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How can a state with dysfunctional trade politics spur the negotiation of major free trade agreements (FTAs)? Using the case of Japan's participation in the trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), we develop an analytical framework on FTA diffusion that takes into account multidimensional (economic, legal and political) competitive pressures, and the ability of states to act as pivots in triggering FTA cascades. We disaggregate the makeup of a pivotal state into two main components – capability and credibility – and underscore Japan's significant latent capabilities, but also its serious credibility shortcomings. The TPP's boost to Japan's credibility raised the possibility of significant economic, legal and political externalities for specific countries which responded by accelerating FTA initiatives that had long stalled: the trilateral China–Japan–Korea FTA, a 16-state East Asian FTA and the Japan–European Union trade negotiations. This study extends the theoretical frontier in policy diffusion studies by clarifying the combination of factors that allows some states, but not others, to activate the externalities behind the dissemination of defensive FTAs.
Notes on contributors
Mireya Solís is a senior fellow and the Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies at the Brookings Center for East Asia Policy Studies, as well as an associate professor at American University. An expert in Japan's foreign economic policies, she earned a PhD in government and an MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and a BA in international relations from El Colegio de México. She is the author of Banking on Multinationals: Public Credit and the Export of Japanese Sunset Industries (Stanford University Press, 2004) and co-editor of Cross-Regional Trade Agreements: Understanding Permeated Regionalism in East Asia (Springer, 2008) and Competitive Regionalism: FTA Diffusion in the Pacific Rim (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). She has also published numerous articles and book chapters on implications of and responses to the recent economic crisis, Japan's domestic politics and foreign and economic policies, and East Asian multilateralism.
Saori N. Katada is Associate Professor at School of International Relations and the Director of the Political Science and International Relations (POIR) Program at University of Southern California. She is the author of Banking on Stability: Japan and the Cross-Pacific Dynamics of International Financial Crisis Management (University of Michigan Press, 2001), which was awarded Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Book Award in 2002. She has also published four edited and co-edited books and numerous articles on the subjects of trade, financial and monetary cooperation in East Asia as well as Japanese foreign aid. For her research on regionalism, she was recently awarded the Japan Foundation Research Grant and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. She has her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Political Science) in 1994, and BA from Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo). Before joining USC, she served as a researcher at the World Bank in Washington DC, and as International Program officer at the UNDP in Mexico City.