 50 years through a text analysis of the Agricultural White Paper.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the effects of critical the changes of the meanings of certain key political terms of Japan's agricultural policies in the last 50 years through a text analysis of the Agricultural White Paper. For decades the Japanese Agricultural Minister has been pursuing certain policy goals including the improvement of food self-sufficiency rate and the protection for domestic producers. So, on the surface, there does not seem to be much changes in the Ministry's policymaking. However, although those policy goals stayed the same, its actual policies have changed substantially over the time. What explains the changes in policies under the same policy goals? One possible explanation for this intriguing puzzle is that certain key terms in the policy goals such as food self-sufficiency rate or trade protection might have changed their meanings substantially from time to time. Therefore, we hypothesize that even though the Ministry has been making policies trying to achieve the same goals, its policies end up consisting of different contents from its past policies, as some key terms used to depict its goals contain different meanings. To examine the substantial changes in key terms of Japanese agricultural policies, we conduct a quantitative text analysis of the Agricultural White Paper published in the last 50 years. We expect that our text analysis allows us to detect incremental changes in the meanings of those key terms, and we will try to examine how those changes were translated into actual policies while searching for the reasons why the meanings and policies changed during the time period. We also expect that this study reveals the motives behind the Abe Administration's agricultural policies that seemed to have deviated from the government's policies in the past.

Paper short abstract:

What does disaster tell us about Japanese democracy? By investigating several recent disasters through the lens of the emotions that they produce, this paper explores the political side of disaster (mis)management and provides some new insights on contemporary Japanese politics.

Paper long abstract:

In the past three decades, Japan has been struck by numerous large-scale disasters from the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake to the 2019 typhoon season and the still ongoing Fukushima nuclear crisis, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and trillion yen of damage. Particularly prone to natural hazards, the nation has established an extensive institutional and organizational framework for disaster management, regularly revised and adapted to face new risks. Largely relying on highly specialized knowledge and technocratic approach, the field appears dominated by experts and bureaucrats, leaving little room for citizen participation or moral opinion.

Meanwhile, every disaster produces powerful and conflictual affects and emotions, ranging from sadness, anger, anxiety and fear to empathy and compassion. The emotional consequences of a disaster continue to impact a society years and even decades after the disaster occurred. The perception of how well the events were managed depends highly on the emotional responses among the victims and their families, the general public and the media, and even the politicians and government officials involved. These emotional reactions play a major role not only in shaping historical judgment but also in causing policy revision and political change. In the aftermath of a disaster, policy and moral entrepreneurs, including the government and the imperial family itself, are active in mobilizing emotions in order to raise awareness on specific topics—from the denunciation of authorities' inaction to calls for national unity—and to place them on the public agenda. In such case, emotional mobilization serves as a way to address the limitations of governmental action or to compensate its failure. Against the illusion of depoliticized management, these intense conflicts of emotions reaffirm the political nature of disaster in Japan.

Drawing upon extensive empirical research of several recent disasters, this paper investigates what disasters reveal about contemporary Japanese politics. It will demonstrate the crucial importance of emotions in the politics of disaster management and how taking more seriously the various roles played by these emotions in the political and policy process casts a new light on Japanese democracy.

Paper short abstract:

By taking advantage of a quasi-natural experimental setting, the 2019 North Korea-United States Hanoi summit, we examine whether Donald Trump's firm and uncompromising posture toward North Korea reassured the Japanese people.

Paper long abstract:

We examine whether a firm and uncompromising posture of a powerful alliance partner reassures people of other member states of the alliance. A common view suggests that allies find their patron state's hardline postures toward their adversaries reassuring, because such postures represent demonstrations of resolve and commitment. In contrast, a few scholars argue that allies consider their patron state's hawkish postures a threat to their security, because such postures raise tensions with their adversaries. Despite the significant implications of these opposing views for theoretical and policy debates, however, empirical evidence is scarce, especially at the mass level.

To address the shortcomings, we statistically test the effect of a powerful alliance partner's hardline posture on reassurance among the public in other member states of the alliance by taking advantage of a quasi-natural experimental setting, the 2019 North Korea-United States Hanoi summit. The Japanese were afraid of the U.S. making significant concessions during denuclearization negotiations with North Korea prior to the summit, but Donald Trump stood firm against Kim Jong-un, which resulted in the negotiations breaking down.

Our analysis of an online survey on a quota sample of the Japanese electorate, conducted before and after the summit, shows that the level of threat perception is significantly lower in the post-summit sample than in the pre-summit one, especially among respondents with a higher level of awareness of international relations.