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Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Joel D. Aberbach ,
Ellis S. Krauss ,
Michio Muramatsu  and
Bert A. Rockman
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Extract

Using evidence from surveys of top administrators, we examine differences between Japanese and American administrative elites. Our findings are far more complex than the reigning stereotypes of an apolitical, technocratic and elitist Japanese bureaucracy contrasted to a politically charged, conflict-oriented and social-reformist American federal executive. For example, senior Japanese bureaucrats take political considerations into account, compared to technical ones, no less than top American officials. American administrators have a more negative view of the role of political parties than their Japanese counterparts and, on average, an equally negative view of politicians interfering in their work than the supposedly more elitist, autonomous and technocratic Japanese bureaucrats. The article closes with a discussion of why popular conceptions of the two bureaucracies break down in practice.

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Articles
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 461 - 488
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 Excellent examples of this are Johnson, Chalmers, ‘Japan: Who Governs? An Essay on Official Bureaucracy’, Journal of Japanese Studies, 2 (1975), 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Johnson, Chalmers, MITI and the Japanese Miracle (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982).Google Scholar

2 Pempel, T. J., Policy and Politics in Japan (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982), p. 256.Google Scholar

3 However, there has been a general trend towards a more prominent role for politicians in Japanese governance. See Muramatsu, Michio and Krauss, Ellis, ‘Bureaucrats and Politicians in Policymaking: The Case of Japan’, American Political Science Review, 78 (1984), 126–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 These ministries are generally somewhat smaller overall than the other ministries. For example, in 1983, MITI had only about 5,800 civil servants and MOF almost 15,000. By contrast, the largest bureaucracy is found in the Education Ministry (over 132,000), and the Health and Welfare Ministry (over 74,000). The Ministries of Transportation, Construction, Labour, and Agriculture range from 18,000 to 28,000 (data are from Kenkyujo, Php, eds, The Data File, 1984 (Tokyo: PHP, 1984), pp. 34–5Google Scholar). The budgets of these ministries are also small in comparative terms. See Pempel, , Policy and Politics in Japan, p. 20.Google Scholar

5 In one survey of national officials, about 84 per cent of upper-level bureaucrats and 78 per cent of middle-ranking officials were educated at Todai (the acronym in Japanese for Tokyo University). Kyoto University, the similarly elite and long-standing national university rival to Tokyo University, also provides a disproportionate share of the bureaucracy (about 10 per cent of higher and 5 per cent of middle officials). See Muramatsu, Michio, Sengo Nihon no Kanryosei (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinposha, 1981), p. 56.Google Scholar

6 There are times, however, when he may be temporarily dispatched to other ministries and local governments.

7 See Campbell, John S., ‘Policy Conflict and Its Resolution Within the Governmental System’, in Krauss, Ellis S., Rohlen, Thomas P. and Steinhoff, Patricia, eds, Conflict in Japan (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1984), pp. 315–17Google Scholar. Advancement patterns in the Japanese bureaucracy promote individuals within the context of a group seniority system. One of the ‘class’ of young civil servants who entered the ministry at the same time will reach the first higher official level, that of section chief, in his early forties or late thirties. Later, a few ‘classmates’ may also reach that post. From among those who do become section chief, some will rise to counsellor, fewer to department or bureau head, and finally a very few, usually by their early fifties, become Administrative Vice- Minister, the highest career administrative post. Since advancement is based to an extent on who can best pursue ministry goals and exemplify its character, this competitive, system tends to reinforce esprit and cohesion rather than undercut it. We are grateful to John C. Campbell for emphasizing these characteristics and consequences of the promotion system for us. For more information on the nature of the advancement system in the Japanese higher civil service, see Muramatsu, , Sengo Nihon no Kanryosei, pp. 69–74.Google Scholar

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13 One part of this application process may be the use of ‘administrative guidance’. This term refers both to formal (issuing of ministerial ordinances with the force of law) and informal (non-binding communications or informal persuasion) means of implementing policy.

