33
This state of affairs ended in January 1949 with the establishment of the third Yoshida government. Yoshida Shigeru (18781967) was himself a former high-ranking bureaucrat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and he established the "bureaucratic leadership structure" (
kanryo
*
shudo
*
taisei
) that has formed the mainstream of Japanese politics to the present day.
The twenty-fourth general election of January 1949 brought into the Diet 42 new members who were former bureaucrats; in most cases they were also protégés and allies of Yoshida, who had encouraged them to run. Among this new class of politicians were Ikeda Hayato (18991965), recently retired as vice-minister of finance, who became Yoshida's new finance minister, and Sato* Eisaku (19011975), recently retired as vice-minister of transportation and soon to become chief secretary of Yoshida's Liberal Party. Shortly before the election, on December 24, 1948, Kishi Nobusuke (b. 1896) was released from Sugamo Prison as an unindicted class A war criminal. He had served as vice-minister of commerce and industry under the Abe, Yonai, and Konoe cabinets and as minister of commerce and industry and viceminister of munitions in the Tojo* cabinet. On April 29, 1952, he was depurged, and a year later he was also elected to the Diet. These three
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former bureaucrats, each of whom had had a full and very successful career in his respective ministry, dominated Japanese politics from 1957 to 1972: Kishi was prime minister from February 1957 to July 1960, Ikeda from July 1960 to November 1964, and Sato * from November 1964 to July 1972. Yoshida himself, a former vice-minister of foreign affairs and ambassador to Great Britain, served as prime minister from May 1946 to May 1947 and from October 1948 to December 1954.
In addition to these leaders, many middle-ranking Diet members were also drawn from the ranks of state officialdom. In 1946 Liberal Party (conservative) ex-bureaucrat Diet members accounted for only 2.7 percent of the total. Yoshida raised the number to 18.2 percent in 1949, and this proportion has held firm ever since. As of 1970, 69 members of the House of Representatives (23 percent) and 50 members of the House of Councillors (37 percent) were ex-bureaucrats belonging to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In 1977 the respective figures were 27 percent and 35 percent.
34
Party politicians holding a safe electoral base (
jiban
) in one of the prefectural constituencies did not take this intrusion of bureaucrats with equanimity. Many of them believed, and still believe today, that bureaucrats were not so much becoming politicians as they were displacing politicians and contributing to a dangerous blurring of functions between the executive and legislative branches. In the election of October 1952 approximately 40 percent of some 329 prewar and wartime politicians recently released from the ban against their holding public office were reelected to the Diet. They held about 30 percent of the seats. From that point on, the main configuration of postwar Diet politics was established: the so-called mainstream of the conservative forces was occupied by retired bureaucrats, and the antimainstream by old (later called "pure") politicians who did not come from a background in the state apparatus. In 1955 the two main conservative parties, successors to the Seiyukai* and Minseito* of the prewar era, united in order to confront the growing strength of the opposition socialists. They created the huge coalition Liberal Democratic Party that has controlled the Diet without interruption ever since.
Within the LDP the bureaucratic mainstream and the party politicians' (
tojinha
*) antimainstream factions compete with each other, with the bureaucrats usually dominant; but for the sake of party unity neither group is ever totally excluded. The second Kishi cabinet of 1958 established bureaucratic supremacy when eight of the twelve ministries were headed by ex-bureaucrats. Former bureaucrats also held many influential positions in the party's Policy Affairs Research Council and on the key standing committees of the Diet, where the plans
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and budgets of the ministries are ratified. Given their skills and background in government, former bureaucrats also advanced more rapidly to the cabinet level of power within the LDP: according to one calculation, a former bureaucrat turned politician must be elected an average of seven times to reach this level, whereas an ex-journalist or a representative of an economic interest group will require nine successful elections, and a local politician ten.
35
Not surprisingly, the influence of former bureaucrats within the Diet has tended to perpetuate and actually strengthen the prewar pattern of bureaucratic dominance. Spaulding notes that 91 percent of all laws enacted by the Diet under the Meiji Constitution (18901947) originated in the executive branch and not in the Diet.
36
The pattern is similar in the postwar Diets. For example, in the first Diet under the new constitution, May 20 to December 9, 1947, the cabinet, which acts on behalf of the bureaucracy, introduced 161 bills and saw 150 enacted, while members of the House of Representatives introduced 20 bills and saw 8 enacted. In the 28th Diet, December 20, 1957, to April 25, 1958, the cabinet introduced 175 bills and saw 145 enacted, while members of the House of Representatives introduced 68 bills and saw 15 enacted.
37
This pattern more and more has become unfavorable to private members' bills. Cabinet bills originate and are drafted exclusively within the ministries. They are then passed to the LDP for its approval and introduction in the Diet. As a matter of routine, ministerial officials are also present in the Diet to explain their legislation and answer questions.
Genuine deliberation on laws takes place within and among the ministries before they are sent to the cabinet, and civilians do play some role. A kind of ministry-dominated quasi deliberation occurs in the 246 (as of 1975) "deliberation councils" (
shingikai, shinsakai
,
kyogikai
*,
chosakai
*, and
iinkai
, known collectively as shingikai) that are attached to the ministries. These are official standing organs created by a minister and composed of civilian experts selected by him to inquire into and discuss policies and proposed legislation of his ministry. In 1975 the largest number of deliberation councils (51) was attached to the Prime Minister's Office, but MITI operated the next largest number (36).
To the extent that laws are scrutinized and discussed at all in Japan by persons outside the bureaucracy, it is done in the councils. Even such critical matters for a parliament as tax and tariff laws are merely rubber-stamped by the Diet after having been considered by the deliberation councils. For example, the Tax System Deliberation Council (Zeisei Chosa* Kai) annually recommends revisions of the tax laws and
Page 48
tax rates with no input from the Diet, and usually no Diet changes in its recommendations. Similarly, the Customs Duties Deliberation Council (Kanzeiritsu Shingikai) sets tariff rates and procedures, and the Diet then approves them without change.