Browsing by Subject "Japan"

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is responsible for most cervical cancer cases. In Japan, the HPV vaccination coverage has dramatically fallen since the government suspended proactive recommendations for the vaccines in 2013, following sensational media reports on alleged adverse reactions. The suspension has not been lifted till today. The government has been criticized by medical establishment for lacking evidence-based policymaking. Grounded on the constructivist approach to scientific knowledge, the study examines how scientific knowledge has been enacted, interpreted, translated into policies by the government and the pro-vaccine institutions throughout the HPV vaccine crisis in Japan. Method: The study analyses the minutes of the governmental expert committee, as well as the proceedings, statements, and publications of three pro-vaccine and pro-resumption institutions. The analysis is conducted using the qualitative content analysis method. Results: The study shows that the government suspended recommendations based on an etiological uncertainty instead of epidemiological calculations and has prolonged the suspension based on the framing of HPV vaccination as an individual’s protection by choice in contrast to seeing it as a public health issue to be promoted in a national effort. It also shows that there is ample heterogeneity among the pro-vaccine and pro-resumption institutions in terms of grounds of arguments and scientific evidence they use to call for an early resumption of governmental recommendations for the HPV vaccines. Conclusions: The study shows a way to understand the Japanese government’s HPV vaccination policy over the past eight years, beyond criticizing it as lacking evidence that supports their policy. This analysis highlights the complexity of scientific knowledge, thus how contingently scientific knowledge come to be enacted as a basis for policy decisions, depending on the values and purposes the decision makers believes in.

This study employs an exploratory look into the immigration policy in the contemporary Japan, in the light of an ongoing demographic transition. As the native Japanese population ages, the government officials have turned their attention towards foreign labor to fill the labor deficits in several working sectors. The scrutiny in the study focuses on examining the immigration policy environment and the government operations in increasing the international labor mobility in Japan. The exploratory approach in the study reflects the aspirations of the study to act as a groundwork for further research of the topic by creating hypotheses of the matters examined. Through the use of an analytical framework and a rational logic model based on policy analysis, the study analyzes the Japanese governments immigration policy plan from 2015 and the implemented policies until second quarter of 2019. The examined material is comprised of official publications from the Japanese Ministry of Justice. The results of the study show a set of distinguishable tendencies of the immigration policy in the second decade of the 21st century; a clear preference for highly skilled foreign labor over less skilled one, reluctance of major reforms in opening the labor market for foreign labor, lack of centralized support for multicultural coexistence, preferential treatment for Japanese descendants, and the election of time-limited measures to tackle labor deficits. The study concludes, that even after the realization of the demographic change and the labor deficits by the Japanese officials, the opening of the labor market for the foreign labor remains constricted. Of the immigration policies, the trainee programs show major potential in attracting the low and medium skilled labor, the type of labor most required, and the further revision of the program could promote it to be a cornerstone for increasing the international labor mobility in Japan.

This thesis aimed to examine Japan’s lawmaking process that lead to the passage of the PKO law, also known as the peacekeeping law of 1992. The focus was on the government discussions that occurred during the period from September 1991 to June 1992. The issues revolving around the topic were extremely controversial. The root of the problem lies in Japan’s history, and the country’s international standing. This thesis is built on political discourse analysis. The primary objective is to aid in an understanding of the reasons behind the PKO law's creation. Most of the materials cited are government discussions about the law including the explanation of purpose, question rounds, committee reports, and plenary sessions in the House of Councillors and the House of Representatives. The analysis was focused on the expressed views shared by the speakers in the Diet on a micro level, while at the same time showing the effects of the proposed bill on a macro level. Also included were questions about the role played by the leading party, the Liberal Democratic Party, who was the main instigator in the law drafting process. The main questions can be limited to two: Was there a shift in the country's politics as it relates to the issues surrounding the bill's contents? What was the reason that the government strove so hard to pass this bill into law? Through the years, Japan’s foreign policy can be said to be evasive on some points, but with taking part in the peacekeeping operations, there was a slight shift in politics. Japan’s foreign policy was already UN-centered, so participating in the PKO operations was not that massive of a change. Overall, the result of the Gulf Crisis gave the Liberal Democratic Party a reason to make a push for the passing of the PKO bill, and some saw the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces as the party's last significant effort to redefine Japan as a normal state. In June of 1992 the passed PKO law turned out to be a compromised law. What can be seen from the overall discussions in both houses was that they centered in the perceived unconstitutionality of the bill as well as the use of the army and possible use of force. In some public hearings lawyers and legal advisors stated that they were against the law. Despite this, the opposition, however, did not take into an account changing public opinion, and the government was able to pass the law successfully. Discussion of the bill, in Japan as well abroad, presented a variety of reactions, at the center of them was fear of dispatching the Self-Defense Forces. In conclusion, the army and the peacekeeping operations were two separate matters, and the passing of the bill was a chance for the country to be more active in an international setting.

The current thesis analyses the reasons why Japan and North Korea have never entered into diplomatic relations and examines the prospects and opportunities for the normalization of their bilateral ties. The period of seven decades since Japanese colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula had ceased, has not been sufficient for either side to come up in good terms with history and politics. The existing historical tensions between the two nations and the absence of diplomatic relations has also constituted over the years to be an omnipresent threat to regional stability and security within the Northeast Asian region. This thesis focuses on both sides’ perceptions of conflict and further outlines and analyzes the priorities both Japan and North Korea strongly desire to retain within their bilateral agenda. Interviews carried out in 2010 and 2011 in Japan and North Korea constitute the empirical part of this study. Since all interviews were conducted not in the distant past, their impact on the thesis is significant but not self-sufficient; analysis of academic literature, press and official documents has been necessary to validate or cast aside main arguments in this thesis. The theoretical framework used in the entire study is the negotiation theory and its Integrative Bargaining Approach (IBA) that is also widely known as Interest-Based Bargaining (IBB). The most important feature of this theoretical framework is it provides a rationale for analyzing the Japan-North Korea ties by examination and inclusion of any issues while reducing them to a core of mutual interests, or shared interests with identifiable mutual gains. Normalization of diplomatic relations in the bilateral context of Japan and North Korea translates to practically enabling the two states to communicate with each other, ensuring certainty of diplomatic representation and interactions on more personal level that could transcend further to economic, cultural, socio-political and business realms. Therefore, by recognizing deductive processes in qualitative research, and by utilizing deductive qualitative research, the study suggests that there is a potential for both Japan and North Korea interests to be integrated in such manner, so to create joint value and attain the normalization of diplomatic relations. The qualitative data analysis suggests it has always been omnipresent chronic failure of negotiation efforts, outlining that in the past the parties have not identified shared interests and opportunities to realize mutual gains through trades across multiple issues, which gap this study is aimed to fill in. There are two key findings in this thesis. First, there are identifiable, shared interests and opportunities for realizing mutual gains, which could be used in initiating and nurturing negotiations between Japan and North Korea towards the goal for diplomatic normalization. Second, the IBA/IBB is the theoretical approach, prescribing proper techniques on how to reduce the bulk of multiple conflicts and enable engagement by the two neighboring states that reflects only issues in which they both recognize mutual interests and possible gains.