14 The most articulate and knowledgeable argument for this point of view is that of Johnson in ‘Japan: Who Governs?’.

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21 See especially, Aberbach, and Rockman, , ‘Overlapping Worlds’Google Scholar; and Mann, Dean E. and Doig, Jameson W., The Assistant Secretaries (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1965).Google Scholar

22 See, for example, Aberbach, Joel D., Derlien, Hans-Ulrich, Mayntz, Renate and Rockman, Bert A., ‘American and West German Federal Executives – Technocratic and Political Attitudes’, International Social Science Journal (02 1990)Google Scholar; Suttmeier, Richard P., ‘The Gikan Question in Japanese Government: Bureaucratic Curiosity or Institutional Failure?’, Asian Survey, 18 (10, 1978), 1046–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Corson, John J. and Paul, R. Shale, Men Near the Top (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1966).Google Scholar

23 The SES is composed of two lists – a career reserve list and a general list. More than half of the SES is on the reserve list. Such positions cannot be given to political appointees. Typically, they are highly specialized and technical positions which are regarded as having minimal policy responsibilities. A large percentage of such positions are in the Defense Department, which is outside our sample. Such positions often have a very high technical component, their occupants frequently being scientists, engineers, accountants, financial managers and such. The general list, while often reflecting specialized and technical responsibilities as well, permits interchangeability between political (non-career) appointees and career officials. It is from the general SES list that the percentages cited above of non-career officials in the SES are applicable.

24 Aberbach, Joel D., Putnam, Robert D. and Rockman, Bert A., Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 92Google Scholar. The major difference then was between bureaucrats and politicians: the latter agreed much less with the notion that technical considerations should be accorded primacy.

25 It is possible here that differences in question wording account for differences in the results. The use of the English word ‘co-ordination’ in the translation is probably misleading here. Co-ordination in the Weberian sense of unity of command is not the Japanese meaning. Rather, co-ordination in the sense of an adjustment of views is the key idea here. Thus, it seems unlikely that question wording is at the heart of these cross-national differences.

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34 It should be noted that officials in the ‘political’ ministries may be thinking also of interference by opposition party politicians. Economic ministries' concern with macro-economics and industrial policy may make them less the target of opposition politicians' interest than are agencies that deal with pork-barrel outputs.

35 On the increasing integration of higher civil servants and the LDP, see Pempel, T. J., ‘The Bureaucratization of Policymaking in Japan’, American Journal of Political Science, 18 (1974), 647–64, especially pp. 652–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On more general trends in the advanced industrial democracies towards ‘hybrid’ administrative and political elites, see Aberbach, , Putnam, and Rockman, , Bureaucrats and Politicians.Google Scholar

36 Center, Keizai Koho, Japan 1989: An International Comparison (Tokyo: Keizai Koho Center, 1988), p. 82.Google Scholar

37 See Aberbach, Joel D. and Rockman, Bert A., ‘Ideological Change in the American Administrative Elite’, paper prepared for the ECPR Workshop on Elite Transformation in Western Democracies, Rimini, 1988.Google Scholar

38 McKean, Margaret A., ‘Equality’Google Scholar, in Ishida, and Krauss, , eds, Democracy in Japan, Table 2 (p. 209) and Table 1 (p. 202).Google Scholar

39 Margaret McKean has discussed the irony of a dominant conservative party producing such egalitarian policies and outcomes in ‘Equality’, pp. 201–3 and passim; also Table 1 (p. 202).Google Scholar

40 Verba, Sidney, Kelman, Steven, Orren, Gary R., Miyake, Ichiro, Watanuki, Joji, Kabashima, Ikuo and Ferree, G. Donald Jr., Elites and the Idea of Equality: A Comparison of Japan, Sweden, and the United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 28.Google Scholar

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43 Elsewhere, Muramatsu and Krauss have discussed the importance of a perennial dominant party and the cleavage among ministries as part of the ‘patterened pluralism’ model of Japanese policy making. See Muramatsu, Michio and Krauss, Ellis S., ‘The Conservative Policy Line and the Development of Patterned Pluralism’, in Yamamura, Kozo and Yasuba, Yasukichi, eds, The Political Economy of Japan, Volume I: The Domestic Transformation (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987), pp. 537–8.Google Scholar

44 For a more complete description of a variety of ways in which administration and politics are linked, see Aberbach, Joel D. and Rockman, Bert A., ‘Comparative Administration: Methods, Muddles, and Models’, Administration and Society, 18 (1987), 473–506, especially pp. 485–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

For general discussions of some of these different games of influence played by civil servants, see Campbell, Colin, SJ, and Peters, B. Guy, ‘The Politics/Administration Dichotomy: Death or Merely Change?’ Governance, 1 (1988), pp. 79–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Aberbach, Joel D. and Rockman, Bert A., The Administrative State in Industrialized Democracies (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1985), especially pp. 16–21.Google Scholar