The changing relationship between Japan's LDP and the bureaucracy: Hashimoto's administrative reform effort and its politics

Asian Survey

Volumn 38, Issue 10, 1998, Pages 968-981

  Mishima, Ko ^a  

^a OECD   (France)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0039003801     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.1998.38.10.01p0393d     Document Type: Article

References (18)

1. Many things are covered under the banner of "administrative reform" in Japanese politics. For example, former Prime Minister Nakasone placed everything from fiscal reform to privatization to deregulation under the umbrella of administrative reform. More recently, the issues considered by the Third Provisional Council for the Promotion of Administrative Reform (Daisanji Gyosei Kaikaku Suishin Shingikai) included financial system reform, deregulation, and decentralization. Under Hashimoto's effort, administrative reform was defined more narrowly, focusing on reform of the bureaucracy and improving the organizational functioning of administrative bodies.
2. The MCA's director-general is a state minister whose portfolio is administrative management. As for Mizuno, he is a politician, not a bureaucrat, and was not reelected in the October 1996 general election.
3. Frank Schwartz, "Of Fairy Cloaks and Familiar Talks: The Politics of Consultation," in Political Dynamics in Contemporary Japan, eds. Gray D. Allison and Yasunori Sone (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 228-29.
4. Kiyoshi Mizuno, "Gyousei kaikaku kaigi: Kanryo tono kobo" [The Administrative Reform Council: On the offense and defense against bureaucrats], Bungei shunju (October 1997), pp. 104-12.
5. Two other issues caused political controversy of a more general sort: the removal of financial policy duties from the MOF and the upgrading of the National Defense Agency to ministry status. A strategic standoff by the New Party Sakigake created problems in the former case, while problems internal to the LDP produced controversy over the latter.
6. Yomiuri shinbun, May 1, 1997.
7. The special post office system is a legacy of a government policy dating to the Meiji period that allowed rich men in rural areas to establish post offices and so ensure nationwide postal service.
8. Mainichi shinbun, November 7, 1997.
9. Ibid.
10. Gerald L. Curtis, Election Campaigning Japanese Style (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 33-61.
11. Mainichi shinbun, October 3, 1997.
12. Yomiuri shinbun, September 4, 1997.
13. The results of later polls, however, indicate that public opinion was flexible. An Asahi shinbun poll of November 12, 1997, found that 47% of respondents were in favor of a future privatization while 40% were against. It was hard to ascertain the true public preference.
14. Yomiuri shinbun, August 8, 1997.
15. Ministry of Home Affairs, Chiho zaisei no jokyo: Heisei 9 nendo [Conditions of local fiscal finance: Fiscal year 1997] (Tokyo: Okurasho Insatsukyoku, 1997).
16. Yomiuri shinbun, July 28, 1997.
17. Gerald L. Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.)
18. Michio Muramatsu and Ellis S. Krauss, "The Conservative Policy Line and the Development of Patterned Pluralism," in The Domestic Transformation, vol. 1 of The Political Economy of Japan, eds. Kozo Yamamura and Yasukichi Yasuba (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987).