A Bureaucratic Politics Approach to Japan’s Official Development Aid Policy: Ministerial Motives and Their Reflections on the Foreign Aid Expenditures, 1960s-2000

Abstract

This paper challenges the existing studies on Japans Official Development Assistance (ODA) policy making, which have assumed that the Diet or Prime Minister is a key ODA decision-maker and argued that Japans motive in increasing foreign aid spending was subject to the politicians interests. Contrary to this position, the author argues that the primary ODA decision-making power in Japan has resided not with the politicians but with the bureaucracy. This study identifies the four primary decision makers (i.e., ministries) that exert influence on Japans ODA policy prior to 2000, all of whom operated from different ODA motives, and sees these actors as interest maximizers. The analysis focuses on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is mainly concerned with security and Japans image in the eyes of other donors; the Ministry of International Trade and Industries, whose interests were commercial; the Ministry of Finance, which focuses on budget stringency; and the Economic Planning Agency, which had more comprehensive and various interests. According to the authors data analysis, the historical trend of Japans ODA expenditure pattern reflects the ups and downs of ministries in decision-making power (e.g., MITIs diminishing power vs. MOFAs increasing influence), which was caused by the inter-ministerial battle over the foreign aid policy.

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