Preferred Citation: Koh, B. C. Japan's Administrative Elite. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1989 1989. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft7t1nb5d6/

Japan's Administrative Elite B C Koh UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley · Los Angeles · Oxford © 1991 The Regents of the University of California

Preferred Citation: Koh, B. C. Japan's Administrative Elite. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  c1989 1989. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft7t1nb5d6/

For Eui Soon and Bong Jin Lee

Preface

The recent surge of interest in Japan on the part of scholars and the general public alike is due to its phenomenal track record in economic development. In the space of a few decades, Japan transformed itself from a defeated nation ravaged by war and occupied by its erstwhile enemy into an industrial giant whose gross national product was surpassed only by those of the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. In the past decade or so Japan has become the world's premier trading nation, flooding the world market with high-quality but competitively priced products ranging from automobiles to wrist-watches. In the process it has accumulated huge trade surpluses with virtually every trading partner.

Just how Japan, a resource-poor and overcrowded country, has managed to perform such a feat is a complex story about which volumes have already been written and will no doubt continue to be written in the years ahead. One thing that seems quite plain is that the government has played a part in Japan's success story. The expansion of the Japanese economy has occurred not in a climate of laissez-faire but in a controlled environment—one in which carefully formulated and skillfully executed government policies have helped to minimize fallouts from adverse currents abroad while maximizing conditions for growth in strategic industries at home.

In other words, Japan's civil servants cannot be divorced from their country's accomplishments in the economic field as well as in other public-policy areas, such as crime control, environmental protection,

and social welfare. A study of how the elite among the Japanese civil servants are recruited, trained, promoted, and rewarded; how they interact among themselves and with other individuals; and how the structure and functioning of Japanese-government bureaucracy as a whole have changed over the years will, then, go a long way toward elucidating that extraordinary phenomenon that is Japan.

Another function that a study of Japan's administrative elite may perform is to help the reader assess the strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese model of management. Although much attention has been paid to the Japanese model in the private Sector by those who aspire to decipher Japan's secret of success, analysis of the Japanese model as it operates in the governmental domain has barely begun. We need to build a reliable data base before we can make appreciable headway. This study may help us move in that direction.

If there is a conceptual framework that has informed this study, it may be called the life cycle of the adminstrative elite. The stages through which elite administrators progress in their career, from induction to retirement, are its principal components. The precise order in which the key stages are examined in this book, however, is not necessarily chronological. For example, although the most significant part of the elite administrator's socialization occurs both before and immediately after induction, it is discussed after the promotion process has been analyzed. For a scrutiny of the latter allows us to identify the principal subset of the administrative elite whose preentry socialization experience merits special attention.

The genesis of this study may be traced to my first trip to Japan in the spring of 1972, when I explored the possibility of conducting research on the social background of Japanese higher civil servants. Since then, I have made eight more trips, each lasting from several days to a few weeks, during which I tried to collect material on the Japanese civil service from all accessible sources—public libraries (notably, the National Diet Library and the Tokyo Metropolitan Library), bookstores, scholars, and civil servants. The short duration of my visits, however, dictated by my failure to obtain any research grants from funding agencies, has necessarily prolonged the gestation period of this study, which has lasted an incredible fifteen years.

I hasten to add that I did receive two small grants during that period—a thousand-dollar grant from the Campus Research Board of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) that enabled me to hire two Japanese students to code biographical data in 1976, and a research

travel grant from the Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) of the Association for Asian Studies that allowed me to spend two weeks at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in 1983. Three journal articles have resulted from these endeavors. I am grateful to the UIC and the NEAC for their timely assistance in preventing my research project from withering away.

A number of institutions have contributed to this project indirectly. All those institutions that have invited me to scholarly conferences in South Korea during the past fifteen years have unwittingly subsidized this project in some small way, for I have made a point of stopping over in Tokyo on my way to or from Seoul. I am therefore deeply indebted to Drs. Chungwon Choue, Chairman of the Committee for International Exchanges, Kyung Hee University; Sung-joo Han, former Director of the Asiatic Research Center, Korea University; Robert J. Myers, President of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, New York; Jae Kyu Park, President of Kyungnam University; and Robert A. Scalapino, Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

That this project has been sustained for so long and finally brought to a successful completion, however, is due to the unstinting support of my sister, Eui-Soon, and my brother-in-law, Dr. Bong Jin Lee, who is currently employed as senior development engineer and general manager of the Production Technology Laboratory of Fanuc Ltd. in Yamanashi prefecture, Japan. They have been a constant and reliable source of all manner of help—procuring books and magazines, clipping newspaper articles, coming to the rescue when my funds were depleted—during the past fifteen years.

