Gradual Institutional Change in Japan

Kantei Leadership under the Abe Administration

Karol Zakowski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000334050
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política asiática

This book analyses institutional reforms implemented by Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinz?, under his second administration from 2012 to 2020. Also examined is the evolution in the role of such actors in Japanese politics as bureaucrats, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) factions, and backbenchers of the ruling party.

Chapters offer multi-dimensional explanations for the preconditions of successful gradual institutional change in political systems, characterized by relatively strong veto players, rigid governmental structures, and numerous unofficial decision-making rules. It is argued that enhancement of the prime minister's position was implemented through the creative use of pre-existing policy venues, coupled with minor institutional changes in decision-making bodies. Using three illustrated case studies, it is demonstrated how the prime minister managed to centralize the decision-making process: a result of strategic appointment of ministers, empowerment of the Cabinet Secretariat and also taking advantage of wider advisory organs, largely circumventing deliberations on key policies in the ruling party. Seemingly minor changes thus manifested in a major redefinition of decision-making patterns: a result of the long-term perspective of the Abe administration.

Gradual Institutional Change in Japan: Kantei Leadership under the Abe Administration will be useful for students seeking to understand the process of successful gradual institutional change and for scholars of Japanese studies and political science.

1Prime ministerial leadership in Japan

While prime ministers in Japan boasted broad constitutional competences, their ability to lead in a top-down manner was subject to many institutional constraints. Some of these obstacles were eliminated or weakened by electoral and administrative reforms, but the Japanese political system still remained different from the Westminster system that had been the model for the authors of the 1946 Constitution. This chapter briefly analyzes how Japanese prime ministers tried to overcome the official and unofficial constraints on their leadership in the post-war period, and due to what factors most of them failed and only a handful succeeded. In this light, the main characteristics of a prolonged prime ministership, as a necessary prerequisite for an effective top-down leadership, are analyzed.

Prime minister’s competences and constraints on leadership

Theoretically, the Japanese Constitution vests broad prerogatives in the prime minister. The heads of government nominate and dismiss cabinet members and act as superior decision makers in all legislative fields. Serving concurrently as the president of the ruling party, the prime minister theoretically maintains control over a majority of parliamentarians. Additionally, he/she possess the right to dissolve the House of Representatives, which gives him/her a convenient instrument of putting pressure on both the opposition and ruling parties. Moreover, on behalf of the emperor, the prime minister nominates a range of high-ranking state officials, such as the Supreme Court chief justice, as well as appointing the chairpersons of crucial advisory councils (Neary 2002: 111). The head of government has at his/her disposal a direct staff, popularly referred to as the Kantei (Prime Minister’s Residence). This closest entourage of the prime minister largely overlaps with the Cabinet Secretariat and the Cabinet Office, and includes the Chief Cabinet Secretary (CCS), three deputy CCSs, three assistant CCSs, prime minister’s special advisers and executive secretaries, as well as special advisers to the cabinet (George Mulgan 2018: 2).

Despite numerous formal prerogatives, the leadership of Japanese prime ministers was subject to considerable unofficial and institutional constraints. The rule of dispersed management (buntan kanri gensoku) prohibited them from direct initiation of policies that fell within the jurisdiction of one of the ministries. Moreover, due to the principle of unanimity among cabinet members, a single minister was able to obstruct the decision-making process (Shinoda 2000: 47). Although the head of government could dismiss the opposing cabinet member, the political cost of such a decision often turned out to be too high. Instead of focusing on implementing their policy agenda in a top-down manner, Japanese prime ministers usually had to consider maintaining harmony between various factions in the ruling party and keeping balance between distinct ministries that were actually ruled by the bureaucrats. As pointed out by Van Wolferen (1986/1987: 289), the head of government played only a ritualistic, passive role, and was unable to freely steer the semiautonomous groups in the government. According to Hayao (1993: 184–210), Japanese prime ministers appeared to be reactive leaders because instead of imposing their own policy vision on other political actors, they usually merely supervised the enactment of the issues decided upon by their subordinates in the bureaucracy and the ruling party. These two institutional actors were the strongest veto players that could easily block structural reforms.

