The impact of the traditional business–government relationship on the Europeanization of Japanese firms

Abstract

This article, based on 30 interviews with firms, business associations, and EU institutions, explores the Europeanization/harmonization of Japanese firms' lobbying strategies, and assesses how they have adapted to the constantly evolving EU public policy-making system. We provide an empirical investigation of interaction between traditional Japanese lobbying practices and the EU institutional environment in forming firms' preferences for particular lobbying strategies in the automobile and electronics sectors. In short, a key objective is to highlight the variations in Japanese lobbying, with special attention to the firms' efforts to blend into the EU policy-making process, on the one hand, and their embeddedness in traditional business culture, on the other. This article concludes that Japanese firms have restructured their political behaviours to suit the EU policy-making process; however, the degree of such Europeanization of lobbying strategies has significantly varied across sectors and firms owing to the ranging influence of several institutional factors.

Keywords:

• Automobile
• business culture
• electronics
• Europeanization
• Japan
• lobbying.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank a number of interviewees from the EU institutions and American, European, and Japanese industries who generously gave their time to answer my endless and sometimes impertinent questions.

Notes

1 ACEA statistics (2002).

2 Interview with Toyota, Brussels, 11/10/05.

3 Interview with Honda, Brussels, 12/5/06.

4 Interviews with JAMA, Brussels, 7/6/04 and 12/10/05.

5 Interview with JAMA, Brussels, 12/10/05.

6 Interview with JAMA, Brussels, 12/10/05.

7 The Commission homepage: http://europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l21210.htm

8 Interviews with the JBCE, Brussels, 6/5/04 and 11/10/05.

9 Interview with AeA, Brussels, 12/10/05.

10 Interview with AeA, Brussels, 12/10/05.

11 Interview with the DG Environment, Brussels, 11/10/05.

12 Interview with JAMA, Brussels, 12/10/05.