Many other persons have also assisted me in collecting material for this study. Mr. Tsutsui Tetsuro, a former classmate of my brother-in-law at the University of Tokyo and an engineer with Ohkawara Kakohki Co., has sent me magazine articles and newly published books on Japanese bureaucracy for more than a decade without even being asked. Mrs. Tokudome Kinue, a former student of mine, has not only shared her copy of the Japanese daily Asahi shinbun with me for the past three years but also helped me learn the correct pronunciation of Japanese names and words on numerous occasions. Her editing of my letters to Japanese government officials has been particularly helpful.

For their generous assistance and warm hospitality during my visits to Japan, I am deeply indebted to Professors Hanai Hitoshi of Tsukuba University, Ichikawa Masaaki of Aomori University, and Nagano

Nobutoshi of Tokai University; Dr. Ch'oe Suh Myun, Director of the Tokyo Institute for Korean Studies; Dr. Kim Sam-Kyu, Director of the Institute for National Problems, Tokyo, and his assistant, Ms. Choy Il-Hae; Mr. Hirota Takao of the Japan Foundation; and Mr. Asakawa Koki of Izumi Junior College. Professor Hanai has been singularly generous, inviting me to stay in his apartment, giving me access to his personal library, and introducing me to other scholars.

For opening their doors to a stranger without proper introductions, giving generously of their time, and supplying me data, including unpublished documents, I am most grateful to officials of the National Personnel Authority, especially Mr. Ono Seinosuke, former secretary general, and Ms. Nakajima Sachiko, currently chief of the Legal Affairs Section of the Bureau of Administrative Services.

I have also incurred a lasting debt to Mr. Thaddeus Y. Ohta of the Japanese Section, Asian Division, the Library of Congress, for giving me free access to the stacks, helping me find obscure material, and sharing his considerable knowledge of Japanese affairs with me during my two-week visit to the library in the summer of 1983. My bosom friend, Yong Keun Cha, a senior civil servant in his own right, has cheerfully served as my unpaid research assistant, copying vast amounts of material at the Library of Congress and sending it to me at his own expense. Dr. Sung Yoon Cho, assistant chief of the Far Eastern Law Division, the Library of Congress, has also assisted me in locating and duplicating back issues of Kanpo (Official Gazette).

Professor Yung H. Park of California State University at Humboldt has kindly provided me copies of his articles on Japanese policy making. Mr. and Mrs. Oishi Koichiro and Mr. Lee Kyung Won have performed the tedious chore of coding biographical data with remarkable efficiency. Mr. Lee has also handled the data entry and analysis of the 1986 sample.

At various times, four colleagues have helped me to obtain lodging at the International House of Japan in Roppongi: Professors Soon Sung Cho of the University of Missouri at Columbia; Hong Nack Kim of West Virginia University; Chae-Jin Lee, dean of the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, California State University at Long Beach; and Jung Suk Youn, director of the Institute of Area Studies, Chung-Ang University, Seoul. Professor Youn, a Japan specialist himself, has kindly given me access to his personal library, thus saving me many hours of work in public libraries.

In the earlier stage of this project I had the good fortune of working with Jae-On Kim, professor of sociology at the University of Iowa. His sharp mind and incomparable methodological skills made our collaboration a most rewarding learning experience for me.

The helpful comments of those who have evaluated my manuscript for the University of California Press have saved me from many errors and improved both the substance and style of this book. I express my profound appreciation to Professor Robert M. Spaulding of Oklahoma State University and the two anonymous readers. Because their recommendations have not been fully implemented, however, either because of the lack of data or because of my disagreement with them, I am solely responsible for any errors of fact and judgment that may still remain.

Last but not least, my wife, Hae Chung, and my two children, Michelle Suhae and Christopher Seung-bom, have sustained me all these years with their love, support, and understanding. Although this book cannot even begin to compensate for the neglect and inconvenience they have endured as a result of my preoccupation with this and other research projects, I hope it will at least show that my time away from them has had its own rewards and that perseverence does pay.

Finally, a few words on romanization and translation are in order. The romanization of Japanese words and names in this book is based on Kenkyusha's New Japanese-English Dictionary , 4th edition (Tokyo, 1974). As for translation of terms, notably kacho, bucho , and kyokucho , I have decided not to follow Organization of the Government of Japan (Tokyo: Institute of Administrative Management, 1986), as one of the anonymous readers has recommended, but to use translations that seem prevalent in the literature in the field. Hence kacho is rendered as "section chief," bucho as "division chief," and kyokucho as "bureau chief." In view of the fact that translations in Organization of the Government of Japan have not remained consistent over the years, I feel that maintaining consistency with the major works in the field should take precedence over all other considerations.

