[Moderator's Note: The following post is a reply to a question posed by
Professor Ulrike Schaede on a separate discussion list. The question was whether
there merely appear to be more special interest pressures in the US than Japan;
and as the issue is likely to be of interest to SSJ-FORUM members, the reply is
re-posted here. Both Professors Campbell and Schaede are list members.]

The question posed here is hard to answer. All public policy presumably serves
some interest (or why would it exist), so it comes down to an argument of which
interests are more special than others. And I don't know how to weigh the amount
of "special interest pressures" to compare.
But I think that narrower questions can be addressed, and I will forthrightly
state what I think two big differences between the US and Japan are.
First, in which country is the exchange of money for public policy more
widespread? I would say unquestionably the US, because Congress and therefore
legislative politicians are so much more involved in public policy at all
levels--broad policy, detailed programs, super-detailed loopholes, and
implementation (through oversight power over bureaucratic agencies). Japanese
Dietmen are not shut out of these four functions by any means--and indeed they
may be more active than those in virtually all industrialized countries other
than the US--but they do not compare with Congressmen.
Bureaucrats do much more of this stuff in Japan--all four. And don't forget the
key point that you cannot legally give money to bureaucrats. It gets done
illegally in both countries, and both also have grey areas of personal favors to
individual officials (future jobs etc) that are not quite money for policy deals
but verge on it. Personally I would guess there is a bit more of this in the US,
but it doesn't matter to this point. In both countries, the great floods of
political money, go to politicians, and American politicians have far more
influence--broader and deeper--over public policy than Japanese politicians.
Second difference: relationships between bureaucratic agencies and their clients
or associated pressure groups or actors in their jurisdiction or policy networks
or whatever you call them are--on average--more intimate than in the US. They
can be plenty intimate in the US, but the mere fact that our bureaucratic
agencies are such wimps make them less important for groups. (Exceptions are
obvious: NSF and NIH for universities, the Pentagon for defense industries etc.)
The biggest difference is in the area of business, where the kind of
relationship Dick Samuels documented so well for the energy industry really
would be hard to find in the US. Not necessarily cooperative, not necessarily
corrupt (depending on definitions), but certainly important and intimate.