Japanese Policymaking for the International Space Station

This article briefly addresses the strengths and weaknesses of policy network analysis as a means to understanding Japanese policymaking for the international space station project. In doing so, it raises the question of whether and how policy networks function across national borders. Hypotheses based on policy network analysis, the literature on epistemic communities and two-level theory are proposed. The case study finds that the highly integrated space policy community in Japan, drawing on its web of public-private and US-Japan resource dependencies, was able to push Japanese participation in the project in a direction which served its interests.