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?

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.