Catering for the privileges of their home ministries, the bureaucrats were characterized by strong sectionalism (Shinoda 2000: 5–10; Iio 2008: 39). Recruitment from among the graduates of top universities, the policy of life-time employment, fixed stages of career, and lack of flow between ministries resulted in the collectiveness, solidarity, and elitist self-esteem of the administrative staff in each ministry. In addition, the extreme rigidity of the organizational structure of the Japanese government strengthened the sense of independence of the bureaucrats from politicians. In order to establish or abolish a ministry, and until 1983, even a single bureau, the prime minister had to prepare and have passed through the Diet a separate law, which necessitated a lot of effort (Shindō 2012: 90–93). The tradition of frequent cabinet reshuffles further distorted the relationship between the bureaucrats and their political superiors. The ministers were changed annually, as there was a limited number of cabinet portfolios to fulfill the ambitions of all senior parliamentarians of the ruling party (Kohno 1997: 110). Prime ministers did not stay in office for long, either. Until the modification of the party constitution in 2002, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader’s tenure was limited to only two consecutive two-year terms. Afterwards, the length of term was changed to three years, and under the Abe cabinet in 2017, the maximum number of terms was increased to three. Due to these factors, the bureaucrats rarely identified themselves with the changeable policy agenda of the prime minister or their own minister, and simply followed the pre-established policy line of their ministry.

In addition, it was not uncommon for the bureaucrats to sabotage the efforts of reform-minded prime ministers and cabinet members. Civil servants did not hesitate to resort to such measures as changing the meaning of new regulations through making seemingly minor modifications to their contents, playing one politician off against another, or denying their expertise to their political superiors during Diet proceedings to discredit them in the eyes of the public. Bureaucrats could also simply wait for the next cabinet reshuffle, while prolonging procedures in the ministry, for instance by concealing important documents. In addition, conspiracy theories about “suicide attacks” committed by the administrative staff against their superiors abound in Japan. By leaking information on internal problems in the ministry to the media, the bureaucrats could effectively undermine the position of their minister or even, depending on the gravity of the problem, of the head of the government (Zakowski 2015: 20–21). Perhaps Prime Minister Abe Shinzō himself fell victim to such a “conspiracy.” In 2007, the employees of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare presumably leaked to the media and opposition politicians information on missing pension records. According to journalists sympathizing with Abe, the bureaucrats’ aim was to impede the Kantei’s plan to prohibit amakudari practices.¹ As indicated by Abiru (2016: 113), Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare employees felt additional resentment against Abe due to his plans for privatizing the Social Insurance Agency. The bureaucrats could afford such behavior as they knew it would be their political superior to take the blame for their actions.

Another veto player were the ruling party backbenchers. Until the electoral reform of 1994, shifting alliances between faction bosses remained a decisive factor behind the election of LDP presidents. In order to avoid defections of separate groups, a set of unwritten rules was established in the dominant party. The prime minister traditionally distributed party and governmental portfolios according to recommendations from faction leaders (Uchida 1983: 134–139; Iseri 1988: 124–129). The offices of ministers or membership of the LDP General Council and the LDP Policy Research Council Board were assigned proportionally according to each faction’s size, while some posts, e.g. LDP deputy secretaries-general, or vice-chairpersons of the LDP General Council and the LDP Policy Research Council Board, were distributed in equal number to each faction (Satō & Matsuzaki 1986: 63). As a result, decision-making bodies both in the government and in the ruling party were composed of politicians representing various factions and interest groups rather than of the loyal executioners of the prime minister’s policy agenda.

Along with the vertical structure of factions, the LDP was horizontally divided into parliamentary tribes (zoku giin) – informal groups of lawmakers who boasted considerable experience in a single legislative field and represented the interests of the corresponding pressure group and ministry (Yuasa 1986: 10–16). In particular, specialization in three fields – agriculture, construction, and commerce and industry – was considered the most profitable because it enabled protectionism toward influential groups of the electorate through farming subsidies, infrastructural projects, and development policies, respectively (Inoguchi & Iwai 1987: 133). The parliamentary tribes gained in prominence due to the institutionalization of the two-track decision-making process conducted in the government and in the LDP. No bill project could be approved as a cabinet decision nor submitted to the Diet unless it had been authorized by the LDP General Council (Sōmukai) and the LDP Policy Research Council (Seimu Chōsakai). Policy Research Council policy divisions (bukai) hosted different parliamentary tribes that almost monopolized decisions in their corresponding legislative fields. Together with bureaucrats from the corresponding ministry and companies from a particular industrial sector, each zoku formed a small “iron triangle” of vested interests (Stockwin 2008: 138). While the divisions between separate tribes blurred from the 1990s, parliamentary tribes survived and continued to affect the decision-making process.

Contrary to the veto players, the prime ministers possessed very weak institutional backing. Until 2001, only a limited staff of about 200 bureaucrats served in the Prime Minister’s Office (Sōrifu) and the Cabinet Secretariat (Naikaku Kanbō). Moreover, most of the employees of these two bodies were only temporarily dispatched to them and still placed their loyalty in their home ministries rather than in the Kantei. On a regular basis, the bureaucrats informed their ministries about the prime minister’s plans, which facilitated veto players in delaying or sabotaging any reforms orchestrated by the head of government (Makihara 2009: 60).

