8/14/2019 Capstone Theory Paper Draft 1

1/2

Although many theories to explain the policy decision process have been developed over theyears, not all theories do an equally good job of explaining political decisions. Some theoriessuch as Second Image and Second Image Reversed fail to consider some aspects of theinternational policy decision process. Although it is important to consider the internationaleffects of domestic decisions and the domestic effects of international decisions, Second Imageand Second Image Reversed do not accurately explain how domestic and international politicsare connected. Instead of looking at domestic and international policy separately, Robert D.Putnams Two-Level Games theory considers both international negotiations and domesticnegotiations at the same time as part of the same process. Putnams theory is thereforeespecially effect for analyzing the decision making process between Japan and the United Statesabout the US military base located in Okinawa, Japan. I will use Putnams theory to show whythe United States and Japan arrived at the policy decisions that they did and why Japans stanceon the issue has changed significantly over the last six months.

Putnam divides the international policy decision making process into two parts. At thenational level, he claims, domestic groups pursue their interests by pressuring the governmentto adopt favorable policies, and politicians seek power by constructing coalitions among thosegroups. At the international level, national governments seek to maximize their own ability to

satisfy domestic pressures, while minimizing the adverse consequences of foreigndevelopments (XXXXXXXXX). The actors at these levels are different. When discussingpolicy at the national level, the policy makers need to find an agreement with members of theirconstituency. At the international level, policy makers must come to an agreement with policymakers from other countries. Because both levels of diplomacy and negotiation are required,establishing international policy can become a complex process.

In order to simplify the process for analysis, Putnam breaks it into two stages. The firststage involves the bargaining process with the foreign policy maker. Like any negotiation, bothsides are likely to need to compromise on some aspects of agreement. However, even when anagreement is reached, it is still only a tentative agreement because that policy still needs to beaccepted domestically before it will go into effect. If the domestic constituency rejects the policythat was tentatively agreed on at the international negotiation stage, the process breaks down andthe policy will not be put into place no matter how the negotiations went at the internationallevel. Putnam calls negotiations between policy makers on the international level, Level Inegotiation. The negotiation with domestic actors is called Level II negotiation.

Since policy makers know that the domestic constituency must agree to internationalpolicy decisions in order for them to be ratified, they will take the views of the domestic actorsinto consideration at the Level I negotiations. After all, it would be pointless to reach anagreement at Level I negotiations if the policy maker knew it would be rejected at the Level IInegotiations. As a result, the policy maker will only agree to a policy at Level I that they areconfident will be ratified at Level II. In other words, the policy maker will only agree to a policythat is within that countrys win-set.

A win-set is the entire set of policies that would gain the necessary majority support at

Level II negotiations in order for the policy to be ratified. Any policy choice that does not fallwithin the win-set will be rejected at the Level I negotiations, because the policy maker will notagree to a tentative agreement that they know will be rejected domestically.

The difficulty of Level I negotiation comes from the fact that each country has a differentwin-set since each country has different goals and priorities on the domestic level. This meansthat when policy makers from different countries come together for Level I negotiations, theywill only make a tentative agreement if the policy falls within the win-set for each of the

8/14/2019 Capstone Theory Paper Draft 1

2/2

countries. The smaller the overlap between the win-sets of the two countries, the more difficultit will be to reach an agreement that satisfies both countries.

Marine Corps Air Station Futenma (MCAS Futenma) base is one of the largestUS military bases in Japan located in Ginowan, Okinawa. During the Battle of Okinawa in1945, the US army occupied Ginowan and built runways in the area. After the WWII Okinawawas under the United States administration for 27 years and MCAS Futenma base was one of themany US military bases established in Okinawa during the period. Today it contains about 4,000Marines and has an important role as an air station of the US army in East Asia.

The biggest problem of MCAS Futenma today is its location. It is in the center ofGinowan city surrounded by residential area with many public facilities like schools, threateningpublic safety and causing noise and air pollution. Because of this location issue, the MCASFutenma base is very unpopular in Okinawa and people are demanding relocation of it, ideally tooutside of Okinawa. The US and Japan started negotiating about this relocation, both trying tomeet both international demand and domestic demand.

The domestic interest of Japan is not only removing MCAS Futenma base from Ginowan

but also asking the US to relocate it somewhere outside of Japan. Although the US military basedoes bring some business to Okinawa including large land rent payment, it is preventing somebusinesses to grow by occupying eighteen percent of Okinawas main land. The pollution andcrime problems are also serious, accelerating anti-US military base movement within Japan.

On the other hand, the international interest of Japan is to maintain the Treaty of MutualCooperation and Security between the United States and Japan and ensure its security.

Yoshida, Reiji.Japan Times. (Weekly international edition). Apr 22-Apr 28, 1996. Vol. 36, Iss.16; pg. 6, 1 pgs

http://tmp/svcol.tmp/javascript:void(0);http://proquest.umi.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/pqdweb?RQT=318&pmid=12525&TS=1266396076&clientId=9469&VInst=PROD&VName=PQD&VType=PQDhttp://proquest.umi.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/pqdweb?RQT=318&pmid=12525&TS=1266396076&clientId=9469&VInst=PROD&VName=PQD&VType=PQDhttp://proquest.umi.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/pqdweb?RQT=572&VType=PQD&VName=PQD&VInst=PROD&pmid=12525&pcid=524589&SrchMode=3http://proquest.umi.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/pqdweb?RQT=572&VType=PQD&VName=PQD&VInst=PROD&pmid=12525&pcid=524589&SrchMode=3http://proquest.umi.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/pqdweb?RQT=318&pmid=12525&TS=1266396076&clientId=9469&VInst=PROD&VName=PQD&VType=PQDhttp://proquest.umi.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/pqdweb?RQT=572&VType=PQD&VName=PQD&VInst=PROD&pmid=12525&pcid=524589&SrchMode=3http://tmp/svcol.tmp/javascript:void(0);