The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Bureaucracy

Abstract

Abstract In the postwar era, Japan benefited from an unusually competent, public-minded, and powerful central bureaucracy that contributed to rapid economic growth, high education and health standards, domestic stability, and peaceful international relations. The regime combined democratic politics with strong administrative capacity and partial insulation from interest group pressures. Central ministry officials developed a compromise between autonomy and inclusion whereby they played a distinctively political role of arranging bargains among key interest groups. Yet the bureaucracy’s power and insulation also restricted the participation of civic groups and minority interests in the policy process, limited accountability to the broader public, and fostered collusive partnerships with politicians and favored interest groups. Bureaucratic dominance began to wane in the 1970s as politicians pushed beyond Ministry of Finance budget limits to expand the welfare state and boost public works spending for their constituents. Bureaucrats confronted even greater challenges in the 1990s, including a devastating financial crisis that abruptly ended the high-growth period, an electoral system reform that transformed political dynamics, and a gradual erosion of prestige. Meanwhile, political leaders enacted administrative reforms to strengthen their control over the bureaucracy and to centralize power in the Prime Minister’s Office and the cabinet. Nevertheless, Japan’s elite civil servants have preserved some core powers, including control over substantial elements of the policy process, the capacity to forge political bargains, and a knack for manipulating politicians to pursue their own policy preferences.