Ikuo Kume

Changing relations among the government, labor, and business in Japan after the oil crisis

Many scholars argue that labor is excluded from Japans political system. However, since the 1970s, labor has become considerably influential in the policymaking process in Japan. The oil crisis of 1973 and the Shuntou wage bargaining of 1975 have made labor, especially private-sector unions, modest in their wage demands, but at the same time these events have made labor participate actively in the policymaking process in order to maintain employment and seek some benefits from the government. This article demonstrates that Japans increasing export-dependence and tradeoffs between wage increases on the one hand, and inflation and unemployment on the other in the 1970s, have driven labor to this new, more active role in policymaking, while the necessity for the governing Liberal Democratic party to seek a new constituency has enabled labor to achieve some success in this new role. This implies that Japans political system has changed its nature since the 1970s; its political process has become more pluralistic with labors participation within the existing political system.

Workers or Consumers? A Survey Experiment on the Duality of Citizens’ Interests in the Politics of Trade:

What determines the attitude of citizens toward international trade in advanced industrialized nations? The question raises an intriguing paradox for low-income citizens in developed economies. Increasing imports pose the most severe threat to job security for low-income citizens, who, on the other hand, reap the greatest benefits from cheaper imports as consumers. This article considers the role of dual identities that citizens have as both income-earners and consumers, and investigates how attitudes toward trade differ depending on which aspect of respondents’ lives—that is, work versus consumption—is activated. The results of an originally designed survey experiment conducted in Japan during the recession suggest that the activation of a consumer perspective is associated with much higher support for free trade. In particular, those respondents who have lower levels of job security are the ones who, with consumer-priming, increase their support for foreign imports.