Understanding the Transformation of Japanese Policymaking Process from Open Sources

Transcription

1 Understanding the Transformation of Japanese Policymaking Process from Open Sources Satoshi Machidori Graduate School of Law, Kyoto University, Japan Introduction It is conventional wisdom that policymaking in Japan has been transformed due to institutional reforms such as changes to the electoral system, the cabinet, the central bank, and intergovernmental relations that began in the 1990s. Institutional theories that emphasize the effects of political rules on policymaking and on actors behavior. Some scholars have argued that these institutional reforms fundamentally changed the direction of various policies from a particularism to a kind of universalism, or from pork-barrel to high politics (see, for example, Catalinac 2016; Estevez-Abe 2008). The assertion of such a transformation, however, has not yet been proven to have a behavioral basis. How has Japanese policymaking changed? What are the major features of the new way that things are done? In this paper, through an analysis of data from The Prime Minister s Doing (PMD; Shusho Dosei in Japanese), which appears every day in major daily newspapers. Other countries also publish records of the daily schedules and activities of their chief executives after the conclusions of their terms, but Japan s PMD is the rare source that is released during his tenure and makes it possible to conduct completely contemporary analyses and make comparisons with former prime ministers. Analyzing these data from the late 1970s to today and examining them from a developed theoretical perspective, it will be shown that the Japanese prime minister plays an active role in policymaking, and the decision-making circle is now limited to core executives. Further, the author will consider the extent to which the roles of bureaucrats in Japanese politics have changed: is dominance of bureaucrats a major feature in a comparative perspective. 1

2 Theories Related to the Premiership Parliamentary systems feature a simple and straightforward chain of delegation (Strom 2000). The voters choose the members of parliament (in the lower house in particular) first; then, the MPs choose and support the prime minister, and finally, his/her cabinet governs through the government. The same chain goes in reverse: bureaucrats are accountable to the cabinet; the prime minister and the cabinet are accountable to the majority of MPs; and the MPs are accountable to the voters. Accordingly, at least in the traditional understanding, the power center of the parliamentary system is the office of the prime minister. 1 However, scholars have recently offered two dissenting views from the PM-centered (or cabinet-centered) theory. One focuses on the core executives, namely the prime minister, cabinet members, governing party executives, high bureaucrats, and some advisers to the PM and the cabinet. Different analysts have given different concrete definitions, they commonly argue that policymaking in the parliamentary system does not depend on any particular person but on the network and communications of the governing elite. That is, the core executive theory emphasizes the mechanisms of collective policymaking in the parliamentary system (see, for example, Rhodes 1995). The other significant new view is the theory of the presidentialization of the parliamentary system and the appearance of the presidential prime minister. Presidential prime ministers are being encountered more frequently in many European countries with parliamentary systems. In essence, the premiership involves a trusteeship from the parliament (historically, from the monarch) as a means of supervising the activities of bureaucrats: an executive duty. That is, the prime minister, according to this way of thinking, should prioritize a stable relationship with the parliamentary majority and must execute his or her policies through the bureaucrats. Presidential prime ministers, in contrast to this traditional style, attach more importance to direct relationships with the media and public opinion than to the parliamentary majority and depend to a greater degree on political appointees who have personal ties with the prime minister than they do on bureaucrats 1 Although some argue that the center of power is the cabinet, this does not deny that the prime minister has more power than other cabinet members. 2

