The Transformation of the Japanese State in an Era of Governance: A Case Study of the Evolving Regulatory Framework

This thesis explores the transformation of the Japanese state in response to a variety of challenges by focusing on two case studies: ICT regulation and antimonopoly regulation between the 1980s and 2000s. It sets out to challenge the dominance of the pluralist and rational choice literature in Japan’s political science. The analytical framework of this thesis draws on key theories from both governance and state theory literature, in particular, the core executive and the regulatory state. The thesis explores the extent to which there is asymmetric dominance on the part of Japan’s core executive through an examination of recent developments in the Japanese regulatory tradition between the 1980s and 2000s. With its particular approach employing a government ministry as the regulator, the analysis of ICT regulation reveals how the Japanese state has been transformed in response to its specific challenges under its political tradition. Antimonopoly regulation offers another example of state transformation, with an independent administrative commission as the regulator in contrast to the ministerial ICT regulator. The exploration of this set of empirical cases is drawn mainly from elite interviewing. This thesis concludes that the transformation of the Japanese state in these two cases can be characterised as the development of the Japanese regulatory state, employing the state as the key locus of the political events. By proposing an account based on an elitist perspective this thesis sets out a challenge to the dominance of pluralist and rational choice positions in the literature on Japan.