The Core of Japanese Democracy : Latent Interparty Politics

I delivered a paper on IPRC co-authored with Yoshie Kobayashi on IPRC politics in 1997 at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (Kuroda and Kobayashi 1997). On the subject of Japanese communitarian democracy, I delivered another paper the following year at the APSA meeting co-authored with Kate Zhou and Naoto Yoshikawa (Kuroda et al. 1998). I incorporated parts of these two papers into this book. Now, I finally have this book completed thanks to so many people who so kindly shared their precious moments with me on the subject. Some such as the late former prime minister Takeshita, the late former MITI minister Keijirh Murata, the late Dr. Chikio Hayashi or the late professor Isao Kitaoka from whom I learned so much are no longer with us. In the process of organizing international conferences that led me to start the current project and to gather data for the IPRC project, I came to be indebted to

The core of Japanese democracy, in the estimation of Kuroda (emeritus, U. of Hawaii), lies in the little recognized closed-door politics he terms Interparty Relations Committee politics and the Japanese call kokutai, in which the legislative process at the highest level of policy making is developed by each party for the enhancement of its legislative objectives through informal negotiation with other parties and government agencies outside the formal legislative body of the Diet. He proposes a bilayer theory for explaining the comparative differences between the legislative process in Japan and in Western democracies in which language is seen as the most salient dimension of culture for understanding the implicit design of politics, suggesting that in the case of Japan it explains how Diet member engage in activities in accordance with Western standards in their externally created institutions, while simultaneously relying on an informal process of consensus at all levels of the legislative process. The theory is used to explain a number of facets of Japanese politics over the past decades, including the ability of archrival members of the Japanese Socialist and Liberal Democratic Parties were able to form a coalition government in 1994. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Figures......Page 9 List of Tables......Page 10 Preface......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 13 1 Introduction: Dissimulation, Enigma, Formalist, Prismatic Society to Bilayer Theory......Page 16 2 The Bilayer Theory......Page 42 3 Japanese Politics in Bilayer Perspective......Page 72 4 The History of IPRC Politics: 1890–1993......Page 106 5 The Origin and Nature of the Bilayer Structure......Page 150 6 The Core of Japanese Democracy......Page 158 7 Conclusion: Summary and Implications......Page 200 Appendix......Page 224 H......Page 226 S......Page 227 Y......Page 228 Notes......Page 230 References......Page 252 C......Page 260 D......Page 261 H......Page 262 I......Page 263 K......Page 264 M......Page 265 O......Page 266 S......Page 267 T......Page 268 Z......Page 269 The book uses an original language-based bilayer theory to throw light on the secretive structure of power in the Japanese Diet, its national parliament, and relates its findings to Japanese parliamentary democracy in historical perspective. In so doing, the book answers questions about the latent policymaking process of Japanese politics that resulted in a reduction of social alienation and disorganization while Japan industrialized. Industrialization significantly reduced poverty and increased the size of the middle class, enabling the nation to move towards democracy. The reader will see why socialists were so quixotically dogmatic toward conservatives to the point of absurdity during the Cold War period. Yet, they were able to form a coalition government following the end of Cold War era. This book uses an original language-based bilayer theory to throw light on the secretive structure of power in the Japanese Diet, its national parliament, and relates its findings to Japanese parliamentary democracy in historical perspective. In so doing, Kuroda answers questions about the latent policymaking process of Japanese politics that resulted in a reduction of social alienation and disorganization while Japan industrialized. Industrialization significantly reduced poverty and increased the size of the middle class, enabling the nation to move towards democracy. The reader will see why socialists were so quixotically dogmatic toward conservatives to the point of absurdity during the Cold War period. Yet, they were able to form a coalition government following the end of Cold War era. This book seeks to explain how politics actually operates in the Japanese Diet using the author's bilayer theory or dual power structure theory. It is about how politics in Japan operates behind closed doors and how laws are actually made in the Diet. While some parts of the process remain hidden-subterfuge is inherently part of politics-the author uses interviews with party officials, current and former kokkai taisaku-inkai committee members of all parties in the Diet to elucidate the process as much as possible.