3 (Poguntke and Webb 2005). Institutional Reforms in the Japanese Polity Beginning in the first half of the 1990s and progressing through the early 2000s, large-scale political reforms took place in Japan. A suitable comparison to the change that occurred could be found in the reforms of the Meiji era at the beginning of modern state building or during the period of postwar reconstruction. These late-twentieth-century reforms changed the system of electing Lower House, the cabinet and administrative bureaucratic systems, the relationship between the central and local governments, and relationships between local governments (Machidori 2015). 2 In this paper, the reforms of the electoral system of the Lower House, of the cabinet, and of the bureaucratic system are the primary focus. After the 1993 split in the LDP and the subsequent change of administration in 1994, a mixed electoral system combining single-member districts (SMDs) and proportionalrepresentation blocs was adopted. Because the ratio of Diet seats assigned through SMDs was high, these electoral rules were believed to bring about an approach to a purely SMD system. Yet these changes in the electoral rules did not result in the disappearance of smaller parties, because it was still possible to secure Diet seats in the PR tier. The second set of reforms were administrative and centered on strengthening the functions of the cabinet (and the prime minister s office). The Hashimoto Ryūtarō administration came into office in 1996 and implemented administrative reforms in 1998, under the title The Fundamental Reform of the Central Government Ministries and Agencies Law. The strengthening of Cabinet functions was a central element. This initiative was intended to create a cabinet-driven, especially prime minister driven, management of national affairs. To this end, the new law established a minister of state for special missions; expanded the cabinet secretariat and the cabinet office s functions; and set up advisory bodies involved in macro-level policy planning, such as the Council on Economic and Fiscal 2 For a fuller picture of these political reforms and their effects, see, for example, Hijino (2017). 3

4 Policy and the Council for Science and Technology Policy. Finally, a new and physically enlarged official residence and building for the prime minister were constructed to back up these strengthened cabinet functions. Hypothesis Two institutional reforms were expected to bring about a government with a greater concentration of power. This implies that the Japanese polity would become a majoritarian democracy (Lijphart 2012). Unlike consensus democracy, a majoritarian democracy s prime minister plays a more active role in policymaking. While a bottom-up process is generally found in consensus democracy, a majoritarian one often uses top-down policymaking. It is arguable whether top-down processes are equivalent to the greater discretion of the prime minister, who might be influenced by other members of the core executive circle in a majoritarian democracy, as scholars and observers of British politics have recognized. In any case, however, in a majoritarian democracy, the prime minister has a greater amount of contact with a small inner circle than with the rank-and-file members of the governing party and the bureaucrats. This pattern of contact is related to a transformation of Japanese politics that has taken place since the 1990s, from consensus democracy, with a bottom-up policymaking, to majoritarian democracy, with a top-down process. If this argument here is accurate, contact patterns among Japanese prime ministers show two prominent features since the institutional reforms of the 1990s. First, the prime minister has begun to be in greater contact with limited members of the inner circle (core executives). Second, the prime minister has begun to have less contact with rank-and-file governing party members and bureaucrats outside the cabinet secretariat and cabinet office. Another, related hypothesis comes from observation of the government of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) from 2009 to The DPJ strongly criticized the LDP government for being controlled by bureaucrats and advocated a concentration of decision-making power in the prime minister s hands. Thus, relative to LDP prime ministers, DPJ prime ministers avoided meeting bureaucrats. These three hypotheses must be examined. 4

5 Before the data analysis is begun, to clarify the argument, who belongs to the inner circle of policymaking, or the core executives, must be defined. This includes such figures as the chief cabinet secretary, the vice chief cabinet secretary, ministers with special missions, the secretary general of the governing party, and bureaucrats in the cabinet secretariat and cabinet office. Data Source PMD Data to test these hypotheses were drawn from the PMD, which appears every day in major daily newspapers. This is a record that contains all information about the activities of the prime minister: When, for how long, where, and with whom does he/she meet? It appears in this format: 11:00 am, meeting with Foreign Minister A and the vice Foreign Minister B; 11:35 am, Chief Cabinet Secretary C attends the meeting; 12:00 noon, moving to restaurant D with these four people. There has been concern that such a detailed record might result in negative effects on national security because it gives the names of the hotels where the prime minister stays and the restaurants he/she prefers. Despite these concerns, the PMD has continued for almost 40 years, beginning with the Ohira Administration of the late 1970s. It is quite a significant record for political scientists wishing to analyze patterns of prime ministers contacts. Three political scientists, Naofumi Fijimura, Shunta Matsumoto, and the author of this paper, have created a dataset that includes information on how often and with whom the prime minister has met for each day, covering 1979 to The data are categorized by the position of the visitor. Some positions are merged into larger categories to complete the analysis. The dataset contains analytical categories for visitors: core cabinet members, other cabinet members, governing party executives, cabinet staff (i.e., bureaucrats in the cabinet secretariat and the cabinet office); rank-and-file members of governing parties; opposition party members; ministry officials (bureaucrats in ministries other than the 3 This dataset does not include where or how long the meetings took place because the meanings of such facts cannot be understood in the absence of detailed and contextual information. 5

