This is the first book to attempt a systematic comparison of Japanese and British climate policy and politics, and is now available in paperback. Focusing on institutional contrasts between Japan and Britain in terms of corporatist or pluralist characteristics of government-industry relations and decision-making and implementation styles, the book examines how and to what extent institutions explain climate policy in Japan and Britain. In doing this, the book explores how climate policy is shaped by the interplay of nationally specific institutional factors and universal constraints on actors, which emanate from characteristics of the global warming problem itself. It also considers how corporatist institutional characteristics may make a difference in attaining sustainable development. Overall this book provides a new set of comparisons of climate policy and new frameworks of analysis, which could be built on in future research on cross-national climate policy analysis.

Shizuka Oshitani is former Lecturer in Foreign Studies at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan

1. Introduction
2. Science and the international politics of global warming
3. Theoretical frameworks: the issue-based approach and the institutional approach
4. Making global warming policy
5. Policy developments in Japan on global warming: the politics of conflict and the producer-oriented policy response
6. Co-optation and exclusion: controlled policy integration in Japan
7. Policy developments in Britain on global warming: in search of political leadership
8. Competition and pressure: British policy integration
9. Interest, institutions and global warming
10. Epilogue: after the Kyoto conference