successors, who still enjoy it informally more than thirty years later because of the persistence of tradition and bureaucratic dominance in postwar Japan.
The Meiji leaders did not plan to perpetuate samurai government under a new guise, nor for that matter were they much interested in creating a modern state officialdom. Their reasons for creating a "nonpolitical" civil bureaucracy were, in fact, highly political. They were trying to respond to strident public criticism of the monopoly of power by the two feudal domains (Satsuma and Choshu*) that had led the successful movement against the Tokugawa shogunate, and the corruption that this domination was generating. They also hoped to demonstrate their "modernity" to the West in order to hasten revision of the unequal treaties that had been forced on Japan. And, most important, they wanted to retain authoritarian control after 1890, when the new parliament (National Diet) opened and political parties began public campaigning for a share of power.
10
The state bureaucracy and the cabinet both preceded the Meiji Constitution, the Diet, and the formation of political parties in Japan by some five to twenty years. The results were predictable. In seeking to forestall competitive claims to their own power by the leaders of the political parties, the Meiji oligarchs created a weak parliament and also sought to counterbalance it with a bureaucracy they believed they could staff with their own supporters, or at least keep under their personal control. But over time, with the bureaucracy installed at the center of government and with the passing of the oligarchs, it was the bureaucratsboth military and civilianwho arrogated more and more power to themselves.
11
The bureaucrats of prewar Japan were not liked, but they were respected. Many Japanese had resented the persistence of Satsuma and Choshu privilege after Japan became a unified nation, and the new bureaucracy, expertly trained and open to all men who had demon-
Page 38
strated their talent in impartial examinations, was clearly an improvement over Satsuma and Choshu * dominance. The political parties were an alternative to state officialdom, but they always suffered from the weakness of having arrived second on the political scene. The bureaucracy claimed to speak for the national interest and characterized the parties as speaking only for local or particular interests. As Japan industrialized, the parties slowly gained clout as representatives of zaibatsu and other propertied interests, but they never developed a mass base. One reason was the careful control exercised over the enlargement of the franchise (see Table 2). Another reason was that one house of the Diet, the House of Peers, was dominated by the bureaucracy, which arranged for the direct Imperial appointment of its senior retired members to the Peers, where they easily outclassed the titled members in political skill.
12
In short, whether the military and civilian bureaucrats of the post-Meiji era were really the most capable leaders of the nation became a moot question: they had effectively preempted most of the centers of power from which they might be challenged. There were many fights, and the final outcome was not a foregone conclusion, but ultimately a bureaucratic career became the most important route to political power. For example, not a single minister of the Tojo* cabinet, installed in October 1941, had served in the Diet as an elected member.
Prewar bureaucrats were not "civil servants" but rather "officials of the Emperor" (
tenno
*
no kanri
) appointed by him and answerable only to him. Imperial appointment bestowed on them the status of
kan
, the primitive meaning of which in its Chinese original is the residence of a mandarin who presides over a city, and which still retains some of this early meaning in its contemporary usage to refer to judges (according to one legal authority, kan connotes officials with power who are not highly constrained by law).
13
This high social status linked them back in time to the samurai and forward to the postwar bureaucrats in their possession of intrinsic authority rather than extrinsic, or legal-rational, office. It meant that they were largely free of external constraints. "The present-day bureaucrat," writes Henderson, "is not, of course, identical with the warrior bureaucrat of the Tokugawa regime or even the new university-trained Imperial bureaucrat of prewar Japan. But they have all, until recently, been largely above the law in the sense of independent judicial review." Rather than a rule of law, Henderson finds that "a rule of bureaucrats prevails.''
14
Isomura and Kuronuma concur. Even in the postwar world, they argue, Japan has had an administration "for the sake of the citizenry" and not an administration carried out with the "participation of the citizenry." In
Page 39
TABLE
2
Changes in the Size of the Japanese Electorate, 18901969
Election
Date
Qualified voters (millions)
Population (millions)
Percent
Voting requirements
1
July 1, 1890
.45
39.9
1.3%
Males, over 25, who pay more than ¥15 in direct, national taxes
a
7
August 10, 1902
.98
45.0
2.18
Same, except ¥10 in direct taxes
14
May 10, 1920
3.1
55.5
5.50
Same, except ¥3 in direct taxes
16
February 20, 1928
12.4
62.1
19.98
Same, except tax requirement abolished
22
April 10, 1946
36.9
75.8
48.65
All men and women
20 years and
above
25
October 1, 1952
46.8
85.9
54.45
Same
29
November 20, 1960
54.3
93.2
58.30
Same
30
November 21, 1963
58.3
95.8
60.82
Same
31
January 29, 1967
63.0
99.8
63.11
Same
32
December 27, 1969
69.3
102.7
67.47
Same
SOURCE
: Isomura Eiichi, ed.,
Gyosei
*
saishin mondai jiten
(Dictionary of current administrative problems), Tokyo, 1972, p. 705.
a
¥15 was the equivalent of about U.S. $12.30 in 1890. Since it was paid as a direct tax it meant, in essence, that only property owners or the wealthy could vote.
their view, this constitutes "administration through law," which is different from the "rule of law."
15
In addition to their status, the bureaucrats of modern Japan also inherited from the samurai something comparable to their code of ethics and their elite consciousness. Kanayama Bunji draws attention to the frank elitism and sense of meritocracy associated in contemporary Japan with young men (and a few women) who pass the incredibly competitive Higher-level Public Officials Examination and then enter a ministry. He cites the long hours of work they are expected to perform without complaint, their being sent abroad for postgraduate education in elite universities, the theme of "sacrifice for the public good" that runs through most ministries, and the lectures to new recruits during their early years in a ministry by their "seniors," including those who have retired from public service and have moved to powerful positions in industry or politics. He believes that these customs add up to a "way of the bureaucrat" (