BYUNG CHUL KOH
JANUARY 1988
GLENCOE, ILLINOIS

Chapter One
Administrative Elite in a Developmental State

A universally shared attribute of contemporary polities is the prepotent role of the government bureaucracy. No matter what the configuration of a polity may be, the formal state bureaucracy invariably occupies a strategic position in it. On the other hand, the bureaucracy's relative importance varies depending on such factors as historical legacy, the prestige and power of competing political structures, the caliber of its personnel, and the nature of nexus between state and economy.

Of particular relevance is the last-mentioned factor. As Chalmers Johnson points out, "all states intervene in their economies for various reasons," hence what matters most are the purpose and mode of state intervention. On the basis of these, Johnson differentiates between a "developmental state" and a "regulatory state." In the former, of which Japan is a prime example, the state has a predominantly "developmental orientation," taking an active part in setting "such substantive social and economic goals" as "what industries ought to exist and what industries are no longer needed." By contrast, the latter, exemplified by the United States, eschews explicitly developmental goals, concerning itself instead with the "forms and procedures . . . of economic competition." A developmental state, in Johnson's words, is "plan rational," whereas a regulatory state is "market rational."^[1]

[1] Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982), pp. 18-19.

Unlike the situation in a Soviet-type command economy, which according to Johnson is "plan ideological," the plan-rational, developmental state employs "market-conforming methods of state intervention in the economy." Nonetheless, the degree of state intervention is necessarily greater in a developmental state than it is in a regulatory state. And the greater the degree of state intervention in the economy, the more salient is the government bureaucracy, a quintessential embodiment of state power. A "natural corollary of plan rationality," in Johnson's words, is the "existence of a powerful, talented, and prestige-laden economic bureaucracy."^[2] We should add that it is not just economic bureaucracy but the entire state bureaucracy whose role is magnified in a developmental state.

Inasmuch as power tends to be concentrated at the upper rungs of bureaucratic organizations, we may be justified in focusing our attention on members of the "administrative elite"—those who occupy relatively high positions in the government bureaucracy. Operationally, however, "administrative elite" can be defined in a dual sense: in a narrow sense, it refers to those bureaucrats who actually occupy designated positions, say section chiefs (kacho ) and above in the national government; in a broad sense, the concept encompasses not only current incumbents of such designated positions but also candidates for promotion to such positions.

If Japan's administrative elite, broadly defined, merits scrutiny, what is the general state of the literature on the subject? Looking at the English-language literature first, we find that the subject has indeed received a substantial amount of attention from students of Japanese politics, society, and history. Nonetheless, the list of monographs dealing either exclusively or primarily with the subject is surprisingly short. The earliest study one can find is Robert M. Spaulding, Jr.'s Imperial Japan's Higher Civil Service Examinations .^[3] By meticulously documenting the long, difficult process by which the merit principle, a sine qua non of modern government bureaucracy, was introduced into prewar Japan, Spaulding sheds an important light not only on the formation of Japan's administrative elite but on that country's modernization process as well.

The first comprehensive study of Japanese higher civil servants in the postwar period was published two years later. Higher Civil Servants in Postwar Japan , by Akira Kubota, presents a statistical analysis of 1,353

[2] Ibid., pp. 18, 317, 21.

[3] Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967.

Japanese civil servants with the rank of section chief or above in the national government for the period from 1949 to 1959.^[4] His analysis of the social origins, educational backgrounds, and career patterns of Japan's postwar administrative elite provides irrefutable empirical evidence of their elitist character as well as the striking continuity of prewar patterns and practices.

The first and thus far the only in-depth study of a major government agency in Japan is Chalmers Johnson's book on MITI and the Japanese Miracle , cited at the outset of this chapter. His is not simply a detailed chronological analysis of a pivotal bureaucratic organization but a penetrating study of the Japanese political economy as well. It presents a convincing argument that the Japanese miracle owed much to the planning, leadership, and "administrative guidance" of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, in both its prewar and postwar incarnations.

The latest addition to the English-language monographic literature on Japanese bureaucracy is Yung H. Park's Bureaucrats and Ministers in Contemporary Japanese Government .^[5] Based on interviews with nearly two hundred politicians, bureaucrats, scholars, and other individuals in Japan, the study makes a persuasive case for the revision of conventional wisdom that relegates LDP politicians to an ornamental role in policy making; it shows that the era of manifest bureaucratic supremacy is being replaced by one in which politicians are becoming increasingly assertive in the policy arena.

Several monographs that focus on policy making in Japan are worth mentioning, for they help to illuminate, either directly or indirectly, the role of the government bureaucracy in the formulation and implementation of Japanese public policy. They are, in the order of publication, How the Conservatives Rule Japan , by Nathaniel B. Thayer;^[6]Party in Power: The Japanese Liberal-Democrats and Policy-making , by Haruhiro Fukui;^[7] Japan's Parliament: An Introduction , by Hans H. Baer-wald;^[8]Contemporary Japanese Budget Politics , by John C. Campbell;^[9] and Patterns of Japanese Policymaking: Experiences from Higher Education , by T. J. Pempel.^[10]

[4] Princeton: Princeton Unviersity Press, 1969.

