Japan: Interest Group Politics, Foreign Policy Linkages, and TPP

2019 ◽  
pp. 573-591
Author(s):  
Christina L. Davis

After years of reluctantly opening its markets in the face of pressure from abroad, Japan led the campaign to save the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This chapter evaluates the agreement from the perspective of Japan to investigate why the government chose to join TPP negotiations after years of delays, and why it became one of the first members to ratify the agreement even as US support for the agreement wavered amidst a fraught presidential campaign. TPP represents by far the most ambitious free trade agreement undertaken by Japan. It has been subject to tremendous resistance from farm groups and other interests, and moderate advocacy from industry. Against this backdrop, the value of the agreement as part of a geopolitical strategy was essential to Japanese support of TPP. The chapter argues that foreign policy interests were necessary to overcome domestic obstacles to liberalization. But the role of geopolitics in Japanese trade policy has moved beyond reaction to US pressure for liberalization. In the proactive use of economic statecraft, Japan seeks to deepen regional integration in East Asia and balance against China. Changes in the administrative process within the Japanese government and the decision to position the international trade agreement within the framework of policies for domestic economic restructuring further strengthened the resilience of Japanese commitment to the agreement and show how megaregulation can be embedded within domestic political reform agendas.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
RUBEN PEETERS

This article explores the link between the history of small-firm associations and the development of Dutch financial infrastructure geared toward small firms. In particular, it tests Verdier’s thesis about the origins of state banking using an in-depth case study of the Dutch small-firm movement. This article shows that Dutch small-firm associations did not simply became politically relevant and use their power to lobby for state banking, but rather used the topic of insufficient access to credit to rally support, mobilize members, and obtain subsidies from the government. During this associational process, they had to navigate local contexts and power structures that, in turn, also shaped the financial system. State banking was initially not demanded by small firms, but arose as the result of failed experiments with subsidized banking infrastructure and a changing position of the government on how to intervene in the economy.


Author(s):  
Alexander Vinogradov

Introduction. The author examines the insufficiently studied period of diplomatic communicationsof the Moscow Tsardom and the Crimean Khanate after Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov’s enthronement, which led to establishing relatively peaceful mutual relations between them at the final stage of military and political confrontation of Russia with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Swedish Crown. Materials. The paper reveals the circumstances of establishing contractual relations between Moscow and Bakhchysarai on the basis of unpublished sources. The information from the columns of 1613–1614 about the stay of the embassy of A. Lodyzhensky and P. Danilov in the Crimea from autumn of 1613 to July 1614, the preparation and holding of the embassy congress and exchange of ambassadors at Livny in August 1614, the stay of the embassy of Prince G.K. Volkonsky and P. Ovdokimov in the Crimea in August 1614 – June 1615, the stay of Magmet Chelebi’s embassy in Moscow in September 1614 – March 1615 and, finally, the embassy exchange under Valuyki in July 1615 form a single set of documents that let us trace the course of diplomatic relations between the Moscow Tsardom and the Crimean Khanate in 1613–1615. The decisive stage in difficult and tense diplomatic negotiations of the parties in this period, in our opinion, is the stay of the embassy of Prince Grigory Konstantinovich Volkonsky and clerk Peter Ovdokimov in the Crimea. Results. This article shows the role of relations with the Crimea in general foreign policy of the government of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich and in the restoration of military and political control over the Lower Volga Region territory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (40) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Proscurcin Junior

Particularly in Creon’s debate with Haemon, and from then on, Sophocles shows distinct aspects of how anger acts on the tyrant’s ability to judge and how this can be related to inextricable familial and political ties. As every modern reading of the play applies a philosophical conceptualization to understand emotions and thus suffer the consequences of a historical gap between interpretative and original vocabularies, this paper argues that the Aristotelian conceptualization of emotions is a relevant philosophical tool to better contextualize Creon’s anger in Sophocles’ Antigone. The essay discusses Creon’s thymetic responses in the face of Haemon’s admonition and Antigone’s oligoria, and offers two examples of Aristotelian readings of Creon’s thymetic akrasia. One of the possible readings considers the specific role of phantasia in Creon’s understanding of reality. This philosophical explanation of a revengeful tyrant reveals important connections between psychology and politics in the government of the city.


2021 ◽  
pp. 84-97
Author(s):  
Tatyana Leonidovna Musatova

The article analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic crisis on the foreign policy and diplomacy of states, including economic diplomacy. ED is interpreted as a multi-sided multi-faceted activity, an integral part of foreign policy aimed at protecting the national interests and economic security of the country. Given the interdepartmental nature of the ED, the presence of numerous actors and agents, not only state, but also public and business structures, political and foreign economic coordination on the part of the Foreign Ministries is of great importance, and this role of foreign policy departments is increasing during the pandemic crisis. The activity of the ED of Russia in 2020 was generally successful, among the main results: active participation of diplomats in the anti-epidemic work of the Government of the Russian Federation, including export flights, provision of emergency assistance by compatriots abroad, assistance to foreign countries; measures to promote the Russian vaccine in the world, establish its production abroad, and thus win new world markets for medicines; settlement of the pricing crisis on the world oil market with the leading role of Russia and Saudi Arabia; adjustment of double taxation agreements with a number of foreign countries, taking into account the domestic economic needs of the country; the growing experience of BRICS, this interstate association, which did not know the crisis, including its fight against epidemiological diseases, during the period of Russia’s presidency in the BRICS; further steps to deepen integration within the EAEU; Russia’s success in the eastern direction of foreign policy, in the development of trade exchanges and epidemiological cooperation with the ASEAN and APEC states. The new world crisis has become a catalyst for the convergence of ED methods with scientific and public diplomacy, with other diplomatic cultures that can be combined under the general name of civil diplomacy. Such a separation is required to protect the legacy of professional diplomacy, the popularity and use of which methods is growing significantly. ED, as an integral part of official diplomacy, is presented as a mediator between classical and civil diplomacy. It provides civil society with an example of the more rigorous, pragmatic, resultsoriented work that the current pandemic crisis requires.


