During the past decades or so, researchers in comparative politics, socio-legal studies and related social sciences have implemented a series of empirical analyses regarding institutional dynamics of environmental regulations. The comparative analyses, in particular, have revealed sharply divergent regulatory styles between Japan and the United States. In a nutshell, the American regulatory style is characterized by sanction-oriented enforcement, highly legalistic, minutely rule-defined implementation, and adversarial relationship between government and business. In contrast, the Japanese style is prone to feature cooperative policy making, bureaucratic informality known for reliance on administrative guidance, and selfrestrained judicial review toward regulatory decision-makings. Since the 1990's, however, reformers in Japan have claimed for legalization of policy processes, ex post regulatory implementation, and minimization of bureaucratic discretion. And in the United States, legalism and formalism in environmental regulations have been severely criticized for causing high compliance costs and organizational inefficiency. Thus, given the fact that both countries have experienced institutional changes, this paper compares current data drawn from questionnaire surveys on government enforcement and corporate compliance to see if the divergent dynamics still persist between Japanese and American environmental regulations.
