Serving the Japanese Prime Minister

Abstract

Hashimoto Ryutaro, Prime Minister since January 1996, has declared that in order to prepare for the twenty-first century Japan needs to introduce fundamental reforms in six areas: the administration of central government, the financial administration, the social security system, the economic structure, the fiscal system, and the education system. An Administrative Reform Council was created in November 1996 with Hashimoto as its chairman and this has produced a set of proposals to dismantle the existing structure of central government ministries and agencies and create a more streamlined system to take its place. There are two aspects to this. First, there is the aim of reducing the overall number of ministries by half (from twenty to ten). Second, is the proposal to create a strengthened Prime Minister’s Office that will be able to provide overall leadership and policy co-ordination and effective crisis management. There seems to be a consensus emerging among commentators and within the bureaucracy that basic reforms are now needed and Hashimoto has committed himself to introducing legislation, so that the new structure will be operational by 1 January 2001.KeywordsLiberal Democratic PartySenior Civil ServantJapanese Prime MinisterSecurity AffairSenior BureaucratThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.