[5] Berkeley: University of California, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1986.

[6] Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

[7] Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970.

[8] London: Cambridge University Press, 1974.

[9] Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

[10] Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1978.

There are a number of anthologies that contain studies on various aspects of Japanese bureaucracy. One of the most useful is Modern Japanese Organization and Decision-Making , edited by Ezra F. Vogel.^[11] It contains studies on government bureaucracy, economic organizations, newspapers, and an institution of higher learning. Also noteworthy is Public Administration in Japan , edited by Kiyoaki Tsuji.^[12] It presents brief overviews of a wide range of topics in Japanese public administration, from administrative guidance to local administration and finance, by Japanese scholars. Finally, Policymaking in Contemporary Japan , edited by T. J. Pempel,^[13] contains a literature survey, conceptual syntheses, and a number of case studies.

Studies of Japanese bureaucracy or administrative elite are also found in anthologies of a more general nature^[14] as well as in various scholarly journals. Some of the journal articles, along with most of the works listed above, will be cited later in this study. In sum, there is a sizable body of works of varying lengths on nearly all important aspects of the subject. Nonetheless, a reasonably up-to-date and moderately comprehensive monograph on either Japanese government bureaucracy as a whole or on its higher civil service (or administrative elite) is conspicuously lacking. The monograph that comes closest to fitting the preceding description, Kubota's study of higher civil servants in postwar Japan, presents data up to 1959.

When we turn to the Japanese-language literature, we are struck by a staggering quantity of books, articles, and government publications. Although most of the books and articles can be characterized as either scholarly or journalistic, some of them defy classification. For example, there are a number of books by former bureaucrats that purport to be more than memoirs, containing information of a general nature as well as commentaries on various aspects of government bureaucracy.^[15]

To cite a few examples of scholarly monographs, we may note Shinpan Nihon kanryosei no kenkyu (A Study of Japanese Bureaucracy,

[11] Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

[12] Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1984.

[13] Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977.

[14] To cite but two examples: Yoshinori Ide and Takeshi Ishida, "The Education and Recruitment of Governing Elites in Modern Japan" in Rupert Wilkinson, ed., Governing Elites: Studies in Training and Selection (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 108-134, and T. J. Pempel, "Organizing for Efficiency: The Higher Civil Service in Japan" in Ezra N. Suleiman ed., Bureaucrats and Policy Making: A Comparative Overview (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984), pp. 72-106.

[15] Examples of this genre include Sakakibara Eisuke, Nihon o enshutsu suru shin kanryo-zo [A Portrait of New Bureaucrats Who Direct Japan] (Tokyo: Yamade Shobo, 1977); Hayashi Shuzo, Nihon kanryo kenkoku ron [On State Building by Japanese Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: Gyosei Mondai Kenkyujo, 1982); Kato Eiichi, Kanryo desu, yoroshiku [I Am a Bureaucrat, Pleased to Meet You] (Tokyo: TBS Buritanika, 1983); and Okita Saburo, Nihon kanryo jijo [Conditions of Japanese Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: TBS Buritanika, 1984).

New Edition), by Tsuji Kiyoaki;^[16]Sengo Nihon no kanryosei (Postwar Japan's Bureaucratic System), by Muramatsu Michio;^[17]Kanryo no kenkyu: Fumetsu no pawa, 1868-1983 (A Study of Bureaucrats: Immortal Power, 1868-1983), by Hata Ikuhiko;^[18] and Okura kanryo shihai no shuen (The End of Domination by Finance Ministry Bureaucrats), by Yamaguchi Jiro.^[19]

Tsuji's book consists of a series of essays on various aspects of Japanese bureaucracy by a leading authority on the subject. It presents an orthodox view, in which the phenomenon of bureaucratic dominance is both explained and evaluated. Muramatsu's work departs from Tsuji's both in methodology and in conclusion. Using the survey research method, Muramatsu finds the orthodox view of bureaucratic dominance to be divorced from the reality, which, he argues, is marked by a significant increase in the power of the ruling-party politicians.

Hata, a bureaucrat-turned-academic, presents a wealth of statistical data on the evolution of bureaucracy from the Meiji period to the early 1980s. Particularly useful are his data on the social background of higher civil servants and the results of the higher civil-service examinations in both the prewar and postwar periods. He does not, however, directly address the issue of the changing balance of power between bureaucrats and politicians.

