Abstract
Gregory W. Noble outlines the debates about political power in postwar Japan, pointing out that they have typically focused on the chain of delegation from voters to politicians to the elite bureaucracy: do elections give voters leverage to shape public policy to reflect their values and interests? During the rapid growth of the 1950s and 1960s, critics charged that a small power elite dominated Japan. By the 1980s, scholars came to affirm the Japanese policymaking system as increasingly democratic, pluralistic, and responsive to the concerns of voters. After the bursting of the economic bubble, however, criticism re-emerged, this time as much from the right as the left, charging that despite structural reforms an excessive number of veto players frustrated political leadership and rendered policymaking resistant to coordination or renovation.
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Noble, G.W. (2016). Who—If Anyone—Is in Charge? Evolving Discourses of Political Power and Bureaucratic Delegation in Postwar Japanese Policymaking. In: Steel, G. (eds) Power in Contemporary Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59193-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59193-7_11
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