Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T19:04:30.807Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Patronage Appointment in Japanese Politics

Political Representation in a Large Bureaucracy

from Part II - Two-Party/Multi-Party Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2023

B. Guy Peters
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Colin Knox
Affiliation:
Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Byeong Seob Kim
Affiliation:
Seoul National University
Get access

Summary

In early prewar modernization period of Japan, party patronage was used to control the entrenched elite bureaucracy. Patronage was used to anchor the democratic representation of the national government officials who were given their own legitimacy. After Japan was defeated in World War II, Japan was institutionally fully liberalized and democratized. However, the reform of the old political regime was implemented through the Japanese bureaucracy. This fact demonstrates that the bureaucracy maintained substantial influence over the national policy-making process during post-war period. As the Liberal Democratic Party members accumulated policy-making capacities in certain economic fields, clientelism and particularism became key features of Japanese politics. But it did not particularly involve patronage appointments. It was rather connected with other “porks” such as economic benefits to the electoral consistency. As a result, from a comparative perspective, patronage practice in Japanese politics may be rather limited in its scope and depth, compared with other democracies in Asia.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abe, H. et al. (1990). The Government and Politics of Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.Google Scholar
Aberbach, J. D. & Rockman, B. A. (2009). The Appointments Process and the Administrative Presidency. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 39 (1), 3859.Google Scholar
Akizuki, K. (2010). History and Context of Public Administration in Japan in Berman, E. et al., eds., Public Administration in East Asia: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. 195211.Google Scholar
Bearfield, D. A. (2009). What Is Patronage? A Critical Reexamination. Public Administration Review, 69(1), 6476.Google Scholar
Berenschot, W. & Aspinall, E. (2020) How Clientelism Varies: Comparing Patronage Democracies. Democratization, 27(1), 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, J. C. (1989). Bureaucratic Primacy: Japanese Policy Communities in an American Perspective. Governance, 2(1), 522.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curtis, G. (1999). The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and the Limits of Change. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Driscoll, B. (2018). Why Political Competition Can Increase Patronage. Studies in Comparative International Development, 53, 404427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukui, H. (1970). Party in Power: The Japanese Liberal-Democrats and Policy-making. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibney, F. ed. (1998). Unlocking the Bureaucrat’s Kingdom: Deregulation and the Japanese Economy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hayao, K. (1993). The Japanese Prime Minister and Public Policy. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutchcroft, P. D. (2014). Linking Capital and Countryside: Patronage and Clientelism in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines in Brun, D. A. & Diamond, L., eds., Clientelism, Social Policy and the Quality of Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 174203.Google Scholar
Johnson, C. (1982). MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy 1925–1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, P. D. (2015). The Origins of Patronage Democracy: State Building, Centrifugalism, and Decolonization. British Journal of Political Science, 45(1) 141147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kikuchi, M. (2010). Public Policy Process and Citizens Participation in Japan in Berman, E., et al., eds., Public Administration in East Asia: Mainland China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. 273290.Google Scholar
Kingston, J., ed. (2019). Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan, Second Edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Koh, B. C. (1989). Japan’s Administrative Elite. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Kopecky, P. et al. (2016). Party Patronage in Contemporary Democracies: Results from an Expert Survey in 22 Countries from Five Regions. European Journal of Political Research, 55, 416431.Google Scholar
Krauss, E. & Pekkanen, R. J. (2011). The Rise and Fall of Japan’s LDP. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maclachlan, P. (2014). The Electoral Power of Japanese Interests Groups. Journal of East Asian Studies, 14, 429458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muramatsu, M. & Krauss, E. (1984). Bureaucrats and Politicians in Policy Making: The Case of Japan. American Political Science Review, 78(1), 126146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nakamura, A. & Kikuchi, M. (2011). Japanese Public Administration at the Crossroads: Declining Trust in Government and Civil Service Reform in the Age of Fiscal Retrenchment in Massey, A., ed., International Handbook on Civil Service Systems. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. 282304.Google Scholar
National Personnel Authority. (2020). Profile of National Public Employees in Japan.Google Scholar
Neary, I. (2019). The State and Politics in Japan. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Painter, M. (2010). Legacies Remembered, Lessons Forgotten: The Case of Japan in Peters, G. & Painter, M., eds., Tradition and Public Administration. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 8498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panizza, F., et al. (2019) Testing Roles, Trust and Skills: A Typology of Patronage. Public Administration, 97, 14161.Google Scholar
Pempel, T. J. (1974). The Bureaucratization of Policymaking in Postwar Japan. American Journal of Political Science, 18(4), 647664.Google Scholar
Pempel, T. J. (1992). Political Parties and Representation: The Case of Japan. Political Science and Politics, 25(1), 1318.Google Scholar
Pempel, T. J. ed. (1990). Uncommon Democracies: The One-Party Dominant Regimes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, G. & Pierre, J. eds. (2004). The Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, M. & Rosenbluth, F. (1993). Japan’s Political Marketplace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reed, S. (2021). Patronage and Predominance: How the LDP Maintains Its Hold on Power. Social Science Japan Journal. https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyab033CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Resh, W. G. (2015). Rethinking the Administrative Presidency: Trust, Intellectual Capital, and Appointee-Careerist Relations in the George W. Bush Administration. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, R. J. (1987) Research Collaboration in Japan. M.I.T.-Japan Science and Technology Program Working Paper No. 2. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Google Scholar
Scheiner, E. (2007). Clientelism in Japan: The importance and limits of institutional explanations in Kitschelt, H. & Wilkinson, S. eds., Patrons, Clients and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 276297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shefter, M. (1994). Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Shimizu, Y. (2019). The Origins of the Modern Japanese Bureaucracy. London: Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silberman, B. (1993). Cages of Reason: The Rise of the Rational State in France, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sorauf, F. J. (1960). The Silent Revolution in Patronage. Public Administration Review, 20 (1), 2834.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spaulding, R. M. (1967). Imperial Japan’s Higher Civil Service Examinations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Takenaka, H. (2014). Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Tsuji, K. (1984). Public Administration in Japan. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.Google Scholar
Yamamoto, H. (2017). Interpretation of the Pacifist Article of the Constitution by the Bureau of Cabinet Legislation: A New Source of Constitutional Law? Washington International Law Journal, 26(1), 99124.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×