Yamaguchi represents a new breed of political scientists who are taking a critical look at conventional wisdom. Inspired by the work of Muramatsu, Yamaguchi sets out to analyze the changing complexion of Japanese bureaucracy. Through theoretically guided case studies, he attempts to explain when and how the erosion of the power base of bureaucracy began. His basic argument, nonetheless, is not that bureaucrats have become powerless but that they have become partners of politicians in the policy arena.

As examples of journalistic works, we may list Nihon no kanryo (Japan's Bureaucrats), by Tahara Soichiro;^[20]Okura-sho shukei-kyoku

[16] Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1969.

[17] Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinposha, 1981.

[18] Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983.

[19] Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1987.

[20] Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1980.

(The Budget Bureau of the Finance Ministry), by Kuribayashi Yoshimitsu;^[21]"Sengo umare" erito kanryo no sugao (The Real Faces of Elite Bureaucrats Who Were "Born After the War"), by Koitabashi Jiro;^[22] and Nihon kanryo hakusho (White Paper on Japanese Bureaucrats), by Sataka Makoto.^[23]

Tahara's book guides the reader through the inner workings of fifteen central-government ministries and agencies. Not only does it provide much insight into the idiosyncrasies of each organization but it also helps to dispel the myth of bureaucratic dominance, showing the myriad constraints under which bureaucrats must operate.

Unlike Tahara, Kuribayashi focuses on a single bureaucratic organization, the legendary Budget Bureau of the Finance Ministry, drawing on long years of observation, interviews with seventeen persons who have headed the Budget Bureau in the postwar period (only three decreased former bureau chiefs were excluded), and factual and statistical information on the Bureau's structure and personnel. One learns fascinating details about the people who help shape Japan's national budget, their background, values, and modes of operation. One also gains insight into the dynamics of the Budget Bureau as a living organization. Kuribayashi has also published a twin volume on the Tax Bureau (Shuzei-kyoku) of the Finance Ministry.^[24]

Koitabashi's book provides us with still another view of Japan's administrative elite: the backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences of twenty section chiefs, all of whom were born in 1945. Intrigued by the news that a total of thirty-three bureaucrats born in that watershed year became section chiefs in the national-government ministries and agencies in 1985, Koitabashi sought them out, managing to interview twenty of them. What emerges from his interviews is a portrait of elite bureaucrats who are bright, dedicated, and hardworking. Their single most important trait is a strong sense of mission—not only to serve their country but also to bridge the gap between those who have experienced war and those who haven't.

Sataka's professed goal is to delineate bureaucrats' modus operandi as well as true intentions (honne ) through concrete examples and illustrations. What he actually does is to provide a guided tour of the

[21] Tokyo: Kodansha, 1986.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Okurasho shuzei-kyoku [The Tax Bureau of the Finance Ministry] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1987).

literature on Japanese bureaucracy. He makes up for the lack of depth with a breadth of coverage. Not only are all the key issues mentioned, but an impressive number of works by a wide range of authors are cited and summarized.

Among magazines the most useful is Kankai (The Bureaucratic World), which typically carries an up-to-date profile of a central-government ministry or agency in every issue. Over the years it has published serialized articles on such topics as administrative vice ministers, "noncareer" (that is, nonelite) civil servants, former bureaucrats who have become members of the Diet, and the phenomenon of zoku giin (the so-called tribal Dietmen whose specialization and expertise in specific policy areas have helped to undercut the power of bureaucrats). Another magazine worthy of special mention is Bungei shunju (Spring and Autumn in Literature and Arts), whose monthly column, "Kasumigaseki konhidensharu" (Confidential Report from Kasumigaseki), albeit gossipy, helps the reader to keep abreast of the latest developments in Japan's bureaucratic circles.

As sources of authoritative facts and, especially, statistics pertaining to the structure and operations of the Japanese civil service, nothing can match government publications. The latter, indeed, are indispensable to a study of Japan's administrative elite. Particularly useful are the annual reports and monthly bulletins of the National Personnel Authority (NPA) [Jinji-in]. The former can be found in various sources, notably Kanpo (Official Gazette), Nenji hokokusho (Annual Report), and Komuin hakusho (White Paper on Civil Servants). Of these the most accessible is Komuin hakusho , which began to appear in the mid-1970s. Prepared by the NPA for submission to the Diet and the Cabinet, the annual reports contain both narrative accounts of and comprehensive statistics on such topics as civil-service examinations, appointments and resignations of civil servants, compensation, disciplinary actions against civil servants, training programs, and the handling of appeals by civil servants on adverse personnel actions.

