Knowledge Regimes in Post-Developmental States: Assessing the Role of Think Tanks in Japan’s Policymaking Process

Tracing the mechanisms of policy change, recent studies of knowledge regimes in Western democracies have examined the reciprocal relationship between a state’s institutional features and the role of think tanks in the production and dissemination of policy ideas. This paper expands the focus to East Asia and examines the role of think tanks in Japan. With a strong bureaucracy functioning as the primary repository for policy expertise, Japan’s developmental state has long been discouraging the creation of independent think tanks. Yet, Japan’s bureaucratic and electoral reforms in the 1990s have opened new access points to the policy process, encouraging the growth of new think tanks in addition to Japan’s semi-governmental and corporate research organizations. By looking at the Abe government’s national security discourse and Japan’s debate on participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement during the period 2012 to 2015, this article assesses the role of external policy advice in Japan’s post-developmental state. The study illustrates the link between Japan’s changing political system, the changing nature of its knowledge regime, and the structural conditions under which think tanks yield influence in Japan. By doing so, this article offers evidence of an increasingly competitive think-tank landscape structured along the conservative and progressive political spectrum of policy ideas, and unpacks the strategies by which think tanks penetrate Japan’s policymaking process. However, despite the enhanced role of think tanks, the findings also point to the sustained prominence of individual intellectuals and academics in advising Japan’s decision makers.

后-发展型国家(post-developmental states)的知识制度： 评估智库在日本政策制定过程中的作用

关键词：日本的政策制定过程，跨太平洋伙伴关系协定，外交政策，发展型国家，知识制度，智库

近年来对西方民主国家的知识制度的研究通过追踪政策变迁的机制，考察了在政策观念的生产和传播中一个国家的制度性特征和智库的角色之间的相互性关系。 本论文将研究关注点扩展到东亚， 并考察了智库在日本的作用。由于强大的官僚机构发挥着专业政策知识主要储藏库的功能，日本的发展型国家很长时间以来都不鼓励独立智库的发展。然而， 日本九十年代的官僚机构和选举方面的改革打开了政策过程中新的切入点，鼓励在日本的半政府型的以及企业所属的研究机构之外的新型智库的成长。通过考察2012-2015年期间安倍政府的国家安全话语体系以及日本就参加跨太平洋伙伴关系协议进行的讨论，本论文评估了日本后-发展型国家中外部政策建议的作用。 本研究展示了日本变动中的政治系统、它的知识制度的变化的性质以及智库籍以产生影响的结构性条件之间的关联。据此，本文为一个分布在政策观念的保守和进步的政治光谱上的、竞争日益加剧的智库领域提供了实证， 并且解码了智库渗透日本的政策制定过程的策略。然而，尽管智库的作用加强了，本文的发现也指出知识分子和学界人物个体在为日本的政策决策者提供建议方面的持久的影响力。

Translated from English by Li Guo