Japan's Political Leadership Deficit

Analysts have long pondered the question: 'Who rules in Japan?'. Prime Ministers who have exercised strong leadership have been the exception rather than the rule. Despite the widespread acknowledgment that Japan's political leadership deficit undermines the ability of the government to act swiftly in a crisis and to exercise international leadership in trade and foreign policy, a systematic explanation for Japan's weak political executive is yet to be advanced. While historical and cultural factors cannot be ignored, more relevant in a contemporary context are institutional factors that restrict the power of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. A parliamentary Cabinet system is not incompatible with strong leadership but, in Japan's case, the inability of the political executive to exercise indisputable authority, or indeed, merely to exercise the legitimate prerogatives of Prime Ministerial and Cabinet Office, is directly attributable to the constraints imposed by a collection of informal power structures within the ruling conservative party and by an autonomous central bureaucracy, all of which have held power away from the political executive. Various institutional remedies are currently being pursued to enhance the leadership of the executive branch. They are part of a deliberately engineered shift in power from non-elected bureaucrats to elected politicians. The reforms will also help to diminish the influence of ruling party factions over personnel selections to executive office and the ascendancy of internal policy cliques within party policymaking.     

The Australian Senate as a 'House of Review'

The contested term 'house of review', which is commonly applied to the Senate, is discussed in light of evidence from recent political debates. The Senate is seen to review government action in general rather than simply legislation forwarded from the House of Representatives. Review implies scrutiny of a government held responsible for decisions. It is to be distinguished from the process of negotiating over the substance of policy in which responsibility is shared between the government and other parties. If review is associated with holding responsible governments accountable, it is not an intrinsically upper house function but a parliamentary function which a Senate with an anti-government majority is better fitted to perform. Strong bicameralism is not inherently incompatible with responsible government.     

Recent writing on New Zealand politics

Geoffrey Palmer, Unbridled Power, second edition, Auckland, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp.322. NZ$29.95 (paper)

John Roberts, Politicians, Public Servants and Public Enterprise, Wellington, Victoria University Press for the Institute of Policy Studies, 1987, pp. 179. NZ$22.95 (paper)

Keith Jackson, The Dilemma of Parliament, Wellington, Allen and Unwin Port Nicholson Press, 1987, pp.204. NZ$29.95 (paper) Stephen Levine and Raj Vasil, Maori Political Perspectives, Auckland, Hutchinson, 1985, pp.206. NZ$15.95 (paper)

Hyam Gold (ed.), New Zealand Politics in Perspective, Auckland, Longman Paul, 1985, pp.357. NZ$29.95 (paper)

Jonathan Boston and Martin Holland (eds), The Fourth Labour Government, Auckland, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp.273. NZ$21.95 (paper)     

Japan's FTA politics and the problem of agricultural trade liberalisation

Japan's willingness to negotiate Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) is not matched by a readiness to liberalise agricultural trade. Japan has used a variety of mechanisms to limit the extent of agricultural concessions in FTAs. Public choice theory predicts that FTAs are a more effective instrument for opening Japan's agricultural market than the WTO because they reshape the domestic politics of Japanese trade in ways that are conducive to further market opening. FTAs do this by altering the domestic politics of trade policymaking on the demand side as well as some aspects of the supply side. On the demand side, business groups mobilise even more strongly to demand an end to agricultural protection, whilst on the supply side, the value of FTAs for broader state interests are recognised by politician-leaders. Various structural obstacles in the policymaking process, however, prevent the altered demand and supply-side dynamics from necessarily delivering free trade outcomes.