Learning Networks and National Response to Global Climate Change: the Case of Japan.

This paper reviews and tests the hypotheses of the just fielded international research project COMPON (Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks) concerning factors affecting national variation in effectiveness of climate change countermeasures. The COMPON project presently includes 20 country cases under the current international post-Kyoto regime formation process. The degree of national concern -- knowledge of and risk assessment about global climate change among authorities, political actors and publics - will be the key proximate factor in the formation of effective national policy (H1). National concern will interact with the relative strength of pro and con advocacy alliances -- composed of policy actors (organizations and key persons): social movements, NGOs, business and labor organizations, scientific communities, media, political parties and government agencies from both national and international levels (H2). Standardized policy network and discourse analysis methods will provide data on national networks of climate change knowledge, ideology, reciprocity, political support, negotiation, normative templates, and power deference. These relational fields indicate the origins of alliance strength, national concern and policy outcomes. Specific national-unit hypotheses include: presence of stakeholder participation; legitimacy of the scientific community; national science culture; degree of prosperity, resources and vulnerability; interests in world trade system; political institutions and party system; autonomy of civil society; civil liberties; governmental capacity; carbon-intensity of socio-economic organization. This paper uses global environmental policy network data from Japan (1997) to pretest the COMPON hypotheses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]