Global Courant 2023-04-11 07:46:28
The late Shinzo Abe left an important mark on Japanese political history. As prime minister he practiced strong leadership about traditionally independent-thinking bureaucrats, although the results of his top-down policy innovations varied. How does Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s leadership compare?
Kishida’s leadership is a return to the traditional patterns of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) prime ministers respecting cooperation with the bureaucracy, making his policymaking incremental and colorless.
Those who admire Abe’s forceful style will find Kishida’s consensus orientation unsatisfactory. Kishida’s inability to observe a quietly advancing breakdown of bureaucracy is detrimental to Japanese politics.
The negative aspects of Abe’s aggressive approach to bureaucracy became apparent towards the end of his term, leading voters to worry about the integrity of bureaucratic behavior.
The revelation that elite bureaucrats at the powerful Treasury Department illegally involved in tampering with documents to defend Abe’s position in parliamentary questioning warned of the excess of political scrutiny.
Disruption of appointments at the Prosecutionwhich traditionally plays the main role in investigating scandals among politicians, aroused suspicions of political corruption.
Within the LDP, Kishida leads the Kochikai faction. This faction was founded by bureaucrats-turned-parliamentarians whom post-war Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida recruited during the American occupation. It maintains the tradition of working closely with the bureaucracy.
In the last two decades, the factional politics of the LDP has changed a lot. While the faction bosses have lost their material control tools such as political funds and party endorsement, the identity of their factions has proven to be more important in maintaining unity among the followers.
Unlike Abe, who graduated from a private university that lacks national recognition, Kishida spent his formative years as a high performer in “exam hell.” This tends him to sympathize with bureaucrats and respect their ability.
That’s second baseman Fumio Kishida front and center in this close-up shot of his high school team. If he looks like he’s not having much fun, it’s because high school baseball is a very serious business, as serious as “exam hell.” Photo: Government of Japan
Kishida graduated Kaisei Academya prestigious high school that sends many alumni to the University of Tokyo, where he failed his matriculation exam three times before eventually enrolling at Waseda University, a premier private university.
Kishida’s orientation towards consensus results in the uninspiring policy-making of his cabinet. His policy programs usually extrapolate from existing programmes. His signature policy vision, a “New form of capitalism”, has little substance.
In step with big business and the economic bureaucracy, Kishida is eager reopen nuclear power plants, but not enthusiastic about renewable energy and carbon prices. Put off by the conservative segment of his party, its LGBT policy is less progressive than many voters would like to see.
In foreign policy, Kishida is brutal increase the defense budget and his passive China policies appear to deviate from Kochikai’s patterns, but are based on broad agreement within the LDP and bureaucracy and supported by public opinion. Kishida is not interested in following in Abe’s footsteps to make Japan a country active player in the strategic power relations of the Indo-Pacific. But he fails to take specific steps for nuclear disarmament despite its strong support for it.
From a broader perspective, Kishida’s failure to respond to an institutional crisis quietly beating Japanese politics is more damaging than his incrementalist programs. The proudest achievement of Japan’s modern politics – the bureaucracy – now faces an existential threat. Abe’s attacks have significantly damaged bureaucrats’ morale and confidence. But another disease is now infiltrating the bureaucracy.
Japanese ministries are no longer able to regenerate themselves due to a shortage of skilled personnel that causes their poor working environment. A combination of 24-hour working, inflexible staff, delayed digitization and conventional bottom-up decision-making is forcing Japanese executives to working abnormally long hours.
Tighter rules after retirement reduce the financial rewards bureaucrats can expect. There is a large exodus of officials those in their twenties and thirties, who feel most stifled by promotion based on seniority.
New graduates from top universities now favor foreign financial institutions and consultancies over the civil service. Becoming an elite administrator is no longer a dream job for Japanese youth.
Japan is abolishing the official ‘hanko’ personal stamps, but that is just the beginning of the reform of the national bureaucracy. Image: AFP
At the same time, Japan faces an endless list of difficult policy issuesthe key institutional infrastructure intended to aid in political planning and decision-making is falling apart due to failed recruitment and retention.
The problem is not Kishida’s personal creation. Like many other structural problems in Japanese society, it arose because of the collective inability of Japanese leaders – who are uniformly older men – to prioritize the needs of younger generations due to their nostalgia and complacency.
Now that the issue can no longer be postponed, Kishida’s inaction is likely to be viewed as a fatal flaw in the future assessment of his premiership.
Ko Mishima is a professor of political science at East Stroudsburg University, Pennsylvania.
This article was original published by East Asia Forum and is republished by Global Courant under a Creative Commons license.
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