Introduction: three views of the bureaucracy

Diverse views have been advanced regarding the role of the bureaucracy in the Japanese economy. These views can be roughly grouped into three streams of thought: the “rationality” view, the “adversary” view, and the “interest-representation” view. In the first view, the bureaucracy is regarded as contributing to the efficiency of the Japanese economy by being an independent rational actor in the political-economic process. In contrast, the second view regards bureaucratic intervention in the market mechanism as ineffective and redundant at best. Bureaucratic intervention is even considered to be harmful to economic efficiency and other social values (e.g., Friedmanian citizen-cum-consumer's sovereignty, anti-elite democratic ideals, etc.). The third view holds that the bureaucracy represents specific or pluralist interests in the economy. In this view, the bureaucracy is regarded as maintaining a kind of principal-agency relationship with constituent interests. This chapter attempts to synthesize these views, focusing on the dual role of the bureaucracy as a rationalist-cum-pluralist agency.

Even among those holding the rationalist view there is a wide variety of viewpoints. They range from the view holding that the Japanese economy is a bureaucracy-led coherent system to the view that sees the bureaucrat's role as only complementary to the function of the market mechanism. The former view is bruited mostly by journalists, as represented by the “Japan, Inc.” theory, but even some non-Japanese political scientists, albeit much more subtle and sophisticated, lean toward this view.