Social hospitalization of the elderly people has said to be the biggest pathology in the Japanese medical supply system and it was the main policy problem to be solved for a long time. Although it was not completely solved, it is just in sight in the Ministry of Welfare (Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare) having promoted differentiation of medical function and promotion of coordination policy since 1980’s. The policy consists of three points; first one is to differentiate medical function between acute care and chronic care, second one is to promote discharge by Bundled payment in revision of medical fee, third one is to provide both facility and in-home care service. This report explores about the factors that the Ministry of Welfare could promote through the view point of “Policy Learning”. This report revealed that the Ministry of Welfare has learned the elements of European and American eldercare service formulated the policy by constraining it to existing institutions under the administrative reform since 1980’s.

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This article presents a case study on impacts of the ongoing changes in the international system on the domestic politics of advanced industrial nations. The case concerned is Japan, a nation with one of the largest and most trade-dependent economies in the contemporary world, and yet one that has so far been relatively closed and often characterized as neomercantilist. Following in the footsteps of Peter Gourevitch's seminal 1978 article, this study focuses on the two enduring elements of nation-level politics, i. e., regime type and coalition pattern, rather than on specific political events or policies.
There is broad consensus among Japanese scholars and others that the end of the Cold War and the rise of the East Asian economies are having as significant impacts on Japan's domestic political-economic structure as on those of other advanced industrial and industrializing nations. Opinion is divided, however, on how genuine and fundamental those impacts actually are. Some argue that they extend to the basic values and goals of Japan's economic strategy, and, hence, are likely to change the pattern of domestic coalitions and regime type. Pointing to the entrenched nature of the Japanese system, others predict that changes will remain cosmetic and superficial.
Based on the information and ideas collected through personal interviews and informal conversations with Japanese business, labor, and bureaucratic leaders in the spring and summer of 1996 and a documentary survey of political, business, bureaucratic, and labor leaders' statements and writings published in the 1995-1996 period, this study examines whether and how leaders in various walks of life in Japan perceive changes in the power relationships among the partners of the ruling coalition and dominant policy network. It goes on to analyze how they view the impacts of such changes upon the so-called mercantilist policy patterns and relate these developments to the end of the Cold War and the challenges posed by East Asian economic growth and integration.

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