The policy agenda -setting and decision process: Restructuring Nippon Telegraph and Telephon

This study tested the policy agenda-setting model as applied to the policy-making process for the restructuring of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT). The policy agenda is a set of problems that participants in the policy-making process acknowledge the need for governmental action. The decision agenda is the policy agenda that is placed as a legislative agenda. Two categories of variables that affect policy agenda-setting are participants and process. The process has three components: problems, policies, and politics. Two components, when coupled, trigger setting of a policy agenda, however, all three components should merge for a policy agenda to be transformed into a decision agenda.;A qualitative single-case-study method was used. The unit of analysis was organized groups. To incorporate the dynamics of participants into the analysis, special attention was given to personnel changes within the groups. Problems, policy alternatives, and political environment were investigated by analyzing news articles (N = 316), government documents, private organizations' publications, and a taped interview with the informant. The effects of interactions among the three components on the movement of a policy agenda were examined by synthesizing events in a systematic and temporal order.;The idea of breaking up NTT continued for nearly a decade and half since the early 1980s. It lost the first and second opportunities of being placed on the policy agenda in 1985 and on the decision agenda in 1990 because of the weak linkage between problems and policy alternatives or the lack of a favorable political environment. This study focused on the third agenda-setting and decision process started with the advisory council's deliberation in 1995 and ended with the adoption of the breakup in 1997.;The period was divided into three stages by the critical events. In the first stage, the breakup of NTT came very close to being submitted to the legislature. However, the delicately balanced coalition cabinet avoided discussing and coming to a vote on it in the unstable political environment. In the second stage, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and NTT were exclusively negotiating for a mutually acceptable solution. The change in the global telecommunications market was commonly identified as a problem threatening Japan's international competitiveness. Meanwhile, the political environment again became to be stable with the recovery of the Liberal Democratic Party's dominance. The shared definition of problems under the favorable political environment generated a breakthrough policy, the breakup with a holding company. Consequently, the cabinet submitted the proposal to the legislature with the assurance of its smooth adoption.;Based on the findings, the study confirmed that the policy agenda-setting model could explain the process through which a policy agenda was established and transformed into a decision agenda in the selected case.