shinbun , 10 Apr., 29 Aug., 15 Nov. 1993).
12. Sources for the following discussion of credit-claiming in Japan include Hirose (1981, 57); van Wolferen (1989, 193, 305); Wakata (1986, 69);
Inoguchi and Iwai (1987, chap. 2). For discussions of credit-claiming by politicians in the United States, Italy, and elsewhere, see Mayhew (1974, 52- 53); Johannes and McAdams (1987, 537); Walston (1988, 233).
Conclusion Change and Inertia in the Politics of Japanese
"synergistic strategies" by which a foreign negotiator can manipulate
conditions in his counterpart's domestic polity. Building upon Putnam's work, Schoppa (1993, 372) argues that "by transforming a narrow domestic issue into one with implications for an important bilateral relationship . . . foreign pressure can expand elite-level participation as previously uninvolved
bureaucratic agencies, senior party leadership, and interests groups come to have a stake in dealing with the problem." Moreover, the threat of U.S.
retaliation under Section 301 produced an air of crisis and anxiety in Tokyo.
Elevating the dispute to a crisis almost ensured the participation of Japanese officials at the highest level: ''crisis decisions in foreign policy are made by an elite of formal, official office-holders'' (Lowi 1967, 301). In the
negotiations that produced the Major Projects Agreement in 1988, for
example, the key decision-makers were Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru and Ozawa Ichiro, his specially selected chief negotiator.
7. With the economic decline in 1991, private construction investment in Japan decreased, and government spending on public works helped cover the difference, rising from 26.4 percent of total construction investment in 1990 to 34 percent in 1992. Nevertheless, Japan's largest general
contractors continued to suffer due to the decline in overseas construction activity. In particular, the collapse of real estate prices in many parts of the United States, reduced demand for office space (especially in places like California, where flows of military funds were drying up), and the effects of economic recession resulted in fewer orders for the Japanese construction firms. Many of these firms incurred losses on assets they had acquired at vastly inflated prices prior to the U.S. recession.
8. A similar point is made by Schoppa (1993, 373 and passim). Based on an analysis of Japanese financial politics, Rosenbluth (1989, 53 and 94), argues that "foreign diplomatic pressure is effective only when market forces have already altered domestic costs and benefits or when there is a perceived threat of retaliation." Similarly, Bayard and Elliott (1995) found that U.S.
market-opening initiatives were particularly effective when they meshed with the interests of domestic Japanese groups that shared American interests.
9. Apter and Sawa (1984); Ishikawa and Hirose (1989, 65-120); Pempel (1979); Steinhoff (1988); Taylor (1983); van Wolferen (1989, 65-81, 159- 80 and passim).
10. See, for example, Curtis (1988, 229-32); Kyogoku (1987, 245-89);
Masumi (1985, 1:3-26).
11. On the situation in agriculture, see Hayami (1990); Hillman and Rothenberg (1988); Van der Meer and Yamada (1990).
12. The fact that the bureaucratic elite erected barricades does not mean that the prewar developmental regime was completely insulated from
partisan meddling. Elected politicians did influence the making of structural policy, such as budgetary and locational decisions concerning public works;
see Akita (1967); Duus (1968); Mikuriya (1980); Najita (1967); Scalapino (1953); Woodall (1990). The essential point is that elected politicians played a decidedly minor role in the forging of policies for strategic industries and sectors, particularly in the prewar era and during the first three decades after World War II.
13. Various writers cite the end of the cold war as a contributing factor in the fall of ruling parties in Japan, Italy, Canada, Germany, and Venezuela; see, for example, Inoguchi (1993); Martin (1993); Schorr (1993).
14. At the outset of the 1990s, major political corruption scandals rocked Japan, Italy, India, Brazil, Venezuela, and the United States; less sensational scandals appeared in Germany, Spain, France, and Britain. Now that the West is no longer fixated on containing the communist menace, Daniel Bell (1993, 18) theorizes, "democratic political corruption has become one of the surpassing political issues. The bipolar world dominated by the Communist- capitalist dichotomy has been replaced by a politically unitary one, divided by corrupt and clean."
15. Remnants of the cold war survive in the tensions on the Korean peninsula, the dispute between Japan and Russia concerning sovereignty over the Southern Kuriles, and the persistence of Marxist-Leninist regimes in China. North Korea, and Vietnam.
16. I concur with Odawara's assessment (1993, 32): "What destroyed
Kanemaru was the Sagawa Express scandal's exposure of his skillful wielding of backroom power as lubricated by, illicit funds and unscrupulous
connections. More disturbing, however, is that nothing was accidental about this affair; corruption is deeply imbedded in factional politics."
17. The policy of "opening to the left" was approved at the Christian
Democratic congress held in Naples in 1962, and became a necessity in the wake of the party's poor showing (and the Communist Party's stellar
performance) in elections the following year. Under this policy, the Christian Democrats repeatedly relied upon the Socialist Party as a coalition partner or as the supplier of external support in numerous Christian Democrat-
dominated cabinets from 1963 through 1992.
18. For example, 80 percent of the eight hundred industrialists surveyed by Pino Arlacchi stated that the bustarelle continued to change hands even after the Mani Pulite probe. Although the investigation apparently resulted in
slight improvement (85 percent of those polled admitted that bribes were necessary to win public contracts prior to the crackdown), 13 percent said that nothing had changed. Arlacchi's findings are discussed in "Still Crooked"
(1994).
19. For instance, bid-rigging allegedly occurred in March 1994 under open bidding procedures in the allocation of the contract to construct a pavilion to
honor those who died in World War II. The low bid of ¥5 billion was submitted by a joint venture headed by Takenaka Corporation, the only member of the Big Six not implicated in the zenekon scandal. Tenders were accepted only from A-rank firms as determined by MOC's Kanto Regional Construction Bureau. Although there were thirty such firms, the need to exchange information among firms in order to form joint ventures allegedly facilitated the successful bid-rigging; Asahi shinbun (19 Mar. 1994).
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