An international comparative analysis on the roles of "Epistemic Community" in developing agri-environmental policies

The implementation of agri-environmental policies in Japan has been significantly behind the other developed countries, and only Shiga Prefecture has achieved outstanding results compared to other prefectures. Based on the working hypothesis that the existence or nonexistence of “epistemic communities” may be related with these facts, an international comparative analysis on the existence and impact of the epistemic community on agri-environmental policy was conducted for the United Kingdom, Australia, Taiwan, OECD, etc. At the same time, an international workshop was held to share and discuss the results with policy makers. We confirmed the roles played by the epistemic communities and obtained policy suggestions for fostering the epistemic communities.