The politics of public administration in Japan

Abstract

Since the formation of the modern government during the 1868 Meiji Restoration, the Japanese political system has employed a parliamentary system of government. In the prewar period, there were efforts to "rationalize" the politics of the government with more career bureaucrats in higher positions within the government. After Japan's defeat in World War II, the government enacted the national public service act, which was modeled after the United Kingdom's parliamentary cabinet system with limited appointed positions. From 1955, with the formation of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), interlinks and triads formed between politicians, government bureaucrats, and interest groups. This relationship is referred to as the "iron triangle" and it became an important element of the Japanese postwar political economy system. In order to ease the ministerial sectionalism, the function of the Cabinet Office as a coordination mechanism of inter-ministerial matters was strengthened in the central government reform in 2001. Furthermore, to strengthen executive control over the management of senior civil servants, the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs was established in 2014. The civil service is expected to transform its core capacities from sole decision maker and provider to both coordinator of diverse and even conflicting public expectations as well as producer of public services, not government services.