The NPA's monthly bulletin, known as Jinji-in geppo , serves as an important supplement to the annual reports. The bulletin provides not only much information and insight that are not found in the annual reports but also more details on items that receive only a passing mention in the latter. Texts of roundtable discussions on various issues confronting the civil service, in which both civil servants and outside observers take part, are frequently illuminating, as are essays and reminiscences by those who have had firsthand experience in events

relating to the civil service. The bulletin frequently carries full texts of key reports on such topics as a reappraisal of training programs, the NPA's annual recommendation on civil-servants' compensation, and the NPA's recommendation on reducing the civil-servants' work week (with the aim of eventually introducing a five-day week). By contrast, the annual reports typically carry only summaries or excerpts.

In short, if conducted with diligence and discrimination, a scrutiny of Japanese-language sources that are publicly available can go a long way toward yielding a credible picture of the key dimensions of Japanese-government bureaucracy, including the salient attributes of its administrative elite.

As the preceding discussion makes plain, anyone who ventures into the realm of Japanese bureaucracy is entering not a terra incognita but a well-mapped terrain. What, then, does this study propose to contribute? For one thing, it is designed to fill the void in the literature: an up-to-date overview of several key dimensions of Japan's administrative elite. More important, it proposes to explore the question of whether and to what extent the salient patterns of Japanese government bureaucracy as manifested by its administrative elite are idiosyncratic. This would necessitate a quasi-comparative perspective. Although a full-fledged, cross-national comparison is highly desirable, it is beyond the capability of a lone researcher with limited resources.

As an alternative to a full-scale comparative analysis, I propose to introduce a crude comparative backdrop from time to time. The backdrop will necessarily be sketchy, eclectic, and unbalanced; occasionally, it will substitute conceptual models for specific details. Four advanced industrial democracies will be used to provide the comparative frame of reference: the United States, Great Britain, France, and West Germany. Although a plausible argument for choosing other countries can no doubt be made—for example, Asian countries such as China and Korea, which have a common cultural heritage with Japan^[25] —the four Western democracies were chosen for two reasons: First, the political criterion of democracy and the economic criterion of advanced industrialization seem to outweigh other considerations. Second, in a practical sense, these Western countries have had more influence on Japanese bureaucracy than have China or other non-Western countries. In fact, the Japanese themselves frequently use these four countries as referents for comparison.

[25] See, for example, Albert M. Craig, ed., Japan: A Comparative View (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).

Another thing this study attempts to present is a diachronic analysis of sorts. What are the principal elements of continuity and change between the prewar and postwar periods? Can we identify any significant signs of change during the postwar period? Relevant statistical evidence will be scrutinized with the aim of finding tentative answers to these questions.

In conclusion, the study will attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Japan's administrative elite and to speculate on the practical and theoretical implications of the Japanese experience.

We shall begin by sketching in broad strokes the historical backdrop—namely, the salient characteristics of Japanese bureaucracy in the prewar period. Next, we shall discuss the first serious attempt in Japanese history to reform the legal and structural framework of its bureaucracy during the first and only foreign occupation that Japan has ever experienced, the American occupation following Japanese defeat in World War II.

Against this broad background, we proceed to analyze several major dimensions of Japan's administrative elite—recruitment, promotion, socialization, modes of interaction, and rewards. For each of these dimensions we shall examine a wide array of information—pertinent statistical data, impressionistic evidence, scholarly opinions, journalistic interpretations, and reports of participant-observers. All but a handful of the sources utilized in the study are in the public domain; the few exceptions consist of unpublished government documents and insights gained from informal conversations and interviews with government officials.

In brief, the following pages will (1) delineate the major attributes of Japan's administrative elite, managers of the Japanese developmental state, (2) assess "the universality and the particularity of the Japanese experience,"^[26] (3) ascertain the patterns of continuity and change in the structure and functioning of the administrative elite, and (4) explore the implications of the Japanese model.

[26] The phrase is borrowed from Albert M. Craig, "Introduction," ibid., p. 8.

Chapter Two
Japanese Bureaucracy During the Prewar Era

To a striking degree, the characteristics of Japanese government bureaucracy were formed in the prewar period. A brief survey of its historical background will, therefore, enable us to appreciate the extent of continuity and change between the prewar and postwar patterns of Japanese bureaucracy. We shall dwell upon the circumstances surrounding the emergence of modern bureaucracy in the Meiji era, its power and prestige, and the outstanding aspects of its structure and behavior, notably, stratification, elitism, legalism, security of tenure, and retirement practices.

