Japanese Bureaucracy in Transition: Regulating Deregulation

Abstract

The article draws attention to the implications for the Japanese national bureaucracy of the current economic crisis of the country and of its possible passage, after having been characterized as a developmental state, to a new regulatory state. This passage is best epitomized by the liberalization and deregulation policies recently adopted. In this context the questions examined are whether the bureaucracy will accept being the sacrificial scapegoat and how this could possibly take place. The argument advanced is that the bureaucracy is probably in the best position to control its own demise which means that in so doing it may well simply become its own successor. The most effective way it has to do so, is to regulate the process of deregulation under way. Further attention is then addressed to the Three-year Programme for Regulatory Reform and to a number of specific deregulation measures. Although some major changes introduced or being advocated in the Japanese civil service may deeply affect the bureaucrats’ status and influence, what emerges is that, so far, the role the bureaucracy has played in planning and carrying out deregulation has remained quite central.