Prime-ministerial power in Japan: a re-examination

Abstract

Prime ministers in Japan have often been regarded as ‘weak’ and ‘reactive’. Constitutional and legal constraints on them have been emphasized as one of the significant reasons for this assessment. Administrative reforms in Japan, particularly in the late 1990s, sought to enhance the cabinet and co-ordination mechanisms in government and increase the formal power resources available to the prime minister. By looking into policy-making about two emergency bills during the oil crisis in 1973, this article examines Tanaka Kakuei's leadership as a case study of the Japanese prime minister's power in the executive branch. The case study reveals a range of routes in the core executive and departments through which the prime minister did intervene and play a key part in policy-making. The article concludes that the thesis which emphasizes the ‘limited’ formal power resources lacks support and that factors other than constitutional and legal power resources must be considered to explain the ‘weakness’ of prime-ministerial power in Japan, if such is the case.