Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T07:18:43.581Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Imperial Bureaucracy and Labor Policy in Postwar Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Sheldon M. Garon
Get access

Abstract

Studies of twentieth-century Japanese politics have largely ignored the impressive continuities between the prewar and postwar periods. Most accounts of the Occupation emphasize external American initiatives while dealing with the established Japanese leadership in rather one-dimensional terms. This article focuses on a dynamic group of prewar Japanese bureaucrats who survived the Occupation purge to play a key role in the postwar government's controversial labor policies. As higher civil servants of the Home Ministry (and the Ministry of Welfare after 1938), they had been responsible for formulating a policy toward the interwar labor union movement that mixed social reform and control. The author describes the ways in which these “social bureaucrats” perpetuated themselves and their distinctive approach to social stability in the postwar era. Their influence continues not only in the postwar Ministry of Labor but, more surprisingly, within the highest ranks of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , May 1984 , pp. 441 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Dower, John W. 1979. Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878–1954. Harvard East Asian Monographs, no. 84. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Duke, Benjamin C. 1973. Japan's Militant Teachers. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.Google Scholar
Kōushi, Endō. 1979. “1945 nen rōdō kumiaihō no keisei” [The making of the 1945 Trade Union Law]. Part 1. Nihon rōdō kyōkai zasshi, no. 242: 69–78.Google Scholar
Garon, Sheldon M. 1981. “Parties, Bureaucrats, and Labor Policy in Prewar Japan, 1918–1931” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar
Garon, Sheldon M. 1982. “The Death of Liberal Labor Policy in Japan, 1931–1938.” Paper prepared for the Thirty–Fourth Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Chicago, Ill.Google Scholar
Harari, Ehud. 1973. The Politics of Labor Legislation in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Makoto, Ikeda. 1978. “Rōshi kyōchō seisaku no keisei: Naimushō shakaikyoku (gaikyoku) setchi no igi ni tsuite” [The formation of policies of labor-capital harmony: The significance of the establishment of the Social Bureau as an external bureau]. Nihon rōdō kyōkai zasshi, no. 226: 14–23.Google Scholar
Takashi, Itō. 1969. Shōwa shoki seiji shi kenkyū [Studies in the political history of the early Showa period]. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. 1982. MITI and thejapanese Miracle: TheGrowth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samon, Kinbara. 1975. “Seitō seiji no tenkai” [Development of party politics]. In Iwanami kōza: Nihon rekishi 18. Tokyo: Iwanami shoten.Google Scholar
Juitsu, Kitaoka. 1961. “Kyō-Shakaikyoku no omoide” [Recollections of the old Social Bureau]. In Rōdō gyōsei shi yoroku. Supplement to vol. 1 of Rōdō gyōsei shi, ed. Rōdōshō, . Tokyo: Rōdō hōrei kyōkai.Google Scholar
Kuisel, Richard F. 1978. “Technocrats and Public Economic Policy: From the Third to the Fourth Republic.” In Contemporary France, ed. Cairns, John C.. New York: New Viewpoints.Google Scholar
Levine, Solomon B. 1955. “Japan's Tripartite Labor Relations Commissions.” Labor Law Journal 6, no. 7: 462–82.Google Scholar
Maki, John M. 1947. “The Role of the Bureaucracy in Japan.” Pacific Affairs 20 (December): 391–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoneji, Masuda. 1956. Oyakunin [The honorable functionary], Tokyo: Kōbunsha.Google Scholar
Seichō, Matsumoto. 1963. Gendai kanryō ron [On contemporary bureaucrats]. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Bungei shunjū shinsha.Google Scholar
