Japan's Cabinet Secretariat and its emergence as core executive

Asian Survey

Volumn 45, Issue 5, 2005, Pages 800-821

  Shinoda, Tomohito ^a  

^a INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN   (Japan)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADMINISTRATION; POLICY MAKING; POLITICAL REFORM;

ASIA; EURASIA; FAR EAST; JAPAN;

EID: 31144435911     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2005.45.5.800     Document Type: Article

References (37)

1. Interview by author, Tokyo, October 22, 1998.
2. Patrick Dunleavy and R. A. W. Rhodes, "Core Executive Studies in Britain," Public Administration 68:1 (1990), p. 4.
3. Among the few academic works are Kataoka Hiromitsu, Naikaku no Kino to Hosa Kiko [The function of the cabinet and the supporting organizations] (Tokyo: Seibundo, 1982),
4. and Ian Neary, "Serving the Japanese Prime Minister," in Administering the Summit: Administration of the Core Executive in Developed Countries, ed. B. Guy Peters, R. A. W. Rhodes, and Vincent Wright (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), pp. 196-222.
5. Two books on Japan's prime minister contain sections on the Cabinet Secretariat: Kenji Hayao, The Japanese Prime Minister and Public Policy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993),
6. and Tomohito Shinoda, Leading Japan: The Role of the Prime Minister (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2000).
7. Gotoda Masaharu, Naikaku Kanbo Chokan [Chief cabinet secretary] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1989), p. 3.
8. Ibid., p. 4.
9. Gotoda Masaharu, Seiji towa Nanika [What is politics?] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1988), p. 90.
10. Before the establishment of this law, the position was called shokikancho (chief clerk).
11. The position gained cabinet member status under the Sato administration; the first CCS with ministerial status was Aichi Kiichi.
12. Asahi Shimbun [Asahi News], April 15, 1998.
13. For more details, see Shinoda, Leading Japan, p. 73.
14. A former deputy CCS, Gotoda Masaharu, says the following: "[The administrative deputy CCS needs] to conduct operations on the budget, personnel placement and planning impartially, without any personal interest involved. Therefore officials of the Finance Ministry which has the budget bureau, or officials at the Ministries of International Trade and Industry, Transportation and Foreign Affairs are inappropriate [for this position]." Quoted in Kawaguchi Hiroyuki, Kanryo Shihai no Kozo [The structure of bureaucratic control] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1987), p. 45.
15. Furukawa Teijiro, interview by author, Tokyo, October 30, 2003.
16. The Democratic Party's manifesto stipulates, "We will abolish the mechanism, symbolized by meetings of administrative vice-ministers, of advance manipulation of the cabinet's agenda, and change it to a politically led mechanism of top-down decision-making centered on cabinet meetings and meetings of senior vice ministers." The English version of the manifesto is available on the web at , accessed July 1, 2005.
17. Furukawa Teijiro, interview by author, October 30, 2003.
18. Ibid.
19. There was only one parliamentary deputy until 1998.
20. Interview with a former officer at the Cabinet Secretariat, by author, Tokyo, May 19, 2003.
21. Prime Minister Sato Eisaku appointed former CCS Kimura Toshio to this position. Also, Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro appointed a former labor minister, Fujinami Takao, and Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru chose a former minister of home affairs Ozawa Ichiro, both powerful members of their given faction, to this post. Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi appointed Kondo Motoji as the deputy CCS directly from the post of minister of agriculture and fishery. More recently, Prime Minister Hashimoto selected a former education minister, Yosano Kaoru, to the same post.
22. See "Central Government Reform of Japan," , accessed July 1, 2005.
23. Furukawa, interview by author, October 30, 2003.
24. Officials are listed in Table 1. This quantity does not include temporary officials, seconded from the other ministries.
25. Ibid.
26. Ibid.
27. See , accessed July 1, 2005.
28. Eda Kenji, interview by author, Tokyo, July 30, 2001.
29. Furukawa, interview by author, October 30, 2003.
30. "The Guideline of Policy Coordination System," cabinet decision, May 30, 2000.
31. Interview with an officer at the Cabinet Secretariat, by author, Tokyo, September 18, 2001.
32. Furukawa, interview by author, October 30, 2003.
33. Prime Minister Mori's address to announce the general resignation of the Cabinet, , accessed July 1, 2005.
34. For a more detailed account of the impact of the institutional changes on the policy process of the Anti-Terrorist legislation, see Tomohito Shinoda, "Koizumi's Top-down Leadership in the Anti-Terrorism Legislation: The Impact of Political Institutional Changes," SAIS Review, 23:1 (Winter-Spring 2003), pp. 19-34.
35. Furukawa, interview by author, October 30, 2003.
36. The 77 special public corporations were originally established to efficiently rebuild Japan's infrastructure after World War Two. They played instrumental roles to help Japan's economic growth by overseeing state loans and construction projects. In addition, the central and local governments established 26,000 public service corporations across Japan. They included corporations and foundations that were supposed to work in the public interest in order to receive lenient treatment under the tax system; some organizations receive subsidies.
37. Interview by author with an official of the Secretariat of Headquarters for Administrative Reform, Tokyo, October 20, 2003.