6 cabinet secretariat and the cabinet office); and others (e.g., local politicians, journalists, and university professors). The data from PMD should be analyzed while taking one significant thing into account. The Prime Minister s Office Building (Shusho Kantei) was rebuilt in the early 2000s. The previous one, which is currently the prime minister s residence, was small and had relatively loose security. As a result, it was quite difficult for the PM to hide any visitors from the eyes of the reporters who recorded the original information for the PMD. This meant that the data collected include almost all real visitors. By contrast, the current building is much larger and has tighter security. It also contains the offices of the cabinet secretary and other officials. If an official pretends to visit the cabinet secretary to avoid having his/her meeting with the prime minister found out, reporters are unable to tell whether the purported meeting is fake or real. This means that press reporters cannot record all the visitors who reach prime minister, and this might affect the quality of the dataset. Analysis If these hypotheses are correct, three observable implications related to the PMD dataset can be drawn. One is that meeting opportunities expanded for core cabinet members, governing party executives, and cabinet staff since the beginning of institutional reforms in the 1990s. Second, by contrast, opportunities for meeting have been reduced for rank-and-file members of governing parties and ministry officials. Third, these tendencies were particularly visible during the period of DPJ government. The data are summarized in four figures, below. Figure 1 shows the composition of all prime ministers beginning in 1979; Figure 2 shows the share of meeting opportunities for actors in each category before the institutional reforms came into force in April 2001; Figure 3 shows the same categorical data after April 2001; and Figure 4 gives data for the DPJ prime ministers. <<Figures 1 4 are here>> 6

7 Most impressive are the differences between Figures 2 and 3. Before the institutional reforms became effective, the prime minister met with the rank-and-file members of the governing party much more often (LDP only in Figure 2; LDP and other coalition partners in Figure 3). By contrast, the opportunities for these actors to meet with the prime minister were greatly reduced after the reforms became effective. The decrease in the ratio of rank-and-file members is quite impressive. The reverse is true for the core executives. The prime minister met quite often with the core cabinet members and cabinet bureaucrats after April 2001 than before. One thing should be noted, however, that the opportunities for the non-cabinet bureaucrats are not reduced. Figure 4 tells us that the DPJ government was completely different from the LDP government. The DPJ prime ministers only met with high bureaucrats rarely and with core cabinet members much more often than the LDP PMs did. It should be noted that the LDP PMs did not meet much with cabinet bureaucrats either. The cabinet bureaucrats included employees of the cabinet secretariat and the cabinet office, who had been a granted greater role as a significant part of institutional reforms. They were core executives, whose roles were significant in a majoritarian parliamentary system. While the DPJ advocated a concentration of power among the core executives, the outcome of its behavior was simply to avoid all kinds of bureaucrats. Summary of Findings What can be said about these three observable implications? First, as shown in Figures 2 and 3 (or Figures 1 and 3), prime ministers patterns of meetings have clearly changed since the political reforms came into force in April Prime ministers see core executives, such as core cabinet members, governing party executives, and cabinet staff, much more today than they had previously. Equally and oppositely, in rank-and-file governing party members have less and less opportunity to meet with the prime minister. This means that the first two observable implications were supported by the data. What is not fit with hypothesis is that and bureaucrats other than those at the cabinet secretariat and the cabinet office maintain meeting opportunities. 7

