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The Nature and Functioning of Japanese Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Takashi Inoguchi
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JAPAN'S INCREASING AFFLUENCE AND ITS INFLUENCE IN world affairs have led many to inquire about the functioning of Japanese politics and how one should deal with the Japanese in government or business negotiations. With the steady rise of such interest in Japan, the study of Japanese politics has started to flourish at home and abroad. It was impossible to predict one or two decades ago that one would find so many students, many of whom have a good command of the Japanese language, enrolled in a graduate course on Japanese politics in major US universities. Writings on Japanese politics have started to attract many more general readers, not just a small group of specialists in Japanese politics whose number would not reach, by any method of calculation, one thousand in the whole world. In this article I shall summarize and discuss some major debates on the nature and functioning of Japanese politics with some recent illustrations. The following three subjects have been chosen: decision-making and policy implementation, power structure and the nature of democracy.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , 01 April 1991 , pp. 185 - 198
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1991

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References

1 The number of Japan ‘specialists’ in the whole world is not easy to determine as the definition differs tremendously from one country to another. My bold guess is roughly 5,000.

2 See, for instance, Vogel, Ezra (ed.), Modern Japanese Organization and Decision-making, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975 Google Scholar. As for various modes of decision-making and their costs and benefits, see, for instance, Steiner, Jurg, A Theory of Political Decision Modes: Intraparty Decision Making in Switzerland, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1980 Google Scholar.

3 See Economic Planning Agency, Government of Japan, Keizai hakusho (White Paper on the Japanese Economy), Tokyo, Printing Bureau, Ministry of Finance, 1990. See also Yamamura, Kozo, ‘Shedding the Shackles of Success: Saving Less for Japan’s Future’, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 1987, pp. 429–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Takashi, Inoguchi, Zoku giin no kenkyu (A Study of Policy Tribes), Tokyo, Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1987 Google Scholar; Haley, John O., ‘Governance by Negotiation: A Reappraisal of Bureaucratic Power in Japan’, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 1987, pp. 343–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 See, for instance, Motoshige, Ito (eds), Nihon no seiji keizai sisutemu (The Japanese Politico-Economic System), Tokyo, Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1990 Google Scholar.

6 As for the principle of a minimum winning coalition, see Leiserson, Michael, ‘Factions and Coalitions in One-Party Japan: An Interpretation Based on the Theory of Games’, American Political Science Review, Vol. LXII, No. 4, 12 1968, pp. 770–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The account here of the changed principle of factional dynamics is drawn from Takashi Inoguchi, ‘The Emergence of a Predominant Faction in the Liberal Democratic Party: Domestic Changes in Japan and Their Security Implications’, paper presented for the Conference on ‘Beyond the Cold War in the Pacific’, University of California, San Diego, 7–9 June 1990. For a detailed overview and assessment of LDP Factions, see Steven R. Reed. ‘Factions in Japanese Conservative Politics’, Journal of Japanese Studies, forthcoming. See also Rosario, Louise do, ‘Ominous Silence: LDP Factions Paralysed by Leadership Problems’, Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 01 1991, pp. 17–18 Google Scholar.

7 Tomoaki, Iwai, Seiji shikin no kenkyu (A Study of Political Money), Tokyo, Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1990 Google Scholar.

8 On Nakasone’s politics, see Takashi, Inoguchi, ‘The Legacy of a Weathercock Prime Minister’, Japan Quarterly, Vol. XXXIV, No. 4, 10.–12. 1987, pp. 363–70Google Scholar; Pyle, Kenneth B., ‘In Pursuit of a Grand Design: Nakasone Betwixt the Past and the Present’, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer 1987, pp. 243–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 See Takashi Inoguchi, ‘The Emergence of a Predominant Faction in the Liberal Democratic Party’.

10 As for Japan’s economic foreign policy, see Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘Japan’s Politics of Interdependence’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 25, No. 4, Autumn 1990, pp. 419–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Nester, William R., The Foundation of Japanese Power: Continuities, Changes, Challenges, London, Macmillan, 1990 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Professor Dore, Ronald, in his article ‘Support and Be Supported’, Government and Opposition, Vol. 25, No. 4, Autumn 1990, pp. 438–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that Japan should adopt a more global communitarian strategy than practised hitherto. I am in perfect agreement with him in this regard as my own writings attest. See, for instance, my ‘Nichi-Bei kankei no rinen to kozo’ (The Ideas and Structure of Japan-U. S. Relations), Leviathan: the Japanese Journal of Political Science, No. 5, Autumn 1989, pp. 7–33. But I must reiterate that my own article in Government and Opposition tried to deal solely with one of many Japanese strategies, i. e., Japanese economic statecraft in dealing with global market forces in the service of what the Japanese government sees as national interest.

