Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T23:04:45.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Japanese Foreign Economic Policy Formation: Explaining the Reactive State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Kent E. Calder
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access

Abstract

The concept of the “reactive state” is useful in understanding the foreign economic policy behavior of Japan and certain other middle-range powers deeply integrated in the global political economy, particularly during periods of economic turbulence when international regimes do not fully safeguard their economic interests. The essential characteristics of the reactive state are two-fold: (1) it fails to undertake major independent foreign-policy initiatives although it has the power and national incentives to do so; (2) it responds to outside pressure for change, albeit erratically, unsystematically, and often incompletely.

In the Japanese case, reactive state behavior flows from domestic institutional characteristics as well as from the structure of the international system. Domestic features such as bureaucratic fragmentation, political factionalism, powerful mass media, and the lack of a strong central executive have played an especially important part in Japanese financial, energy, trade, and technology policy formation since 1971.

Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 On the industrial adjustment and foreign economic strategies of the smaller European industrial states, see Katzenstein, Peter J., Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

2 On the foreign economic policies of the East Asian NICs, see Hofheinz, Roy Jr., and Calder, Kent E., The Eastasia Edge (New York: Basic Books, 1982), 171–91Google Scholar; Yoffie, David, Power and Protectionism: Strategies of the Newly Industrializing Countries (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Deyo, Frederic C., ed., The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

3 On Brazilian informatics policies and the constraints they placed on U.S. multinationals, see Evans, Peter B., “State, Capital and the Transformation of Dependence: The Brazilian Computer Case,” World Development 14 (July 1986), 791808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

On the Indian case, see Grieco, Joseph, “Between Dependency and Autonomy: India's Ex-perience with the International Computer Industry,” International Organization 36 (Summer 1982), 609–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 In 1986, Japan's population was an estimated 121.5 million, compared with 61.1 million for West Germany, 57.2 million for Italy, 56.6 million for the United Kingdom, and 55.4 million for France. See Keizai Koho Center, Japan 1988: An International Comparison (Tokyo: Keizai Koho Center, 1987), 6.Google Scholar

5 Japanese long-term capital outflows in 1986 totaled $132 billion; OPEC annual capital outflows in the mid-1970s averaged under $65 billion. See Nomura Investment Review, July 1987, p. 11; New York Times, August 31, 1986.

6 Destler, I. M.Sato, Hideo, and Fukui, Haruhiro, Managing an Alliance (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1976)Google Scholar; Desder, I. M. and Sato, Hideo, The Textile Wrangle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Destler, I. M. and Sato, Hideo, eds., Coping with U.S.-Japan Economic Relations (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1982).Google Scholar

7 See Calder, Kent E., “The Emerging Politics of the Trans-Pacific Economy,” World Policy Journal 2 (Fall 1985), 593623.Google Scholar

8 See Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 328–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 On such prehegemonic American foreign economic policy making, see, for example, Lake, David A., “International Economic Structures and American Foreign Economic Policy, 1887–1934,” World Politics 35 (July 1983), 517–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 On the details, see Watanabe, Akio, “Sengo Shoki no Nichibei Kankei to Tōnan Azia” [Early postwar Japan-U.S. relations and Southeast Asia], in Hosoda, Chihiro and Ariga, Sadamu, eds., Kokusai Kankyō no Henyō to Nichibei Kankei [Change in the international environment and Japan-U.S. relations] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai, 1987), 2754.Google Scholar

11 The Fiscal Investment and Loans Program, for example, expanded by 6.2% in 1986, and by 22.2% in 1987. See Yonezawa, JunichiNoguchi, Takuo, and Kubota, Katsuhiro, Zusetsu: Zaisei Tōyūshi [The fiscal investment and loans program: A graphic description], 1987 ed. (Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shinpōsha, 1987), 254–55.Google Scholar

12 See Calder, Kent E., Dealing with Emerging Japanese Information Industries in the 1980s: The Cases of VAN and Software (Center of International Studies, Princeton University, forthcoming 1988).Google Scholar

13 Nakasone, Yasuhiro, “Takumashii Bunka to Fukushi no Kuni o” [Toward a nation of welfare and vigorous culture], Seiron, January 1983, 26–37; quoted in Pyle, 16.Google Scholar

14 Calder (fn. 12).

15 The report was informally named after the former governor of the Bank of Japan, Haruo Maekawa, the chairman of the advisory group. The formal name is Advisory Group on Economic Structural Adjustment for International Harmony; the committee was charged with recommending ways of “more fully internationalizing the Japanese economy.”

