Agricultural Liberalization and Diverging Modes of Farm Mobilization in Japan and Korea

Abstract

How do you explain centralized farm mobilization in Japan and decentralized farm mobilization in Korea in response to agricultural liberalization pressures? The divergence is puzzling given strong similarities in Japan and Korea’s agricultural sectors and institutions. Electoral competition that accentuates the urban–rural divide in society works in favor of centralized farm political mobilization, whereas electoral competition that minimizes the urban–rural divide works in favor of decentralized farm political mobilization. The logic is that when electoral competition cuts across the urban–rural cleavage, farmers face greater challenges in mobilizing under a centralized farm group for electoral purposes. Simply put, farmers are unable to act as a unified voting bloc. Relatedly, political parties also face less electoral incentives to specifically target farmers as a unified voting bloc. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.