Description:
Japan’s Special Zones for Deregulation as a Case of Economic Policy Experimentalism In recent years, economic globalization, fast-paced technological innovation, concern over democratic legitimation and environmental issues have severely challenged conventional policy solutions. Due to the complexities and the uncertainties surrounding newly emerging threats and opportunities, it has been difficult for policy makers to design adequate, innovative economic policy mechanisms. For these reasons, policy experiments have received a new interest among scholars and policy makers. The basic idea is that experiments allow for the search for superior solutions that can later be implemented elsewhere as well. Th ere are few case studies that study economic policy experimentalism, and in this paper the authors contribute one for Japan. For this country, it can hardly be denied that in recent years there was a strong need for new and better solutions in response to pressing policy challenges. The deregulation zones (tokubetsu ku’iki), introduced by national law enacted in December 2002, under the auspices of the reformist Koizumi government, might be interpreted as a Japanese approach to the new interest in policy experimentalism. The authors proceed as follows: After discussing a number of methodological issues about policy experimentalism, noting that a policy of implementing experiments may help to overcome the limits of human knowledge while making use of evolutionary processes and competition, but may also serve the self-interest of actors, they then discuss the Japanese case study. First, they deal with the goals set out for the program. Second, they discuss the conditions under which the program was implemented and reorganized. Third, they look more specifically into the organizations and processes of the program. Finally, they try to derive a number of conclusions about how to evaluate the Japanese »experiment with policy experiments«. Basically, the program can be seen as a success, as it has survived the years of the Koizumi reform optimism and is even considered by the new DPJ-led government as part of a project to raise the influence of ordinary citizens in policymaking. The strongest point about the deregulation zone program is its openness towards various stimuli and experiences. It can be used to reform the national level, but also serves a purpose through inducing regional competition. One potential weakness rests in the still-significant influence of the bureaucracy as a potential veto player. Nevertheless, the complex interaction of evolving changes in hundreds of zones, which is difficult to control for any actor, offers a considerable force towards progress.