The Role of Individual Ideas in Policy Changes: The Case of Japanese Agriculture

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics III & Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies

Abstract

To explain policy changes, the relevant literature has focused on changes in political institutions, such as electoral systems, and economic conditions. However, Those factors cannot explain two large changes in agricultural policies in postwar Japan: shifts from the increase of rice production to its decrease and the removal of protection of small farmers. This research instead focuses on the ideas of ministers of agriculture and argues that those ideas explain when the changes happened in Japanese agricultural policies. In the two empirical sections, I will examine how ministers' ideas account for those changes. This paper will also contribute to a rethinking of the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Japan, suggesting that the ideas of ministers play more significant roles in other countries. In addition, the findings in this paper will suggest that the role of individual ideas might be different from that of societal ideas. Finally, I argue that the ideas of ministers will influence agricultural development afterward by influencing the timing of agricultural reforms.

Author

• Hirofumi Kawaguchi, Keio University