Join this three-part event with the participation of Yukiko Fujita and Yu Uchiyama
On the basis of a wide range of primary sources, including extensive field interviews in both the UK and Japan, this talk by two leading Japanese political scientists will show how and why political leadership and civil services in Japan and the UK have been changed, focusing on the policy-making patterns and the civil service systems. It will comprise three parts.
In the first part, the speakers will compare the policy-making patterns in post-war Japan and the UK. While prime ministerial leadership in post-war Japan was weak and policy-making was almost dominated by the civil servants and specialised politicians from within the ruling party (zoku), the UK has been characterised by strong prime ministers’ leadership and top-down policy-making. The reason for the difference will be explained with a focus on organisations of governing parties and governments.
The second part will show that Japanese prime ministerial leadership has been greatly strengthened by several institutional reforms during the past twenty years, with particular reference to the Koizumi and Abe governments. Meanwhile, UK prime ministerial leadership has been in a sort of mess since Brexit, so much so that prime ministers have been replaced rapidly. Now it is clear that Japan has caught up with the UK’s politicians-led leadership, to the point that Japan might have overtaken the UK in terms of the centralisation of power by the prime minister.
The third part will deal with the civil service reforms in Japan and the UK. In Japan, through institutional reforms such as the creation of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs under the 2nd Abe government, the relationships between politicians and civil servants have been much changed in favour of the former. Meanwhile, in the UK, the relationships between the two have been rather affected by the interpersonal behaviours of ministers and special advisers than institutional reforms. The deteriorated relationships sometimes undermine the effects of reforms.