Japan's policy fragmentation: The Japan-Australia FTA

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of Japan’s domestic politics on Japan’s Free Trade Agreement (FTA) strategy, in particular, the Japan–Australia Free Trade Agreement (JAFTA). To do so, it develops the concept of policy fragmentation. Policy fragmentation through the increase in the number of actors required to reach a decision, is shown to be a key variable in explaining why Japan has struggled with Australia over an FTA. This paper therefore goes beyond a national interest analysis of Japan to focus on the structures that determine whether and how those interests are realized. The paper focuses on both development of theory and on empirically tracing the impact of Japan’s policy fragmentation on JAFTA and its significance. Importantly, the paper does not argue that fragmentation has affected Japan’s interest in concluding an agreement, but rather has affected its ability to actually do so.