Public policy toward the automobile: A comparative look at Japan and Sweden

Abstract This article compares two different national approaches to regulation and promotion of the automobile. It examines how the problem was perceived, what styles of intervention developed, and how implementation of seemingly standardized solutions differed. Japan tended to view the private automobile as a socially expensive luxury until quite recently. Some features of its policy response, e.g. low spending on roads, high motor vehicle taxes, flow from this outlook. Other aspects, such as the effective mass public safety campaigns, and the coordination between industrial and regulatory policies flow from Japan's social and cultural patterns. Sweden's policies are aimed at “civilizing” the car, not restricting it. They tended to develop with the adversarial approach common in the U.S.