Papers in this panel address the topics of political elites and perceptions of inequality in East Asia. Most of the extant literature on these themes is drawn from the west, while studies based on Asian cases remain relatively scarce.
The paper by Yamamoto and Yanagi investigates Japanese citizens' views on fairness in policy formulation. Utilizing a web-based survey experiment, the authors investigate respondents' assessment of influences exerted by different actors in the decision making process, and find that policies developed based on public opinion and opposition party preferences are deemed more equitable than those based on organized interest groups and ruling party preferences.
Zhai's paper is also on the theme of perceptions of fairness, with a specific focus on income inequality. In this comparative study of East Asian countries, the author discusses the impact not only of household economic conditions which are often taken into consideration when examining attitudes toward inequality, but also of religion. The author argues that religious belief can mitigate how respondents discern the increasing gap between rich and poor.
The paper by Jou, Endo and Takenaka also focus on perceptions of inequality, but from the perspective of elites in Japan. The authors use an elite survey to compare the views of different elite sectors, covering not only the top echelons of politics and the bureaucracy, but also leaders of businesses, labour organizations and social movements. Inequality is discussed not only in economic terms, but also discrimination towards women and foreigners.
Kubo's paper focuses on Japanese political elites, specifically elected officials in local assemblies. Also using an elite survey, the author tests hypotheses on different views among assembly members concerning 1) the influence of organized interest groups and 2) the overlap between the policy preferences of these groups and their own preferences, depending on whether local assembly elections are held simultaneously with mayoral contests.
Despite the diversity in research resign and the countries covered, papers in this panel shed some light on the evaluation of policy processes and outcomes, by ordinary citizens as well as political elites, in an East Asian context.