Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) has long been one of Japan's most important policy tools in dealing with developing countries, especially in Asia. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the rhetoric of Japanese diplomacy has increasingly emphasized transnational problems that are difficult to resolve within a bilateral framework. This paper focuses on the environmental sphere to identify some of the central ways in which different aspects of transnationalism have shaped Japanese ODA policy. More broadly, it investigates the ways in which the framing of problems as 'transnational' or 'global' has been used to justify Japanese ODA in an era of budgetary pressure, and asks how the Japanese state has steered between the exigencies of domestic politics and international demands for a greater global contribution on Japan's part.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recent scholarship has shown little consensus regarding the underlying motives of Japan's ODA policy. A number of studies have focused on the role of foreign pressure, brought principally by the U.S., on Japan. Others argue that ODA policy continues to reflect the predominance of Japan's mercantilist interests. Pointing to recent changes in Japan's civil society and the 1992 ODA Charter, other analysts cite the growing effect of non-governmental organizations in promoting humanitarian goals in aid policy. In this paper we test competing hypotheses regarding the distribution of Japan's ODA to developing and transition economies since the end of the Cold War. Utilizing a pooled cross-sectional times-series data set, we examine the influence humanitarianism, Japan's mercantilist interests, and Japan's responsiveness to U.S. strategic interests (i.e., gaiatsu). Several new variables not in prior studies are defined, including the effects of the ODA charter and multiple measures of U.S. strategic interests. The effects of the independent variables are estimated using ordinary least squares (OLS) with panel corrected standard errors with sensitivity analysis examining alternative estimation techniques (e.g., pooled tobit, etc.). We also perform tests to assess the degree of endogeneity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In 2000, Japan agreed to cooperate with the governments of other developed nations in trying to improve systems of governance in Indonesia, the largest Southeast Asian nation and a crucial point for security and economic development in the Asia-Pacific region. After the September 11th attacks, Japan's National Police Agency began to recast its cooperation as part of an overall shift of aid resources to deal with terrorism as one of the major transnational threats facing the region. For a government that has long eschewed the use of force, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, this was a remarkable shift, made even more so by Japan's increased efforts to provide counterterrorism training to other Asian governments, its deployment of forensics teams to Indonesia in the wake of the Bali bombing, and a radically revised stance on the protection of Japanese citizens from terrorist threats overseas. Long seen as a substitute for the military tools that might have marked Japanese diplomacy, ODA has now begun to complement an emergent assertiveness in Japanese handling of regional security issues.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper suggests that establishing a cooperative security system in Northeast Asia is the least risky approach to avoiding military conflicts in the region. The situation of Northeast Asia at present is far from being integrated and is still unstable. At present, most of the states in the region try to achieve security by developing military power. Consequently, arms races start and this creates a security dilemma. Given the lethality of available weapons, military conflict between states will probably result in the common ruin of the contenders, and a conflict between two or more of these nations in the region will most probably result in not a zero-sum, but a negative-sum situation. In order to ensure the security of the states in the region, military build-up is not the answer. Each state needs to consider less provocative way of stabilizing the region. In order to stabilize the region, this paper suggests that the states involved need to look for common interests and find ways to cooperate for the mutual benefit of all. Interaction based on common interests will eventually give rise to mutual interdependency in the region. In other words, states in the region should aim to create a cooperative security system. To realize this cooperative security in the region, the cooperation of all states is required and no single state can pursue their own interests at the expense of the rest. All states have to recognize that an arms race immediately starts in the region if one state starts to develop its military. States have to become aware that their own interests are better secured when they cooperate. And, moreover, states must become aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of any military engagement. Fear of mutual assured destruction (MDA), prevented war among major powers during the Cold War, and a similar heightened fear of the mutual destruction consequent on any military engagement should be engendered among nations in Northeast Asia in order to diminish the incentives to start a war. In view of the points above, this paper also argues that Japan's moves to enhance its military capabilities are insufficient. There is a movement, at present, to change the Japanese constitution and develop a national military force commensurate with Japan's economic power. The present capacities of the National Defense Forces (NDF), to be sure, are very limited but these forces are sufficient to wreak havoc on any aggressor in the region, and at present Japan's military spending is the third-largest in the world. Japan, instead of developing the strongest military among its neighbors and thus fueling an arms race, should use its ODA to create political and economic interdependency with other states in the region. Using its ODA easily develops common interests such as economic and energy interdependency in the region. In effect, Japan is in the position to take a leading role in creating a cooperative security environment. To be sure, cooperation to advance common goals is a difficult thing to achieve in international relations. But if a regional hegemonic power takes a lead in creating ties of interdependency, this seemingly optimistic scenario has a realistic chance of being realized.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper challenges traditional
studies on Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) policy making,
which assumed Diet or Prime Minister as a key ODA decision-maker and
argued Japan’s motive in increasing the amount of the foreign aid
spending was subject to politicians’ interests (i.e., the studies
generally argued that the politicians’ interests in ODA decision making
changed from pursuing Japan’s commercial interests in 1960s-1980s to
accommodating foreign pressure or humanitarian needs of developing
countries in 1990s). In other words, applying Charmers Johnson’s
perspective that “ (in Japan) it is the bureaucrats who actually
initiate and draft virtually all important legislation (Japan: Who
Governs?: 123), the author argues that primary ODA decision-making
power in Japan has resided not in the politicians but in the
bureaucracy. The author's study identifies the four primary actors
(ministries) of Japan’s ODA policy making (until 1990s), which had
different ODA motives (i.e., Ministry of Foreign Affairs: security
concern and Japan’s image in other donors; Ministry of International
Trade and Industries: commercial interest; Ministry of Finance:
stringent as budget distributor; and Economic Planning Agency: various
interests co-existing), and sees those actors as interests maximizers
in the decision making (i.e., it understands the decision making
situation as an interministrial “turf battle,” in which ministries
pursue their interests). According to the author’s data analysis
(quantitative – percentage of ODA budget by ministries, transition of
grants and loans etc- and qualitative data- various interviews with
bureaucrats in the agencies done during the summer of 2003 in Tokyo,
Japan) the historical trend of Japan’s ODA expenditure pattern reflects
the ups and downs of ministries’ power in the decision making (e.g.,
MITI’s diminishing power vs. MOFA’s increasing influence), which was
caused by the interministrial battle over the foreign aid policy. In
addition, the author tries to find out the differences of Japan’s
interministrial ODA decision making pattern before and after the
Hashimoto Cabinet’s administrative reform in January 2001, which
decreased formerly four primary decision makers (ministries) into three
disorganizing Economic Planning Agency.