continuities and discontinuities in Japanese politics

In this article, Chalmers Johnson, a leading political scientist on modern Japan, agrees that the Japanese bureaucracy has been a dominant force in Japanese politics after the war. He refers to Japanese politics as imitation democracy that has all the appearances of a democracy (parliament, popular elections, etc.) but not quite the same thing as Western (or American) democracy. Johnson agrees, though, that much in Japan did change after the war: such as land reform, women’s vote, separation of the military and politics, and the emperor becoming a symbol. But he also points out that these were reforms long overdue and welcomed by Japanese officials, who were willing to assist in their implementation. "Shrinking politics" On the other hand, Japan has remained a very bureaucratic state. First, Japanese economy was primarily handled by economic bureaucrats, especially MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry). The U.S. seconded this because after 1949, the U.S. focused on economy building in Japan. Industrial labor also contributed to the ease of government policies through enterprise unionism: instead of the trade unions that cut across companies in the U.S. such as AFL-CIO, most Japanese unions are company based after 1960 and they negotiate with the management with mutual consideration of the company and the workers. This was important because some big companies offered their employees lifetime employment. Maintaining the viability of the companies thus became very important for the workers. Fearing the growth of electoral strength, the LDP broke into different factions, further reducing party politics. Between 1945-1972, most policies were drafted by bureaucrats and the latter supervised the government. Problems with a bureaucratic state When bureaucrats divided, the system would break down. The people with authority have no real power. The bureaucrats actually make policies. The interest groups, backers of LDP such as big businesses, rural population and anybody with a lot of money, are like ronin or masterless samurai, force the officials to legitimate them after the fact. The officials have authority but cannot do anything. The situation is still discernible today. The situation seemed to change in the 1970s when long term LDP members began to rival bureaucrats in terms of policy expertise, e.g. welfare tribe. But simultaneously, new interest groups cultivated politicians who did not want to touch on sensitive issues out of concern for their post retirement jobs. Many diet members would be given lucrative positions in private companies and banks after retirement, provided they did not offend these institutions during their tenure in the diet. As former diet members, they would be able to provide insider information to these companies and advise them on how to deal with the state and what kind of legislation they could push for on behalf of their institutions. Although momentarily, this kind of wheeling and dealing of the LDP cost them the majority in the house in 1989, giving the Socialist party a seeming chance to be the majority party, because the socialists were based on a unstable coalition, they were never able to become the majority party. And the LDP quickly recovered from their 1989 loss to regain the status of the majority party in the diet. "Top down politics" versus grassroots politics Johnson points out that one problem with Japan's shrinking politics has been the dilemma for the Japanese state to implement a top-down style of politics: having the state make macroscopic plans for the economy, society, etc., and square it with mass politics. The solution was to prevent great political participation (by using cultural explanations, company based unions, nationalism, etc.).