Organizer and Chair: Ray Christensen, Brigham Young University
Discussant: Satomi Tani, Okayama University, Japan
The stereotype of reform in Japan is one of external pressure prompting a radical restructuring of Japanese society. Historically, the greatest changes in Japan have occurred by this method, the reforms of the Meiji Restoration and the U.S. occupation. Similarly, partial credit for recent reforms of certain economic practices has also been given to gaiatsu, external pressure from Japan’s trading partners.
However, this stereotype ignores powerful forces for change that have an entirely domestic origin. Japan developed into a quasi-democracy in the 1920s and became a militaristic state in the 1930s without either of these monumental changes being prompted primarily by external forces.
The reforms of the 1990s similarly defy the stereotypes of causation by external pressure. Change is convulsing Japanese economic, bureaucratic, and political structures. We present four examples that cover each of these issue areas, and in each example we examine causes of the change, significance of the change, and the actual effects of the reform initiatives.
Though our examples originate from a wide variety of issue areas, they share the similarity that they each are a domestic response to perceived immobilism or stagnation in either the economic, political, or bureaucratic realm. We develop common characteristics of reform that have their origin in domestic events rather than the widely-studied more common stereotype of radical reform always being initiated by external events. Our work, therefore, gives a more balanced perspective in our understanding of the process of significant change in the Japanese state.
Robert W. Bullock, Cornell University
Agriculture and small business have long served as the principal social bases of postwar Japan’s conservative coalition—that is, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the bureaucracy, and big business. The institutional inclusion and material payoff of the two sectors by conservative elites owed not to feudal legacies or intermittent political crises, but to regular, competitive elections and the long-term coalitional relations organized in response.
In the 1990s, however, while agriculture remains at the center of the coalition, small business has lost out in terms of material payoff and, arguably, coalition membership itself. These developments constitute the most dramatic changes in the conservative coalition since the 1950s.
The paper attributes the divergence of the two sectors not to gaiatsu, the 1994 electoral reforms, or other political changes, but rather to changing domestic economic conditions. Briefly, small-retail protection has posed significant constraints on big-business expansion. These constraints were tolerable during high growth but became far less so with the economic slowdown from the late 1980s. In contrast, big business can live with high levels of agricultural protection as long as it does not overwhelm government budgets or provoke trade war with the West.
Robert M. Uriu, University of California, Irvine
Robert Uriu argues that current bilateral discussions on deregulation need to focus much more on strengthening competition policy in Japan. His concerns stem from his earlier work on Japan’s industrial policy, in which he documented the extent to which industries have tried to "manage competition" in an effort to maintain stability in the domestic market. Firms have been able to engage in a great deal of cooperative behavior at the industry level, including the coordination of output, prices, and capacity. While the industries often asked government regulators to help enforce this collective action, they were also able to use entirely private enforcement mechanisms, especially through the industry associations, to great effect. Although he carefully limits his claims and recognizes that such behavior is not as widespread as in decades past, he argues that these practices have had some negative impact on imports and that these effects will become more important as formal barriers to imports are identified and removed.
In this environment, encouraging deregulation without strengthening competition policy will be ineffective or even counterproductive. Deregulation may remove mechanisms that foster formal cooperation but would leave a layer of informal, private-level "regulation" in place. Uriu further argues that having the Japanese government step away from involvement in the industry might not always be desirable, as ministry officials can at times be convinced to influence industry behavior in a market-oriented direction. Deregulation might lead to a situation in which future U.S. trade concerns "fall through the cracks"—he imagines situations in which MITI bureaucrats reject bilateral talks on the grounds that the issue is now in the hands of the FTC, while an FTC that lacks sufficient authority to act or to enforce penalties is unable to deal with private-sector practices.
Paul D. Talcott, Harvard University
The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) weathered two dramatic incidents of widespread public scorn in 1996: the revelation of withheld documents connected with the HIV blood scandal in February, and the resignation of its highest administrative official in disgrace in December for accepting illegal gifts from a nursing-home owner. Two major reforms followed soon after these upheavals: pharmaceutical approval functions moved to a new detached bureau, and the Personnel Agency implemented new regulations prohibiting employees of MHW from accepting gifts and even invitations to study meetings from outsiders.
This paper examines the effect of these reforms on the relationship between MHW and industry, and on the successful implementation of other policy goals of MHW. It seeks to build a middle way between narrowly institutional and narrowly instrumental explanations of bureaucratic structure, using hypotheses drawn from both rational-choice and institutional political science literature.
I argue that recent reforms of MHW fail to mend practices and structures which gave rise to industry-government collusion and negligence. MHW still retains a monopoly on both oversight and industrial promotion, and over prices in the health care system. Nor do new personnel rules eliminate incentives for bureaucrats to seek patrons in the private sector; public-sector post-retirement positions may shrink as public corporations face restructuring in the latest wave of administrative reform. Finally, the incidents and their reforms delayed the passage of other laws related to medical insurance, and rendered the chances of sweeping revisions of the health care system unlikely in the near future.
Ray Christensen, Brigham Young University
Electoral reform was the rallying cry of the reformist Hosokawa government that took power from the LDP in 1993. The new single member constituencies were supposed to reduce corruption, encourage issue-oriented election campaigns, create a two-party system, and give the parties greater strength vis-à-vis factions and individual politicians. In addition to these claims by the politicians themselves, the experience of other countries would suggest that the new proportional representation districts would also create opportunities for women and other "non-traditional" candidates. The door was also opened for party-based media campaigns.
However, the first operation of this new system in 1996 suggests that none of these changes either promised by politicians or expected by research done in other countries has been manifested in any significant degree. Though the election system was radically altered for the 1996 election, campaign practices, the type of candidate, and the operation of parties remains remarkably similar to their counterparts under the former election regime.
As an explanation for this lack of substantial change I suggest a close investigation of the unchanged aspects of the electoral system. Campaign practices are severely constrained under both the old and new electoral systems. This continuity exerts an enormous influence on the type of campaigns and candidates and ultimately on the structure of political parties and the policy discussions of the government. The new electoral system has brought some significant changes on the Japanese political scene, but of greater import are the continuities between the two electoral systems.