Hiroshi, Matsuo. 1979. Chian ijihō to tokkō keisatsu [The Peace Preservation Law and the Special Higher Police]. Tokyo: Kyōikusha.Google Scholar
Saburō, Matsuoka and Takuji, Ishiguro. 1955. Nihon rōdō gyōsei [Japanese labor administration]. Tokyo: Keisō shobō.Google Scholar
Moore, Joe. 1983. Japanese Workers and the Struggle for Power, 1945–1947. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Naimushō shakaikyoku rōdōbu. 1933. Rōdō undō nenpō [Annual report on the labor movement]. Secret. Reprint ed., vol. 12, published in 1972 by Meiji bunken.Google Scholar
kenkyūkai, Naisei mondai, ed. 1954. Kanryō no keifu [Bureaucratic lineages]. Tokyo: Kōbunsha.Google Scholar
henshūbu, Nihon kankai jōhōsha, ed. 1952. Nihon kankai meikan [Directory of officialdom in Japan]. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Nihon kankai jōhōsha.Google Scholar
kyōkai, Nihon rōdō, ed. 1960. Sengo no rōdō rippō to rōdō undō [Postwar labor legislation and the labor movement]. Vol. 2. Tokyo: Nihon rōdō kyōkai.Google Scholar
Notar, Ernest J. 1979. “Labor Unions and the Sangyō Hōkoku Movement, 1930–1945.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Takeo, ōhashi. 1972. ōhashi Takeo shi danwa 1-kai sokkiroku [Transcript of the first interview with Mr. ōhashi Takeo]. Naiseishi kenkyū shiryō, no. 119. Tokyo: Naiseishi kenkyūkai.Google Scholar
Pempel, T. J. 1982. Policy and Politics in Japan. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Pempel, T. J., and Tsunekawa, Teiichi. 1979. “Corporatism Without Labor? The Japanese Anomaly.” In Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation, ed. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Lehmbruch, Gerhard. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Redford, Lawrence H., ed. 1980. The Occupation of Japan: Economic Policy and Reform. Norfolk, Va: MacArthur Memorial.Google Scholar
Rōdō [Labor]. 1931. Journal of Sōdōmei. No. 236.Google Scholar
“Rōdōshō 20 nen no ayumi” [The 20-year course of the Ministry of Labor]. 1967. Rōdō jihō 20, no. 9: 4–20.Google Scholar
Shakai seisaku jihō [The social policy times]. 1931. No. 132.Google Scholar
Shokuinroku [List of government officials of Japan]. 1943. Tokyo: ōkurashō insatsukyoku.Google Scholar
Silberman, Bernard S. 1982. “The Bureaucratic State in Japan: The Problem of Authority and Legitimacy.” In Conflict in Modern Japanese History, ed. Najita, Tetsuo and Victor Koschmann, J.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1982. “Bringing the State Back In: False Starts in Current Theories and Research.” Paper prepared for Conference on States and Social Structures, Social Science Research Council, Mt. Kisco, N.Y.Google Scholar
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). Advisory Committee on Labor. 1946. “Final Report: Labor Policies and Programs in Japan.” Mimeographed. Tokyo.Google Scholar
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). Government Section. 1948. Political Reorientation of Japan: September 1945 to September 1948. Vol. 1. Washington: U.S. Printing Office.Google Scholar
Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP). Economic and Scientific Section, Labor Affairs. 1949. “Labor Division Semi-Monthly Report.” No. 28 (July 31–August 13). U.S. National Archives Record Group 331.Google Scholar
Eiji, Takemae. 1982. Sengo rōdō kaikaku: GHQ rōdō seisaku shi [Postwar labor reform: A history of GHQ's labor policies]. Tokyo: Tokyo daigaku shuppankai.Google Scholar
Kazuaki, Tezuka. 1971. “Senzen no rōdō kumiai hōan mondai to kyū-rōdō kumiaihō no keisei to tenkai” [The problem of prewar labor union legislation and the formulation and evolution of the original Trade Union Law of 1945]. Part 2. Shakai kagaku kenkyū 23, no. 2: 137–66.Google Scholar
Eiji, Yasui. 1964. Yasui Eiji shi danwa dai 1-kai sokkiroku [Transcript of the first interview with Mr. Yasui Eiji]. Naiseishi kenkyū shiryō, no. 14. Tokyo: Naiseishi kenkyūkai.Google Scholar