As market competition replaces state regulation in many economic fields, competition policy has become an area of increasing significance. Against this background, Suzuki highlights the importance of the domestic political structure for competition policy. He does this through the comparative analysis of competition law reforms in Britain and Japan. He argues - controversially - that a country''s domestic political structure should be considered a major factor in causing the reform of competition law, and rejects the established view that it is necessarily a result of changes in international economic and political conditions.