Emergence

If by bureaucracy we mean a pattern of organizing and managing human affairs on the basis, inter alia, of expertise demonstrated by education or experience, bureaucracy did not emerge in Japan until after the Meiji Restoration in the latter half of the nineteenth century.^[1] To be

[1] Mori Hiroshi and Yazawa Shujiro, Kanryosei no shihai [Rule by Bureaucracy] (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1981), p. 162; Oe Shinobu, "Nihon ni okeru kanryosei no kiseki" [The Locus of the Bureaucratic System in Japan], Hogaku seminaà zokan, sogo tokushu shirizu, 9: Naikaku to kanryo [Legal Studies Seminar Extra Issue, Comprehensive Special Series, 9: The Cabinet and Bureaucrats], Mar. 1979, p. 105.

sure, Japan did borrow the idea of civil-service examinations from T'ang China in the seventh century, but, unlike the situation in China, where it flourished, the idea was never fully implemented.^[2]

During the Tokugawa period (1603-1868), structural arrangements for administration that existed both in the central government and in the fiefs were patrimonial rather than bureaucratic. The criterion of recruitment to key offices was primarily ascriptive, such as membership in the shogun's immediate vassalage in Edo and the possession of a specified feudal family rank in the fiefs. In its waning days, however, the Tokugawa shogunate was compelled by the crisis precipitated by the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's four "black ships" to recruit officials on the basis of "demonstrable merit." This was done, it should be stressed, only within the elitist boundaries. Nonetheless, the recruitment of "men of relatively low social status" to important positions in Edo and, particularly, the "appointment of subjects of individual fiefs to offices in the shogunal government" signaled the beginning of the end of the traditional feudal hierarchy.^[3]

If the Meiji Restoration opened the way for a fundamental restructuring of Japan's political system, it did not usher in a modern bureaucratic system immediately. On the contrary, the first two decades of the Meiji era saw the implementation of a spoils system: key government positions were doled out to those who played the leading role in the Restoration—the lower samurai from the fiefs of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen as well as court nobles who had collaborated. An interesting aspect of the spoils system pertained to its use as a device for coopting the opponents of the new regime. Some leaders of the

[2] Spaulding, Imperial Japan's Higher Civil Service Examinations , pp. 9-19. For a study that underscores the early development of bureaucracy in Japan, arguing that Japanese bureaucracy had reached maturity as early as the late seventh and early eighth centuries, see Nomura Tadao, Nihon kanryo no genzo [The Original Portrait of Japanese Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: PHP Kenkyujo, 1983). T. J. Pempel writes: "Bureaucratic strands wind through Japan's history from at least the Nara Period (710-84), but the establishment of a modern bureaucracy dates from the opening of Japan by the West in the middle of the nineteenth century." See his "Organizing for Efficiency," p. 78.

[3] Masamichi Inoki, "The Civil Bureaucracy" in Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow, eds., Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 283-87. See also Bernard S. Silverman, "The Bureaucracy and Economic Development in Japan," Asian Survey 5, no. 11 (Nov. 1965), pp. 529-37. Even Nomura's study shows that ascriptive criteria eclipsed those of achievement in the recruitment and promotion of officials in the eighth and ninth centuries. Nomura, Nihon kanryo no genzo , esp. pp. 63-91.

opposition clamoring for "freedom and civil rights" (jiyu minken ) were coopted into the government.^[4]

As the forces of democracy grew in strength, however, the Meiji oligarchs were compelled to make concessions, including a commitment to establish a parliament by the year 1890. The need to cope with opposition politicians and to guard against the possibility of the abuse of "free appointment" privileges by party politicians upon winning power provided the oligarchs with a strong incentive to institutionalize the merit principle in the recruitment of officials. The most compelling pressure of all, however, emanated from the outside. The revision of the humiliating unequal treaties with Western powers embodying the principle of extraterritoriality necessitated the establishment of a modern judicial system. This in turn called for the enactment of a constitution as well as administrative, civil, and criminal laws along Western lines. All this would also require the adoption of a credible system of recruiting officials to man the judicial apparatus.^[5]

To fashion a modern system of government equipped to handle all these problems, the Meiji oligarchs not only invited Western experts to Japan but also dispatched delegations to Europe on extended learning tours. Those who went abroad on such missions, of whom Ito Hirobumi was the most prominent, appear to have been deeply impressed by what they saw and heard in Berlin and Vienna. From such Prussian and Austrian mentors as Rudolf von Gneist, Albert Mosse, and Lorenz von Stein they learned the rudimentary principles of limited constitutionalism, parliamentary government, and a civil-service system. Regarding the latter, two things struck the Japanese most: the principle of imperial prerogative in appointment and the principle of recruitment based on educational attainments. Those with the proper

[4] Wada Zen'ichi, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi" [The History of the Appointment System for Civil Officials], I, Jinji-in geppo [Monthly Bulletin of the National Personnel Authority] 95(Jan. 1959): 10. According to data compiled by proponents of jiyu minken in 1874, 65.7 percent of chokunin officials (bureau chiefs and above) and 37.6 percent of sonin officials came from the fiefs of Satsuma, Choshu, Tosa, and Hizen. Satsuma and Choshu together accounted for 44.8 percent of the chokunin and 27.8 percent of the sonin officials. Fukumoto Kunio, Kanryo [Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1959), pp. 81-82. For definitions of chokunin and sonin officials, see table 1 and the accompanying text later in this chapter.

