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Japan BUREAUCRATS AND THE POLICY-MAKING PROCESS
The Japanese had been exposed to bureaucratic
institutions at
least by the early seventh century A.D., when the imperial
court
adopted the laws and government structure of Tang China
(see Nara and Heian Periods, A.D. 710-1185
, ch. 1). However, the
distinctive
Chinese institution of civil service examinations never
took root,
and the imported system was never successfully imposed on
the
country at large. But by the middle of the Tokugawa period
(1600-
1867), the samurai class functions had evolved from
warrior to
clerical and administrative functions. Following the Meiji
Restoration (1868), the new elite, which came from the
lower ranks
of the samurai, established a Western-style civil service
(see The Emergence of Modern Japan, 1868-1919
, ch. 1).
Although the United States occupation dismantled both
the
military and
zaibatsu (see Glossary)
establishments, it did
little, outside of abolishing the prewar Home Ministry, to
challenge the power of the bureaucracy. There was
considerable
continuity--in institutions, operating style, and
personnel--
between the civil service before and after the occupation,
partly
because MacArthur's staff ruled indirectly and depended
largely on
the cooperation of civil servants. A process of mutual
co-optation
occurred. Also, United States policy planners never
regarded the
civil service with the same opprobrium as the military or
economic
elites. The civil service's role in Japan's militarism was
generally downplayed. Many of the occupation figures
themselves
were products of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New
Deal and had
strong faith in the merits of civil service
professionalism.
Finally, the perceived threat of the Soviet Union in the
late 1940s
created a community of interests for the occupiers and for
conservative, social order-conscious administrators.
Data as of January 1994
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