11 Takashi Inoguchi, ‘Japanese Responses to Europe 1992: Implications for the United States’, paper prepared for an East-West Forum Workshop, Washington, D. C., 4–6 October 1989.

12 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Japan, Waga kuni no seifu kaihatsu enjo (Japan’s Official Development Assistance), Tokyo, Kokusai kyoryoku suishin kyokai, 1990.

13 Takashi Inoguchi, Japan’s International Relations, London, Pinter Publishers, forthcoming. Also see Inoguchi, Takashi (eds), The Political Economy of Japan Vol. 2: The Changing International Context, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1988 Google Scholar.

14 Takashi Inoguchi, ‘The Legacy of a Weathercock Prime Minister’.

15 See Courtney, Courtney, ‘Japanese Crisis Management During the Iraqi Crisis’, Asian Survey, Vol. 31, No. 2, 04 1991 Google Scholar.

16 Purrington, Dennis J., ‘Neither MITI nor America: The Political Economy of Capital Liberalisation in Japan’, International Organization, Vol. 44, No. 1, Winter 1990, pp. 25–54 Google Scholar.

17 The flavour of the debate can be savoured by reading, for instance: Calder, Kent E., ‘Japanese Foreign Economic Policy Formation: Explaining the Reactive State’, World Politics, Vol. XL, No. 4, 07 1987, pp. 517–41Google Scholar; Allinson, Gary D., ‘Politics in Contemporary Japan: Pluralist Scholarship in a Conservative Era: A Review Article’, Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 2, 05 1989, pp. 324–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fukui, Haruhiro, ‘Gendai seijigaku sosho, 20 vols, edited by Inoguchi Takashi, University of Tokyo Press, Tokyo, 1988’, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, Winter 1990, pp. 208–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 See, for instance, Steven, Rob, Classes in Contemporary Japan, London, Cambridge University Press, 1983 Google Scholar and Japan’s New Imperialism, London, Macmillan, 1990.

19 As for macroeconomic management, see, for instance: Takashi, Inoguchi, Gendai Nihon seiji keizai no kozu (The Contemporary Japanese Political Economy), Tokyo, Tokyo keizai shimposha, 1983 Google Scholar; Inoguchi, Takashi (ed.), Uncommon Democracies: The One-Party Dominant Regimes, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 189–225 Google Scholar.

20 Consumption tax and nuclear power plant siting are such issues on which many LDP candidates facing staunch grassroots opposition often switch from support to rejection in defiance of the LDP headquarters.

21 See special monthly series on ministries and agencies on Zaikai tembo (Business Perspective), giving interesting accounts on instances of cut-throat inter-ministry (agency) competition, January 1990–February 1991.

22 The point is well articulated by Etzioni-Halevy, Eva in her Fragile Democracy, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Transaction Publishers, 1989 Google Scholar.

23 As for the analysis of the relationship between policy issues including tax and political parties, see Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘Public Policies and Elections: An Empirical Analysis of Voters – Parties Relationship Under One Party Dominance’, Papers in Japanese Studies, No. 2, National University of Singapore, 02 1989 Google Scholar.

24 Kabashima, Ikuo, ‘Referent Pluralism: Mass Media and Politics in Japan’, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, Summer 1986, pp. 329–61Google Scholar.

25 See, for instance, Mitsunobu, Sugiyama, Gakumon to jyanarizumu no aida (Between Scholarship and Journalism), Tokyo, Misuzu shobo, 1989 Google Scholar.

26 Inoguchi, Takashi (eds), Blind Partners: American and Japanese Responses to an Unknown Future, Lanham, Maryland, University Press of America, 1985, pp. 43–50 Google Scholar. For a vivid historical account of modern Japanese politics, see Junnosuke, Masumi, Nihon seito shiron (A Treatise on Japanese Political Parties), 7 vols., Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1968–80Google Scholar.

27 Takashi, Inoguchi, ‘Kokusaika jidai no kanryosei’ (Bureaucracy in an Era of Internationalization), Leviathan: the Japanese Journal of Political Science, No. 4, Spring 1989, pp. 100–14Google Scholar.

28 See, for instance, Kazuo, Ueyama, Jingasa daigishi no kenkyu (A Study of a Backbencher), Tokyo, Nihon keizai hyoronsha, 1989 Google Scholar.

29 See, for instance, Gastil, Raymond D. (ed.), Freedom in the World: Political Rights and Civil Liberties, Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1990 Google Scholar.

30 Wolfren, Karel van, The Enigma of Power, London, Macmillan, 1989 Google Scholar.

31 I would like to thank Courtney Purrington for his help in improving the manuscript.