16 Japan Times, April 8, 1986.

17 See Keohane, Robert O., “The Big Influence of Small Allies,” Foreign Policy No. 2 (Spring 1971), 161–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the methods smaller states use to influence the foreign policies of larger powers upon whom they are dependent.

18 In fiscal 1986, for example, Japan's 24 insurance companies incurred a ¥ 2.2 trillion (over $15 billion) foreign exchange loss on their ¥ 10 trillion in foreign securities holdings, 50% of which were in U.S. Treasury offerings. Results for 1987 were reportedly comparable. See Japan Times, January 5, 1988.

19 By 1988, Japan had, at prevailing exchange rates, by various definitions either the thirdlargest or the seventh-largest defense budget in the world, with rising defense technology capabilities and a central role in funding both U.S. defense budgets and economic assistance programs supportive of U.S. basing rights in states such as the Philippines. The Japanese defense budget for fiscal 1988 by Japanese definition was ¥ 3.67 trillion (around $30.4 billion at December 1987 exchange rates). By the NATO definition, including military pensions that Japan treats as welfare spending, Japan's defense budget was around $45 billion—significantly larger than the 1987 totals for France ($34.5 billion), West Germany ($34.2 billion), and Britain ($31.8 billion). See The Economist, January 23, 1988, pp. 27–28.

20 Wolferen, Van, “The Japan Problem,” Foreign Affairs 65 (Winter 1986–87), 289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 On the details of Japanese semiconductor industry development, including the relatively coherent and strategic role of public policy, see Okimoto, Daniel I., ed., The Competitive Edge (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

22 See the studies by Sadao Asada of the 1922 Washington and the 1930 London Naval Conferences, in Hosoya, Chihiro and Watanuki, Jōji, eds., Taigai Seisaku Kettei no Nichibei Hilkaku [A comparison of U.S. and Japanese foreign policy processes] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1977)Google Scholar; and Hosoya, Chihiro and Saitō, Makoto, eds., Washington Taisei to Nichibei Kankei [The Washington system and U.S.-Japan relations] (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1978).Google Scholar

23 See Tobe, RyöichiTeramoto, YoshiyaKamata, ShinichiSuginö, Yoshio, and Murai, Ikujirö, Shippai no Honshitsu: Nihongun no Soshikiteki Kenkyū [The essence of failure: Organizational research on the Japanese military] (Tokyo: Diamondo Sha, 1984).Google Scholar

24 On the phenomenon of “policy tribes,” see Inoguchi, Takashi and Iwai, Tomoaki, Zoku Giin no Kenkyū [Research on tribal dietmenl (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sha, 1987).Google Scholar

25 See, for example, Satō, Seizaburō and Matsuzaki, Tetsuhisa, Jimintō Seiken [The LDP administration] (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1986)Google Scholar, and Bu, Nihon Keizai Shimbun Seiji, ed., Jimintō Sekhō Kai [The LDP policy affairs research council] (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sha, 1983).Google Scholar

26 Some see the LDP's mediation of the import liberalization controversy of metal baseball bats in the early 1980s as one such case. See ibid., 40–43.

27 In 1986, 77.7% of global U.S. beef and veal exports went to Japan. So did 86.5%, 73.2%, .55.2%, and 29.2% of U.S. lemon/lime, pork, grapefruit, and orange/tangerine exports, respectively. See Keizai Kōhō Center (fn. 4), 18.

