Date of Award

Spring 8-1-2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

James M. Scott

Second Advisor

Michael R. Chambers

Third Advisor

Samory Rashid

Abstract

The concept of national interests has always been a key for studies of foreign policy. Japan's foreign aid, known as Official Development Assistance (ODA), is the single most significant political and diplomatic tool in the arena of Japanese foreign policy due to Japan's war-renouncing Article 9. However, the argument of the relationship between Japan's ODA policy and national interests is unclear. Although there are various qualitative arguments about the study of Japan's ODA, a systematic quantitative aid allocation study is rarely done. The central question of this thesis is what interests is Japan pursuing when it allocates its bilateral ODA, and I hypothesize security and economic national interests are major motivations for Japan in its aid policymaking. To investigate this question, the relationship between the 1982-2001 empirical ODA allocations and recipients' socio-political conditions is statistically analyzed by a Heckman's two-stage model. The results show that the importance of Japan's regional security, including political interests, and economic interests are found in its aid policymaking because the most consistent factor influencing aid decisionmaking is whether the recipients had experienced colonization/occupation by Japan. This fact can support why Japanese ODA traditionally goes to Asian countries, especially Southeast and East Asian countries, which are geopolitically, historically, and economically significant to Japan. That is, Japanese security and prosperity are largely dependent on regional stability and peace. Generally, there are no big differences in terms of Japan's aid policymaking process in the late Cold War and the post-Cold War; however, the impact of the 1992 ODA Charter in aid policy making in the post-Cold War is undeniable.

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