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The core issue underlying the bulk of scholarly research into the Japanese political economy is the relationship between the bureaucracy and the politicians. My study investigates whether there has been a relative decline in bureaucratic influence and whether politicians are displaying more independence in the policy making process than they did during previous decades. My main hypothesis is that the loss of bureaucratic influence has largely been a function of the declining position of former bureaucrats within the ruling Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), and that it has largely been politicians who were able to enter the Diet at a young age due to hereditary recruitment who have gained influence. Their ability to build up seniority has placed them at an advantage in promotion to key party and government posts due to the adoption of a seniority system of selecting cabinet ministers and party leaders. . I use probit and logit analysis of LDP cabinet and Diet members (1955-2003) to demonstrate the decline of former bureaucrats within the LDP in terms of their overall numbers and their occupancy of key posts. I use cross case study analysis of the work of three major blue-ribbon administrative reform panels (the Provisional Administrative Reform Commission established in 1962, the Second Provisional Administrative Reform Commission established in 1981, and the Administrative Reform Council established in 1996) to demonstrate how the lack of former bureaucrats within the LDP left the Ministry of Finance vulnerable to reform that stripped it of authority and altered its traditional policy preferences. My case studies analysis shows that following the founding of the LDP in 1955, former bureaucrats in the party supported delegating substantial authority to the bureaucracy and resisted attempts to curtail bureaucratic influence, acting as conduits for bureaucratic influence in the LDP. However, over time as former bureaucrats lost their pre eminent position within the LDP, attempts to reduce bureaucratic influence were successful. I conclude that the reforms implemented on the recommendations of the Administrative Reform Council fundamentally changed Japanese financial administration and altered financial policy in a way that was a major departure from traditional bureaucratic preferences.
Economic sanctions have been used as an instrument of American foreign policy ever since the Taft administration adopted the Dollar Diplomacy. This dissertation analyzes the trade Embargo the United States imposed upon Cuba after the Revolution from different perspectives: from the political, considering the main guidelines of American foreign policy toward Latin America, especially during the Cold War, and from the juridical, considering different perspectives of customary international law. Since the embargo was imposed only after American property had been expropriated without compensation, the dissertation analyzes the legality of expropriation, seen from the perspective of both capital-importing and capital-exporting countries, and the legality of economic sanctions as a legitimate peaceful reprisal. Due to the fact that the American embargo against Cuba is quasi-total, that is, consists of a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of these, and finally, to assess the effectiveness of economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy. Many books and articles have been written about this very controversial embargo, almost as old as the Cuban Revolution itself. For the Cubans, it constitutes and "economic blockade", and a violation of Cuba's right to free trade; for the Americans, it is a reprisal for the confiscation of American property. Nonetheless, since the embargo, as stated above, is not a sanction itself but a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of the sanctions that comprise the embargo and its legality, according to customary international law. Another aim of this dissertation is to prove why the American embargo against Cuba has only enhanced Castro's power and further centralized it. A brief chapter about the economic sanctions the United States imposed upon Chile under President Salvador Allende and the fall of his regime serves to compare the two cases with some similarities where sanctions were applied- in the first without success and in the second with success. Finally, the dissertation aims to prove that a lifting of the American embargo against Cuba is highly unlikely unless there is a change of regime in that nation of the Caribbean.
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