THE POLITICAL OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE AND THE ENACTMENT OF JAPAN'S "NEW" PRIVACY LAW

Abstract

This paper answers two lingering questions pertaining to Japana??s new privacy laws enacted in April 2003. One question is the impetus for its introduction by the government after two decades of advocating self-regulation. The second question is whether the law simply rehashes Japana??s traditional legal informal system. The author begins with a summary of the legal environment in Japan before describing a series of case studies that illustrates the governmenta??s passivity. Then, the Political Opportunity Structure (POS) will be used to evaluate how and why the initial bill came to be proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)-led coalition in 2000. The analysis provided in this paper will show that the LDP viewed the new privacy bill as a means to an end, using it as a front for its own agendas. In addition, the author will show that the new law still falls within the boundaries of legal informality.