2008 Volume 14 Issue 2 Pages 145-153
The Prime Minister Abe’s attempt to establish a Japanese counterpart of the American National Security Council (NSC) is a further example of Japanese leaders’ trying to import or imitate American institutions. Scholars as well as politicians assume that American presidents enjoy more power than prime ministers themselves do, but one may wonder whether or not differences between the presidential and parliamentary systems are so critical to the political outcomes.
Reviewing American presidency studies as well as studies on inter-branch relations reveal that the leaders in both the U.S. and Japan are constrained by advisory systems, and party coherence. Though this article applies the frameworks from American studies to Japanese aid administration, it does not mean to imply that the institutional differences do not matter. Rather, in a similar way to Rockman’s (1997) implication, it puts more priority on understanding the motivations of actors within networks with regard to foreign aid activities rather than overemphasizing institutional differences. This article claims that when one attempts to solve puzzles associated with executive behaviors, we can apply the same framework to both presidential and non-presidential systems.
This is true especially when various actors commit themselves to foreign aid activities such as in the Japanese “Participatory ODA.” The case study of foreign aid for China (the PRC) underpins this contention.
