"Japan's policy-making process and the liberalization of the beef market in 1988"

Abstract

On 20 June 1988, after around four months of negotiations between the two countries, Japan made an agreement with the United States to liberalize the Japanese beef and citrus market fro. April 1991. Four days later it made an agreement with Australia which was substantially the same as the one with the United States. This was a remarkable achievement as many Western researchers believed at the time that t he influence of the domestic agricultural lobby on Japanese policy-making was such that Japan would not open up its highly protected and less competitive domestic agricultural market. This was based on a more general belief that because of the domestic clout of protectionist agricultural groups within Japan, Japan would not reciprocate benefits it had received from an international trade regime predicated on free trade principles. The announcement of the liberalization of Japan 's beef market in 1988 not only shook this belief but also raised the question of whether this announcement heralded a fundamental change in Japan's external economic policy-making system, and eventually a change in Japan's contribution to the international economic system. Despite the noteworthy implications of the 1988 agreement, not much attention has been paid to how the decision making process in Japan produced such a decision. Show more