[...]... Setting the Stage: The Rise of Revisionism 1 Explaining the Framework Negotiations 3 The Importance of Policy Assumptions From Ideas to Policy Assumptions: Revisionism Defined 7 15 2 Traditionalist Views and the Emergence of Revisionism 24 Traditionalist Assumptions Defined The Early Roots of Revisionism: The 196 0s and 197 0s Revisionism in the Early 198 0s: Japan s High-tech Threat Revisionism s Early Impact: ... granted.’ I thus define policy assumptions as prior accepted beliefs about the nature of a policy issue and the interests involved in that issue Policy assumptions are thus a more concrete, tangible, and visible manifestation of ideas or beliefs The concept should be familiar to actual policy makers, since the first task of any decision making group is to figure out just what the issue is all about and how... List of Tables and Figures Ta bl es 1.1 Revisionist views of Japan and the US Japan relationship 2.1 Contending views of Japan and the US Japan relationship 17 27 4.1 Japan policy review in the Clinton administration, March 1993 102 5.1 The Framework s sectoral and structural ‘baskets’ 133 6.1 Cooperationist and rejectionist views of the US 148 9.1 A scorecard: Clinton s ‘results oriented’ goals, and. .. needed, since policy makers may already share the same set of assumptions But, at other times policy makers fight viciously over which competing set of assumptions is going to be recognized as the basis for policy discussions Thus policy assumptions are not only contestable, but they are most definitely contested In my experience in the US government, I was struck 10 These terms are from, respectively, Haas... attention to the interactions between contending policy positions that shape final decisions I focus on the role of new policy ideas, and their impact on the policy assumptions that policy makers came to hold Over the past few decades a number of IR scholars have focused on the impact that non-material factors, including new policy ideas, may have These scholars question the assertion that interests can... policy assumptions encompass these complex trade- offs, it is difficult to explain using simplistic rationalist formulas Rather, the values, perceptions, experiences, biases, and judgments of policy makers are also heavily involved Second, it is not always easy to determine the direction of causality At times, new goals and new policy assumptions are announced simultaneously, so it can be unclear which is... Anticlimax The Re-emergence of Traditionalist Voices The US After the Summit: Moderates Versus Hard-liners Japan After the Summit: The Rejectionists Remain in Control The Auto End Game: The Sanctions Decision 9 The Return to Balance Assessing the Framework: A Post-mortem The Framework Aftermath: Revisionist Assumptions Undermined Japan Policy Since 1995: The Return to Traditionalism The Impact of New Policy. .. factors from ideational ones Indeed, my conception of policy assumptions is that they can also be based on, or derive from, rationalist and materialist sources For instance, policy makers often employ rationalist concepts of materially defined interests, cost-benefit analyses, and the like, in debating assumptions But the formation of policy assumptions is almost never reducible to some simple, rationalistic... its scope and parameters Furthermore, policy makers must determine what is at stake in the issue, and more particularly, how to prioritize the different stakes involved Indeed, prevailing assumptions are usually spelled out quite clearly In writing policy memos, the most crucial paragraphs are often the opening ones, in which one s assumptions about the nature of the issue and the interests and trade- offs... literature on the role of ideas and norms is helpful As I conceive things, policy assumptions are often the concrete manifestation of prevailing ideas That is, when ideas are persuasive and compelling, and resonate well in a society, they can end up being adopted as policy assumptions That is, persuasive ideas can help define and re-define the issue itself, the stakes and goals involved, and can sway policy . Negotiations 3 The Importance of Policy Assumptions 7 From Ideas to Policy Assumptions: Revisionism Defined 15 2. Traditionalist Views and the Emergence of Revisionism 24 Traditionalist Assumptions Defined. threat to the US. The student asked something along the lines of, ‘Traditionalists and revisionists are both talking about the same Japanese economy, but come to polar opposite conclusions. They can’t. an adequate answer to one of my own student s questions. That question came during a discussion of the differ- ent views of the Japanese economy, pitting traditionalists who conceived of the market