In addition to the administrative staff, the prime minister was directly assisted only by a handful of politicians. Among them, the CCS (naikaku kanbō chōkan) played the most important role. According to Article 13 of the Cabinet Law, he/she supervised the affairs of the Cabinet Secretariat and oversaw the duties of various offices within it (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications 2019). Originally, the CCS post had been entrusted to a promising mid-ranking politician, but over time, it gained in prominence. In 1966, the CCS received the status of a fully-fledged cabinet member. The rising gravity of the CCS was symbolized by the fact that two former CCSs, Abe Shinzō in 2006 and Fukuda Yasuo in 2007, became prime ministers without having served as the heads of any ministry. The CCS handled various policies entrusted to her/him by the head of government and acted as a spokesperson for the prime minister and the cabinet. Depending on personal skills, he/she could more or less efficiently overcome the bureaucratic and parliamentary tribes’ sectionalisms while coordinating the implementation of the Kantei’s policy agenda (Shinoda 2000: 72). Gotōda Masaharu (1989: 2), who had served as the CCS under the Nakasone cabinet, noted that, due to the proximity to the prime minister, the CCS was often dubbed the “housewife” (nyobō yaku) of the head of government. Interestingly, one of the CCS’s sources of power was a special fund amounting to more than one billion yen that could be freely used without keeping strict documentation. It is presumed that this money was spent on mitigating the opposition parties’ resistance against government-sponsored bills or on conducting backstage diplomacy (Hoshi 2014: 139–145). While the CCSs were overloaded with responsibilities, they were directly assisted only by four staffers – one private secretary and three civil servants dispatched from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Ministry of Finance (MOF), and the National Police Agency (Eda & Ryūzaki 2002: 86–90).

The administrative deputy CCS (jimu kanbō fukuchōkan), in turn, was considered as the top bureaucratic post. It remained an unwritten tradition to appoint him/her from among the former administrative vice-ministers of one of the institutions that originated from the powerful pre-war Ministry of Home Affairs, such as the Ministries of Interior, Labor, Health and Welfare, or from the National Police Agency. These central institutions were considered as more concerned about the national interests than other ministries, and thus less partial regarding the prime minister’s policy agenda. The administrative deputy CCS was in charge of daily policy coordination between the Kantei and the ministerial bureaucrats (Shinoda 2000: 72–73). What symbolized his/her influence on decision-making process was the fact that she/he presided over the Administrative Vice-Ministers’ Council (Jimujikantō Kaigi). This organ, which functioned based on tradition rather than official regulations, was composed of the top bureaucrats from all ministries who gathered on Mondays and Thursdays. Importantly, while the Administrative Vice-Ministers’ Council remained a largely ceremonial body, only the decisions authorized by it were submitted for the cabinet’s approval. For that reason, it was not uncommon to portray the administrative deputy CCS as a shadow eminence behind the prime minister.

Although administrative deputy CCSs often changed when a new prime minister assumed office, sometimes they were reappointed by successive administrations, which ensured stability of the decision-making process. In particular, Administrative Deputy CCS Ishihara Nobuo became famous for the fact that he served seven heads of government from 1987 to 1995. His successor, Furukawa Teijirō, remained in office even longer, under five administrations from 1995 to 2003. Reflecting on his role in the decision-making process, Ishihara stressed that, paradoxically, while cabinet meetings could take place without the presence of the prime minister, the administrative deputy CCS could hardly be replaced, as it was he who explained the agenda of each meeting (Ishihara, Mikuriya & Watanabe 1997: 191). Furukawa (2015: 114), in turn, emphasized that, as he was overloaded with work, he hoped to resign when Koizumi Jun’ichirō assumed office in 2001. Nevertheless, Furukawa was persuaded to continue his duties by the new prime minister and his entourage, who needed the administrative deputy CCS’s experience to conduct structural reforms. These testimonies account to the importance of this post in ensuring a good flow of information in the government and efficient communication between the Kantei and the bureaucrats.

Initially, there was only one politically nominated (parliamentary) deputy CCS (seimu kanbō fukuchōkan). Out of consideration for the House of Councilors, however, in 1998, their number was raised to two, each representing one house of the Diet. At the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Prime ministerial leadership in Japan
• 2 Remaining in power
• 3 Reforming governmental institutions
• 4 Reforming the LDP
• 5 Abenomics
• 6 Postponement of the VAT hike
• 7 Revision of interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution
• Summary and conclusions
• Index