UTILITY AND FAIRNESS CONCERNS IN POLICY EVALUATION AMONG JAPANESE PEOPLE

The purpose of this research was to examine the cognitive process invo lved in policy evaluation among Japanese people, focusing on three rec ent political issues in Japan (the Jusen problem, consumption tax rate and the U.S. Marine maneuvering fields). We mailed a questionnaire to 3,000 Japanese people over the age of 20, and obtained 993 responses. Although utility concerns were dominant in the evaluation of ail the policies, we found fairness concerns affected it independently of util ity concerns. We determined people's political attitudes by the politi cal parties they supported. The results showed the predominance of uti lity concerns across all the supporter groups, but fairness concerns a lso affected policy evaluation in all the groups except supporters of the Japanese Communist Party.