Sanction Power, Jurisdiction, and Economic Policy-making: Explaining Contemporary Telecommunications Policy in Japan

Variation in policy-making is an important analytical issue in public policy analysis, but it has not been extensively discussed in the literature on Japanese politics and political economy. Focusing on the interaction between state and societal actors, this article presents a causal argument to account for variation in Japanese economic policy-making. It is argued that variation in policy-making patterns is determined by the strength of a bureaucracy's sanction power and the exclusivity of its jurisdiction. This argument is elaborated through analysis of four related cases of Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) policy-making: the privatization process of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT), the regulation of telecommunications after NTT privatization, the promotion of advanced telecommunications, and the reorganization of NTT. The causal framework is also applied to contemporary Ministry of International Trade and Industry economic policy-making to highlight the argument's preliminary applicability to Japanese policy-making. This analysis of Japanese policy-making lays a base for further analysis of variation in policy-making in general.