Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and ideological compromise. Concepts such as kanmin yuchaku, or the
'
, sometimes referred to
by foreigners as Japan Incorporated, describes the collaboration between the
long-term ruling LDP politicians, the bureaucracy and the business world.
The practice of amakudari,or
growing together of the public and the private sectors
'
'
descending from heaven
'
, describes how
former high-ranking bureaucrats glide into pro
table jobs in the private cor-
porate world after their retirement at the age of 55 (now usually at 60),
usually after years of having secured the allocation of public funding for
projects undertaken by the private companies that go on to hire them. Old-
boys
networks undoubtedly have been dominant in Japan (Schaede 1995),
with real power and decision-making often having less to do with parliamen-
tary deliberations than with dealings behind closed doors, largely motivated
by personal interest.
In The Japanese Way of Politics, Curtis (1988) tries to discover who actu-
ally governs Japan, since every important decision made, he argues, occurs
behind the scenes and away from the public eye (cf. Johnson 1995; van Wol-
feren 1989). Terms such as omote (surface, outside, head, face, front) and ura
(reverse, back, behind) have been used to explain how the visible, the explicit,
or the
'
of political activities frequently misrepresent or
hide what goes on at the invisible, the implicit, and the
'
public
'-
the omote
-
'
private
'
level
-
the
ura
of political decision-making. For the most part, it is only the results that
are omote, while the actual bargaining process remains ura (cf. Christensen
2000). Johnson (1995) mentions that the political processes of all societies
involve discrepancies between the formal and the actual, between the ideal
and the normative functioning of their political institutions, but stresses that
Japan
-
is political system is particularly infested with back-room dealings.
In this regard, Johnson
'
flags up a noted characteristic, namely the separa-
tion between authority and power. Authority appears at the omote level
-
that
which enhances political
and power at the ura level, which
determines actual political decisions. The Koizumi administration (2001
legitimacy
-
06)
was perceived to be dynamic not least because it was seen to undermine some
of the power at the ura level due to the former prime minister
-
s wide popular
support that gave him huge political legitimacy, which then increased his real
political power. Stockwin (1999, 2006) argues that the ability of the LDP to
control resources and thereby allocation of funds to local projects has been
one of the primary ways to secure long-term political dominance. The sup-
porters that constitute the LDP
'
s koenkai (political support groups), he found
to have acted less out of wider political concerns than sectarian interest. The
koenkai system behind most LDP candidates has been found to be
'
'
cliente-
list
financial
contributions. Popular sentiments suggest that despite a widespread dislike of
the LDP, they were until recently regarded as the only party that could get
things done (Christensen 2000; cf. Stockwin 1999). Widespread dissatisfaction
with the LDP in 2009, however, undermined this view, as discussed in
'
, with supporters expecting personal returns for electioneering and
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