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This chapter demonstrates the ways in which policy is more fundamentally a sociopolitical construct than technical/instrumental tool, as it is approached in much of policy science. Employing a constructivist sociology of knowledge, the discussion illustrates the ways in which a policy is a product of multiple realities and, as such, is as much a matter for interpretive analysis as it is techno-empirical assessment. To clarify the theoretical position, the second half of the chapter demonstrates the point through the political struggle over sustainable development in environmental policy. Beyond technical knowledge, the case points to how policies are socially experienced — in particular, how they supply citizens with the social sense of collective participation in mutual ventures with fellow members of their own communities.

The Framework negotiations of 1993–95 represented a turning point in U.S.‐Japan trade negotiations. The U.S. for the first time made “results‐oriented” trade demands, in which the Japanese government would be held responsible for increasing imports in certain markets, the centerpiece of its negotiating approach. And for the first time the Japanese stuck to their guns and resisted American trade pressures. In this chapter the author defines revisionism in terms of three core arguments: that Japan's economy was so inherently closed that efforts to remove protectionist barriers would fail; that the Japanese system was so fundamentally different that it represented a unique brand of capitalism; and that the Japanese system represented a genuine threat to the U.S. economy and especially its high-tech industries. The revisionist school called clearly for a policy of managed trade, or forcing the Japanese government to set aside a share of the market for foreign producers.

Revisionist assumptions reached their peak just as the Clinton administration was taking office. In this chapter the author demonstrates how the new policy team quickly rejected traditionalist thinking and clearly adopted revisionist assumptions about Japan. This chapter first analyzes Japan‐related thinking inside the Clinton campaign and then traces the attitudes toward Japan of the administration's new political appointees. The core of the chapter focuses on the main policymaking body in the White House, the Deputies Committee. Based on extensive interviews with participants in this group, the author is able to demonstrate how the administration came to adopt revisionist assumptions. This then led to a dramatically different trade policy of pursuing “results‐oriented” agreements with Japan that were to include numerical indicators to measure import penetration, and clear penalties if imports did not rise. Here is a case where one can almost see one set of policy assumptions being replaced by another.

In this chapter the author argues that the U.S. was forced to back down at every turn during the Framework talks. It also turns out that revisionism was damaged not only by the attacks by the Japanese government, but also because Japan's economic downturn, which began in the early 1990s, undermined the contention that it represented an economic threat. Furthermore, the traditionalist emphasis on the military relationship was restored in the mid‐1990s, as the U.S. came to realize that it needed Japan's cooperation against threats such as North Korea. And a horrible incident in which U.S. Marines on Okinawa raped a young Japanese schoolgirl led to strong anti-American feelings in Japan. By 1996, traditionalists had regained control of Japan policy. The period in which revisionist assumptions were the core of U.S. policy was thus relatively brief, limited to the first Clinton administration. Yet in this short time, these new policy assumptions had a definite and visible impact on how the U.S. approached one of its most important bilateral relationships.

The revisionist drumbeat reached a peak in the early 1990s, in the context of the continuing “Japan Problem” compounded by America's growing economic crisis. In this chapter the author traces the development of revisionist thought, focusing on the “Gang of Four” (academic Chalmers Johnson, government official Clyde Prestowitz, and journalists James Fallows and Karel van Wolferen), who were the most visible proponents of revisionism. This chapter also demonstrates how revisionism gained in resonance among academics and in the popular media. Despite its overall popularity, revisionism was not adopted as the working policy assumptions of the administration of George H.W. Bush, and thus had only a limited impact on U.S. policy. Most of the top officials in the administration still clung to traditionalist views of Japan, and were thus not supportive of the revisionist call for a managed trade solution.