Japan's Preferential Trade Agreements: Implications for Domestic Liberalization and Regional Integration in East Asia
FAIN: FO-50116-10
Mireya Solis
American University (Washington, DC 20016-8200)
Japan's ever-growing free trade agreements (FTAs) pose fundamental questions: Will these trade deals finally open the Japanese market? Can Japan deliver cohesive trade integration in East Asia? To assess the domestic determinants of Japanese FTA quality (dependent variable), I employ two independent variables: 1) lobbying incentives for societal actors in preferential trading, 2) centralization of government trade policy. I make a contribution to existing literature by highlighting the ways in which FTAs create a set of distinctive challenges and opportunities that do not arise in MFN multilateral liberalization; and by elucidating the impact of centralized trade policy institutions for the prospects of market opening. I also offer new insights to the political economy of Japan by analyzing the shifting balance of power between Executive and Legislative, and changing lobbying patterns with the fragmentation of powerful umbrella associations.
Associated Products
Global Economic Crisis: Boon or Bust for East Asian Trade Integration? (Article)Title: Global Economic Crisis: Boon or Bust for East Asian Trade Integration?
Author: Mireya Solis
Abstract: Political economists have long noted that the prospects for trade liberalization diminish in a climate of economic recession. A stagnant economy intensifies the burden of adjustment for non-competitive sectors and polarizes domestic trade politics. Not surprisingly, the global financial crisis has raised concerns of a substantial protectionist backlash, through the imposition of national measures that circumvent WTO disciplines such as anti-dumping or tied stimulus packages. The impact of economic crisis on regional integration is, however, more ambiguous and has not been explored systematically. On the one hand, policymakers may be pressed to renege on trade liberalization commitments on all fronts -weakening as well the momentum to negotiate or implement regional trade agreements (FTAs). On the other hand, policymakers may be tempted to “insulate” their region from adverse global trends and may see FTAs as more amenable to political manipulation that shelters inefficient sectors. In order to shed light on the connection between external crisis and regionalist drive, I assess three main challenges East Asian elites confront in devising a regional trade bloc capable of acting as a growth locomotive: institutional fit, multilateralization, and architectural design. The track record of East Asian governments of negotiating FTAs to score diplomatic points abroad and ensure political survival at home–at the expense of maximizing economic gains through far-reaching liberalization- does not bode well for the magnitude of this challenge.
Year: 2011
Primary URL:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09512748.2011.577232?prevSearch=solis&searchHistoryKey=Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Pacific Review
Globalism ascendant, regionalism stagnant: Japan’s response to the global financial crisis (Article)Title: Globalism ascendant, regionalism stagnant: Japan’s response to the global financial crisis
Author: Mireya Solis
Abstract: Japan’s response to the global financial crisis has emphasized global initiatives and downplayed the regional agenda, in sharp contrast to its approach to the Asian Financial Crisis. This rebalancing in Japan’s economic diplomacy reflects the greater political space it enjoys at the global level since its long held views on the benefits of flexible IMF lending practices and controls on volatile capital flows have now become mainstream; while at the regional level Japan faces stiff competition with China in shaping the regional integration agenda and unchartered territory in co-leading a multilateralized Chiang Mai Initiative. Despite its enhanced profile, Japan’s new globalism is uneven: it has made a very significant financial contribution to expand the resources of the IMF and to restore trade financing; but Japan has not played a major role in the debate surrounding the most pressing issues of a future financial architecture such as tackling global imbalances and promoting foreign exchange rate cooperation. Japan’s muted voice, despite its large financial commitments, is due to its difficult adaptation to the G20 summitry process as well as political volatility at home which prevents developing measures to deal with global downturn.
Year: 2011
Primary URL:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/mnp/hjd/2011/00000006/F0020001/art00003Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Hague Journal of Diplomacy
“The Life-cycle of International Regimes: Temporality and Exclusive Forms of Cooperation” (Article)Title: “The Life-cycle of International Regimes: Temporality and Exclusive Forms of Cooperation”
Author: Mireya Solis
Author: Llewelyn Hughes
Author: Jeffrey Lantis
Abstract: xx
Year: 2014
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of International Organization Studies, vol. 5, no. 2: 85-115
“Business advocacy in Asian PTAs: A model of selective business lobbying with evidence from Japan” (Article)Title: “Business advocacy in Asian PTAs: A model of selective business lobbying with evidence from Japan”
Author: Mireya Solis
Abstract: xx
Year: 2013
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Business and Politics, vol. 15, no. 1: 1-30
“The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Can the United States Lead the Way in Asia-Pacific Integration?" (Article)Title: “The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Can the United States Lead the Way in Asia-Pacific Integration?"
Author: Mireya Solis
Abstract: xx
Year: 2012
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Pacific Focus, vol. 27, no. 3: 319-341
Dilemmas of a Trading Nation: Japan and the United States in the Evolving Asia-Pacific Order (Book)Title: Dilemmas of a Trading Nation: Japan and the United States in the Evolving Asia-Pacific Order
Author: Mireya Solis
Abstract: The balancing of competing interests and goals will have momentous consequences for Japan?and the United States?in their quest for economic growth, social harmony, and international clout.
Japan and the United States face difficult choices in charting their paths ahead as trading nations. Tokyo has long aimed for greater decisiveness, which would allow it to move away from a fragmented policymaking system favoring the status quo in order to enable meaningful internal reforms and acquire a larger voice in trade negotiations. And Washington confronts an uphill battle in rebuilding a fraying domestic consensus in favor of internationalism essential to sustain its leadership role as a champion of free trade.
In Dilemmas of a Trading Nation, Mireya Solís describes how accomplishing these tasks will require the skillful navigation of vexing tradeoffs that emerge from pursuing desirable, but to some extent contradictory goals: economic competitiveness, social legitimacy, and political viability.
Trade policy has catapulted front and center to the national conversations taking place in each country about their desired future direction?economic renewal, a relaunched social compact, and projected international influence. Dilemmas of a Trading Nation underscores the global consequences of these defining trade dilemmas for Japan and the United States: decisiveness, reform, internationalism. At stake is the ability of these leading economies to upgrade international economic rules and create incentives for emerging economies to converge toward these higher standards. At play is the reaffirmation of a rules-based international order that has been a source of postwar stability, the deepening of a bilateral alliance at the core of America’s diplomacy in Asia, and the ability to reassure friends and rivals of the staying power of the United States. In the execution of trade policy today, we are witnessing an international leadership test dominated by domestic governance dilemmas.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Washington, D.C. Brookings Institution Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 0815729197
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes