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5 - Patronage Appointment in Japanese Politics

Political Representation in a Large Bureaucracy

from Part II - Two-Party/Multi-Party Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2023

By
Masao Kikuchi
Edited by
B. Guy Peters ,
Colin Knox  and
Byeong Seob Kim
B. Guy Peters
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Colin Knox
Affiliation:
Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Byeong Seob Kim
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
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Summary

In early prewar modernization period of Japan, party patronage was used to control the entrenched elite bureaucracy. Patronage was used to anchor the democratic representation of the national government officials who were given their own legitimacy. After Japan was defeated in World War II, Japan was institutionally fully liberalized and democratized. However, the reform of the old political regime was implemented through the Japanese bureaucracy. This fact demonstrates that the bureaucracy maintained substantial influence over the national policy-making process during post-war period. As the Liberal Democratic Party members accumulated policy-making capacities in certain economic fields, clientelism and particularism became key features of Japanese politics. But it did not particularly involve patronage appointments. It was rather connected with other “porks” such as economic benefits to the electoral consistency. As a result, from a comparative perspective, patronage practice in Japanese politics may be rather limited in its scope and depth, compared with other democracies in Asia.

Keywords

Zoku politicsclientelismSpecial Civil ServiceExecutive Secretary to the Ministers
Type
Chapter
Information
Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies , pp. 99 - 120
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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