Institutional Accord in Japanese Diplomatic Policymaking: Vicious and Virtuous Cycles in North Korea and Vietnam

Since 2002, Japan-North Korea relations have been largely stagnant. Policy responses in Japan since 2006 have been largely focused on sanctions, with little success having been achieved in making progress in Japan’s central policy objectives of reducing the security threat and rescuing its abducted citizens. Indeed, these problems have only deepened in severity in recent years. Nonetheless, this did not necessarily have to be. Vietnam, a fellow isolated, autocratic, communist state, was in a similar position to North Korea as the Cold War ended, and yet Japan successfully fostered a stable long-term political and economic relationship with it. This thesis explores Japanese diplomatic policy towards both, and questions what factors in the Japanese policymaking process led to the relative success or failure of Japan in achieving its core policy objectives in each. While the issues which North Korea itself has presented are well-known, significantly less attention has been paid to the institutional politics in Japan and how they influenced policy processes and outcomes. This thesis employs comparative analysis between Japan’s engagements with North Korea and Vietnam, supplemented by elite-level interview data, in order to determine causal factors in Japan’s policy outcomes with both. It argues that a major factor in both Japan’s failure to achieve its objectives with North Korea and its success in achieving them with Vietnam was institutional accord – the relative weight of consensus or the lack thereof behind specific policies. In arguing this, it demonstrates the criticality of non-core policymaking institutions in Japan, and the importance of consensus in the engagement of democracies with autocracies. It argues that institutional accord can lead to highly sustainable, effective policy in cases where it is present, but that a lack of it can create long term acrimony and policy fossilisation in cases where it is not.