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Bureaucratization of the Meiji State: The Problem of Succession in the Meiji Restoration, 1868–1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Bernard S. Silberman
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Extract

Analyses of Japanese political development during the period 1868–1900 have for the most part obscured the fact that the kind of problems faced by the Restoration leaders played a major role in shaping the governing structure they created. Perhaps the most significant of these problems in the years immediately following the restoration of the emperor in 1868 was that of leadership succession. The total replacement of Bakuhan leadership in the decade 1868–78 raised serious practical questions as to how the new leadership could insure their authority and legitimacy. Such questions were not peculiar to the Japanese situation; they are questions all organizations face when they undergo total or partial replacement of leadership. However, the application of such conceptual categories as “tradition” and “modernization” has made it difficult to distinguish between those features of political development that were the consequence of being forced to deal with problems that arise in all organizations as a consequence of leadership succession and those that can be attributed to continuing social and cultural patterns.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , May 1976 , pp. 421 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1976

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References

1 Total succession is defined here as the replacement of all strategic personnel selected by one means with new personnel selected by a different means— “in any formal or informal group without prejudice as to whether this group is large or small, autocephalous or heterocephalous, of broad or narrow jurisdiction and composition.” Gouldner, Alvin W., “The Problem of Succession in Bureaucracy” [hereafter “PSB”], in Gouldner, Alvin W. (ed.), Studies in Leadership and Democratic Action (New York, 1950). P. 341.Google Scholar

2 See especially Gouldner, “PSB,” pp. 644–59; Gouldner, Alvin W., Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy (New York, 1954)Google Scholar; Guest, R. H., “Management Succession in Complex Organizations,” American journal of Sociology [hereafter AJS], 68 (Nov 1962), pp. 47–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guest, R. H., Organizational Change: The Effect of Successful Leadership (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Grusky, Oscar, “Administrative Sue-cession in Formal Organizations” [hereafter “AS”], Social Forces, 39 (Dec 1960), pp. 105–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grusky, Oscar, “The Effects of Succession: A Comparative Study of Military and Business Organization,” in Janowitz, Morris (ed.), The New Military (New York, 1964), pp. 83–109Google Scholar; Grusky, Oscar, “Career Mobility and Organizational Commitment,” Administrative Science Quarterly, 10, 4 (Mar 1966), pp. 488–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kreisberg, Louis, “Careers, Organization Size, and Succession,” AJS, 68 (Nov 1962), pp. 355—59Google Scholar.

3 Hackett, Roger F., Yamagata Aritomo in the Rise of Modern Japan, 1838–1922 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 65–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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5 Ibid., p. 74.

6 Ibid., pp. 56–62. Also Bernard S. Silberman, “Bureaucratic Development and the Structure of Decision-making in the Meiji Period: The Case of the Genrō,” Journal of Asian Studies [hereafter JAS], 26, 1 (1967).

7 Selznick, Philip, Leadership in Administration (Evanston. Illinois, 1957), p. 105.Google Scholar

8 Hackett, pp. 58–59.

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10 Gouldner, “PSB,” p. 654.

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13 The upper civil service career structure was integrated and stabilized by the following ordinances defining appointment, advancement, discipline, and tenure: Imperial Ordinance 183, November 30, 1893; Imperial Ordinances 61, 62, 63, March 28, 1899.

14 Ryō, Hasegawa, Meiji Ishin ni okeru hanbatsu seiji no kenkyū (Tokyo, 1966), pp. 63–183.Google Scholar

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16 Description of the situation and data are to be found in Hasegawa; Silberman, MM; and Silberman, “BD.”

17 Ibid.

18 For a more detailed analysis of this problem see Silberman, “BD.”

19 Grusky, “AS,” p. 115.

20 As quoted in Insatsukyoku, Ōkurashō, Gikaiseido nanajūnenshi; kenseishi gaikan (Tokyo. 1963). P 34.Google Scholar

21 Gouldner, “PSB,” p. 655.

22 As quoted in McLaren, W. W., “Japanese Government Documents,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, XLII, Pt. 1 (1914), pp. 324–30.Google Scholar

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24 Nisbet, Robert A., Emile Durkheim (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1965), pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

25 As quoted in Takayoshi, Matsuo, “A Note on the Political Thought of Natsume Sōseki in His Later Years,” in Silberman, Bernard S. and Harootunian, H. D. (eds.), Japan in Crisis: Essays on Taishō Democracy (Princeton, 1974), p. 75.Google Scholar

26 Wolin, p. 431.