28 On the influence of the Japanese mass media since the late 1950s, see, for example, Kido, Mataichi, ed., Gendai Jyanarisumu: Shimbun [Modern journalism: Newspapers] (Tokyo: Jiji Tsushin Sha, 1973)Google Scholar; Kido, Mataichi, ed., Gendai Jyanarisumu: Hōsō [Modern journalism: Broadcasting] (Tokyo: Jiji Tsushin Sha, 1973)Google Scholar; Miyake, IchirōWatanuki, Jōji, and Kabashima, Ikuo, Byōdō o meguru Elito to Taikō Elito [Elites and counter-elites who bring about equality] (Tokyo: Sōbun Sha, 1985)Google Scholar; and Kabashima, Ikuo and Broadbent, Jeffrey, “Referent Pluralism: Mass Media and Politics in Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies 12 (Summer 1986), 329–61.Google Scholar

29 Johnson, Chalmers, MITI and the Japanese Miracle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; also see McCraw, ed., America versus Japan, esp. p. 37.

30 According to Ministry of Finance statistics, Japan's 1986 trade surplus was $92.8 billion. See Nomura Investment Review, January 1988, p. 10.

31 Feldstein, Martin, “Correcting the Trade Deficit,” Foreign Affairs (Spring 1987), 795–96.Google Scholar

32 Bergsten, C. Fred, “Economic Imbalances and World Politics,” Foreign Affairs 65 (Spring 1987), 770–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Feldstein (fn. 31), 801.

34 Ibid., 799–800.

35 See Gilpin, Robert, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 328–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 For further details on the process of Japanese financial liberalization and its implications for long-term U.S.-Japan capital flows, see Calder, Kent E., “Japanese Capital Outflows: Origins and Implications for the Global Political Economy,” testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, December 11, 1986.Google Scholar

37 Among the growing literature combatively justifying Japanese economic management and blaming others for global imbalances, see Shimomura, Osamu, “Ijōna Amerika Keizai, Rifujin na Amerika” [A distorted American economy, and an unfair America], Next (July 1985), 90–95Google Scholar; Ohmae, Kenichi, “Nichibei ni ‘Fukinkō’ wa nai” [Between Japan and the U.S. there is no imbalance], Bungei Shunjū (April 1986), 94–109Google Scholar; and Shimomura, Osamu, “Nihon Mondai kara ‘Amerikan Puroburemu’ e” [From the Japan problem to the American problem] Seiron (July 1987), 40–49.Google Scholar

38 In 1985 the metal fabrication industry employed 1,278,000 workers, compared to 427,000 for the steel industry, and 202,000 for the nonferrous metals production sector. See Management and Coordination Agency Statistics Bureau, Japan Statistical Yearbook, 1987 ed. (Tokyo: Management and Coordination Agency Statistics Bureau, 1987), 74.Google Scholar

39 Keizai Kōhō Center (fn. 4), 56.

40 Nomura Investment Review, April 1987, p. 11.

41 After the sweeping reforms of the foreign exchange law in 1980, operating profits of the top four securities houses rose between 29% and 51% in one year. By the end of 1985, they stood at roughly triple the levels of 1979–1980, while those of the major banks quadrupled during the same period. By 1986, all four of the largest banks in the world, and six of the ten largest, were Japanese. See The Oriental Economist, Japan Company Handbook, First Half 1986 (Tokyo: Tōyō Keizai Shinpō Sha, 1986), 10101113Google Scholar; and Shimbun, Nihon Sha, ed., Nikkei Sōgō Charts [Nikkei composite charts] (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun Sha, 1985), 425–30.Google Scholar

42 See, for example, Ishiyama, Yoshihide, “Utage no ato no Kokusai Tsuka Kaikaku” [International currency reform after the banquet], Chūō Kōron, April 1986, pp. 176–87.Google Scholar

43 Bank of Japan Research and Statistics Department, Keizai Tōkei Nenpō [Economic statistics annual], 1985 ed. (Tokyo: Nihon Ginkō, 1986), 249–52.Google Scholar

44 On the G-2 concept, see Funabashi, 194–230 and Bergsten (fn. 32), 789–93.