Author(s):  
Necati Polat

This chapter provides an outline of the change that took place in Turkey between 2007 and 2011, signalling a historic shift in the use of power in the country, long controlled by a staunch and virtually autonomous bureaucracy, both military and civilian, and known as ‘the state’, in the face of the chronically fragile democratic politics, forming ‘the government’. The time-honoured identity politics of the very bureaucracy, centred on ‘Westernisation’ as a policy incentive, was deftly appropriated by the ruling AKP via newly tightened links with the European Union to transform the settled centre-periphery relations often considered to be pivotal to Turkish politics, and reconfigure access to power. The chapter details the gradual fall of the bureaucracy—that is, the military, the higher education, and the system of high courts—and recounts the basic developments in foreign policy and on the domestic scene during and immediately after the change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. R47-R53
Author(s):  
Tim Besley ◽  
Richard Davies

Executive SummaryAlongside the challenge of maintaining economic competitiveness in the face of great uncertainty, Brexit brings an opportunity for the government to set out a new industrial strategy. The case for doing so rests on the need to address areas of persistent structural weakness in the UK economy, including low productivity. But it is important that any new industrial strategy be based on appropriately granular data reflecting the real structure of the UK corporate sector: the overwhelmingly preponderant role of services as opposed to manufacturing, for example; the importance of young, fast-growing firms as opposed to SMEs; the relatively high failure rate of companies in the UK; and the relative lack of successful mid-sized firms. Such a data-driven approach might spawn an industrial strategy quite different from the piecemeal programmes of recent years.Internationally, the UK is a laggard in this area, and the recently-created Industrial Strategy Council does not look strong enough to change that position. To move forward, the government needs to make industrial strategy a central plank of economic policy, embedded at the heart of the administration with its own staff and funding, and operations based on a comprehensive review of the economic contribution and potential of various types of firm. Needless to say, it cannot be a substitute for a continuing commitment to competition and markets, or a stalking horse for protectionism: interventions should be justified by carefully-argued market failure arguments, be time-limited, and transparently evaluated.


1968 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose Louise Greaves

The Anglo-Russian Convention, signed at St. Petersburg on 31 August 1907, contained provisions relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. The text of the agreement would seem to suggest that the matters adjusted were purely local in character—an arrangement arrived at between two countries settling problems in far-away frontier regions. But the Anglo-Russian Convention was of much greater significance. It represented a change not only in Anglo-Russian relations, but in Britain's fundamental European policy. It also meant that the role of the Government of India, which had often been a powerful factor in the determination of foreign policy in the nineteenth century, became less significant. It seems highly probable, too, that in the years when Sir Edward Grey was Foreign Secretary (December 1905 to December 1916—holding office for a longer consecutive period than any other Foreign Secretary in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, the next being Castlereagh, 1812–22) the permanent staff of the Foreign Office exercised more influence and had a more decisive voice in the conduct of the country's foreign policy than they ever had before of have had since.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-51
Author(s):  
Сахарова ◽  
N. Sakharova

The article analyzes the key factors of infl uence of external and internal environment on the functioning of Russian higher education institutions, ways to improve the competitiveness of modern universities in the face of increasing global competition in the education market, reviews the activities of the Government to ensure the achievement of the strategic objectives of the Russian Federation development for the period up to 2020 in higher education, defi nes trends in requirements for the competences of certain categories of university staff , provides data on the auxiliaries staff of universities across the country, discusses diff erent points of view on the role of auxiliaries staff in the university functioning, identifi es the main control problems of auxiliaries staff.


Author(s):  
Mumtazinur Mumtazinur

This paper moves from the welfare crisis that struck Rakhine Myanmar which has an impact on the difficulty of the flow of external refugees to various countries including Indonesia. Humanitarian assistance provided by the people of Aceh becomes important considering that many countries refuse to accept these Rohingya refugees. In addition, this paper attempts to review Aceh's assistance to Rohingya Refugees and its correlation to humanitarian diplomacy, the Government of Indonesia. This paper also describes the background of assistance provided by the people of Aceh for Rohingya refugees and the forms of assistance provided. The assistance provided by the Acehnese people to Rohingya refugees helped to influence diplomacy supported by the Indonesian government. The role of the Acehnese community in this context can be agreed upon as the responsible party given to Indonesia's ruling party at the regional and global level as a supporter of world peace. The Acehnese also positioned themselves as supporters of the peace who were ready to support Indonesia's foreign policy and who put forward diplomacy as a strategic step to create world peace.


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