Abstract
This book reveals how the Japanese ministries can exploit special corporations in order to intensify their administrative power over industries and local governments, and to perpetuate the interests of elite civil servants by facilitating the migration to post-retirement positions in the private sector. The book explains why the existence of these organizations frustrates Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s efforts to initiate structural reforms.
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Notes
In 1989, Karel van Wolferen wrote The Enigma of Power (Vintage Books, 1990) in which he expressed his concern about Japan’s inability to redirect its export-driven economy towards an economy that welcomed direct investment and more imports, thus alleviating friction with trading partners. ‘The phoenix has soared majestically for the entire world to see, and has drawn deserved applause and expressions of awe. But it is burdened with an inherent defect that disorientates it. The defect, of course, is its steering mechanism: in its inability to adapt alternative methods and aims because of the absence of an individual or unified group with the power to make political decisions to shift goals’ (p. 407).
C. Johnson, JAPAN Who Governs? (W. W. Norton, 1995), p. 134.
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© 2003 Susan Carpenter
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Carpenter, S. (2003). Introduction. In: Special Corporations and the Bureaucracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508781_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508781_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-51286-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-50878-1
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