8 Finally, these observations are also true for the brief period of DPJ government as well. From the time that the DPJ took power in 2009, the three DPJ prime ministers also saw core executives more often than they did their rank-and-file members. In their case, however, it should be noted that the bureaucrats were avoided even if they were among the core executives, such as members of the cabinet staffs during the period of DPJ government. This did not come from any theoretical foundations but from the negative views the DPJ held on bureaucratic rule during its time in power. Conclusion In this paper, it is argued that the Japanese parliamentary system exhibits a more concentrated power structure. PMD data show that the prime minister today meets more with core executives, such as core cabinet members, governing party executives, and cabinet staff, than in the earliest part of the data. This appears to result from institutional reforms begun in the 1990s, including those altering the electoral system for the lower house electoral rule and the administrative system of the central government. These reforms were intended to produce a majoritarian democracy whose policymaking would be highly centralized, as in the British Westminster system. 4 The findings of this paper agree with the conclusions of other observers, including scholars and journalists, that Japanese policymaking is prime minister centered. In other words, here the transformation of the Japanese polity is shown, depending on open-source data. The argument of this paper has some relevance to current academic trends, in which the effects of presidentialization are an important comparison made in discussion of transformations in parliamentary systems. Presidentialization is certainly a significant move in a parliamentary system, at least in some cases. It is not, however, the only way to change. What this paper suggests that institutional reform and its effects are also an important 4 In reality, British policymaking has been decentralized since the 1990s. Some scholars have noted that this is a departure from its previous majoritarian democracy and the Madisonian turm of British politics. For the meaning and effects of the Madisonian turn, see Torbjorn and Strom (2011). 8

9 source of transformation. Although this paper focuses on the Japanese case, other countries with parliamentary systems that have recently experienced changes in their electoral system (e.g., Italy, New Zealand). Administrative reforms have also taken place conducted in other countries, such as Australia. Comparing these cases with those where presidentialization is occurring may bring new findings on parliamentary systems. References Catalinac, Amy Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Estevez-Abe, Margarita Welfare Capitalism in Postwar Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hijino, Ken Victor Leonard Local Politics and National Policy: Multilevel Conflicts in Japan and Beyond. London: Routledge. Lijphart, Arend Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty- Six Countries (second edition). New Haven: Yale University Press. Machidori, Satoshi The Last Two Decades in Japanese Politics: Lost Opportunities and Undesirable Outcomes. In Yoichi Funabashi and Barak Kushner, eds. Examining Japan s Lost Decades. London: Routledge. Poguntke, Thomas, and Paul Webb, eds The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rhodes, R. A. W From Prime Ministerial Power to Core Executive. In R. A. W. Rhodes and Patrick Dunleavy, eds. Prime Minister, Cabinet, and Core Executive. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Strom, Kaare Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies. European Journal of Political Research 37 (3): Torbjorn, Bergman, and Kaare Strom, eds The Madisonian Turn: Political Parties and Parliamentary Democracy in Nordic Europe. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 9

10 Figure1: All the PMs, (N=124880) Non-cabinet 17% Others 15% Core Cabinet 21% Outer Cabinet 12% Oppositions 1% Rand and File MPs 20% LDP Executives 4% Cabinet 10% Figure 2: Pre-Executive Reform Period, (N=74224) Others 17% Core Cabinet 18% Non-cabinet 15% Outer Cabinet 11% Oppositions 2% Rand and File MPs 24% Cabinet 9% LDP Executives 4% 10

11 Figure 3: Post-Executive Reform Period, (N=50656) Oppositions 1% Cabinet 11% Non-cabinet 20% Others 12% Rand and File MPs 15% Core Cabinet 25% Outer Cabinet 12% LDP Executives 4% Figure 4: DPJ PMs, (N=11455) Non-cabinet 12% Others 9% Oppositions 2% Rand and File MPs 12% Core Cabinet 38% Cabinet 5% LDP Executives 3% Outer Cabinet 19% 11