Work in Progress
“Path
Dependence in the Evolution of Japan’s Party System Since
1993,” a paper I presented at the International Political
Science Association Meeting in Fukuoka
in July 2006. I’m continuing to
modify the paper and expect to include it in a volume I am co-editing with
Prof. Aiji Tanaka of Waseda University.
Abstract: The argument that party systems take shape at critical
junctures, and that the subsequent evolution of these systems is constrained by
what took place in the past, was made way back in 1967 by Lipset
and Rokkan. More recently, Paul Pierson, in his book
Politics in Time, has pointed to the stability of party systems as a leading
example of the workings of “path dependence.” But party systems do change, as seen in
the way the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) replaced the Japan Socialist Party
(JSP) as the leading alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) during
the 1990s. In this paper, I
identify the positive feedback loops that make party systems difficult to
disrupt (processes that help explain the stability of the “1955 Party System”
in Japan
up until 1993). I then focus on
conditions that can disrupt, overwhelm, or make dysfunctional these mechanisms
of party system reproduction. The
elimination of the JSP as a significant party and the emergence of the DPJ as
the leading alternative to the LDP after 1996 can be explained, I argue, by a
particular confluence of sudden changes in the structure of Japan’s policy
space. Change at this critical
juncture did not completely remake the system,
however, since strategic incentives arising from the prior configuration of the
old party system has led the DPJ and
the LDP to market themselves as supporters of neoliberal
economic reform—leaving Japan
without a viable party of the Left.
“Exit, Voice, and
Women’s Movements in an Era of Low Fertility”, a paper I presented at the annual meeting of the
American Political Science Association in the fall of 2005, has been submitted to
a journal.
Abstract: When
the women’s movements of Sweden
and the United States
began seeking increased labor market opportunities and greater equality in the
sharing of informal work in the 1960s, both had high fertility rates. Most
women married young and had several children before they began struggling to
balance work and family and fighting for improvements in their conditions that
would make this struggle easier. In contrast, women in contemporary Japan and Italy, who are relative latecomers
to the gender role revolution, have been struggling for equality in an era of
low fertility. Most women put off
marriage until their late twenties (if they marry at all), and many work for
over a decade or more before they face decisions about how (and whether) to
balance work with family. This paper argues that we are seeing different
patterns of behavior in the advanced industrialized nations that are
confronting gender role issues in an era of low fertility than in those that
pioneered the women’s movement in an era of high fertility—shaping women’s
movements in distinct ways and producing different degrees of social norm and
policy change.
“Gaiatsu, Learning, and Japan’s
Emerging Economic Liberalism,” a paper being revised for submission to an IR
journal.
Abstract: This paper examines how earlier periods of
American pressure led Japanese elites to adopt a defensive strategy of
embracing WTO and OECD multilateralism which has, over time, led to an
internalization of liberal economic norms among Japanese economic elites.
International
Cooperation Despite Domestic Conflict: Japanese
Politics and the San Francisco Treaties, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
International Studies Association in New
Orleans, March 24-27, 2002.
Abstract:
Alliance theory based on unitary rational actor
assumptions predicts that states worried about entrapment or abandonment are
likely to hesitate before committing to an alliance. Moreover, two-level game theory predicts
that states with divided domestic politics are likely to find it difficult to
strike international bargains. If
these theories are correct, polities torn between factions worried, between
them, about both abandonment and entrapment should have particular
difficulty sustaining support for a security alliance. This paper challenges these arguments by
presenting a two-level model of alliance politics that shows how cooperation
can be sustained under these adverse conditions. The model is then illustrated through an
analysis of how Japanese domestic politics shaped the terms of U.S.-Japan
security cooperation in the 1950s.
This page maintained by Leonard Schoppa.
Last updated on: June 30, 2006