The role of preferences in Japan's FTA policy formation in Asia on a bilateral, minilateral, and region-wide level : does Japan need a region-wide agreement?

• Main Author: Jerzewska, Anna Swietoslawa
• Other Authors: Dent, Christopher ; Hook, Glenn ; Horn, Sierk
• Published: University of Leeds 2012
• Subjects: 382.710952
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.589011

Using Japan's existing free trade agreements (FTAs) this thesis analyses the country's current FTA policy by focusing on the formation of domestic preferences regarding bilateral, mini lateral and proposed region-wide FTAs. The two-level game metaphor (Putnam 1988) is combined here with the international political economy (IPE) approach in order to analyse the complex interactions between various levels of factors influencing main actors' preferences. The two-level game model is used to' separate the international and domestic levels of policy formation process and to conceptualise the latter as bargaining between various groups of actors (domestic negotiations). The thesis argues that preferences of discussed domestic groups together with the specific policy formation process are central to explaining Japan's FTA policy and its current impasse. The thesis conceptualises this policy as embedded in a broader economic and political environment, both on a national and an international level. Changes in this environment can affect actors' preferences and lead to changes in country's free trade agreements policy. This study analyses the added value of consecutive FTAs from the perspective of their main clients, as well as technical aspects of their harmonisation, multilateralisation or consolidation. It also discusses Japan's approach to overlapping FTA regulations. Therefore, the research is set within the overarching theoretical debate of multilateralising bilateralism which attempts to determine the feasibility of harmonising bilateral FTAs into broader agreements. The thesis focuses predominantly on the desirability of such harmonisation from the perspective of Japan's main actors. This study is based on in-depth interviews conducted in Tokyo in January 2009 and between March 2010 and December 2011.