[5] Spaulding, Imperial Japan's Higher Civil Service Examinations , esp. pp. 4-5, 34. For a Marxian analysis of the relationship between the jiyu minken movement and bureaucracy, see Yamanaka Einosuke, Nihon kindai kokka no keisei to kanryosei [The Bureaucracy and the Formation of the Modern Japanese State] (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1974).

educational credentials, the Japanese were told, must first pass appropriate examinations before being appointed.^[6]

The trials, tribulations, and politics that accompanied the adoption of coherent civil-service examinations for administrative, judicial, and diplomatic personnel need not detain us here, for they have already been analyzed in Spaulding's definitive study. What needs to be stressed, however, is that although the German model clearly exerted major influence on the thinking of Japanese leaders, the system they ultimately adopted was far from a carbon copy of the Prussian prototype. In terms of the sequence of the key steps involved, the first significant step was the establishment of law schools in the 1870s—the French law course in the Justice Ministry and the Anglo-American law course in the Education Ministry. Next came the establishment of the bar examination in 1876, followed by the adoption of the Judicial Appointment Rule in 1884.^[7]

Then, in July 1887, the first general-examination ordinance was promulgated, extending examinations from the judiciary to all parts of the government. The new system set up two levels of civil-service examinations: higher examinations for sonin officials and ordinary ones for hannin officials. It retained, however, the privileged status of Tokyo Imperial University (Todai ) graduates. Just as they were exempt from the bar and judicial examinations, so they would continue to be exempt from the higher civil-service examinations. Although the exemption under the 1887 ordinance would be extended to Todai graduates in law and letters only, that in no way diminished the privileged status of all Todai graduates. Todai men in the other fields, such as agriculture, engineering, and medicine, would be eligible for appointment to technical posts in government without taking examinations along with all other technical personnel. The requirement of a three-year training period following initial appointment was an echo of the German model. In the revamping of the examination system in 1893, however, the Todai exemption was abolished in the administrative examinations, though it was retained in the judicial. In the same year, separate examinations for diplomatic and consular personnel were established. Then, during the first two decades of the twentieth century a struggle was waged to ensure legal equality among all

[6] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , pp. 46-50.

[7] Ibid., pp. 33-72.

examination candidates, culminating in the abolition of exemptions in toto; a unification of examination systems was also accomplished, bringing under the single umbrella of higher examinations the three disparate fields of law, administration, and diplomacy.^[8]

Power And Prestige

According to the distinguished Japanese political scientist Royama Masamichi, the Meiji Restoration helped to transform Japan from a "feudal police state" (hokenteki keisatsu kokka ) into a "centralized bureaucratic state" (chuo shukenteki kanryo kokka ). Although the Meiji government enshrined the doctrine of imperial sovereignty, he writes, it was in reality controlled by a coalition of hanbatsu (domain cliques) and court nobles. More important, it replaced the feudal warrior system with its twin functional equivalents, the military and the bureaucracy.^[9]

Bureaucracy, in other words, was part of the ruling elite in prewar Japan. Its power and prestige were greatly augmented by the explicit linking of bureaucratic authority and imperial prerogatives. Article 10 of the Meiji constitution of 1889 stipulated that "the Emperor determines the organization of the different branches of the administration and salaries of all civil and military officers, and appoints and dismisses the same."^[10] This implied that officials were appointed by and accountable to the Emperor only; hence they were the Emperor's officials (tenno no kanri ) rather than civil servants. So long as the prestige of the Emperor remained supreme and the myth of imperial rule was kept alive, therefore, his officials could exercise virtually unfettered authority in his name.

The position of the bureaucracy vis-à-vis political parties and the Imperial Diet was bolstered by the constitution and practice alike. Pursuant to the advice of their Prussian and Austrian mentors, the Meiji oligarchs had taken pains to establish the framework of the bureaucratic

[8] Ibid., pp. 73-178; Watanabe Yasuo, "Nihon no komuinsei" [The Civil Service System of Japan] in Tsuji Kiyoaki, ed., Gyoseigaku koza, dai 2-kan: Gyosei no rekishi [Lectures on Public Administration, vol. 2: The History of Public Administration] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1978), pp. 114-16.

[9] Royama Masamichi, "Kindai kanri seido no hattatsu" [The Development of a Modern Bureaucratic System] in Royama Masamichi, Gyoseigaku kenkyu ronbunshu [Collection of Research Papers on Public Administration] (Tokyo: Keiso Shobo, 1965), p. 229.

[10] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , p. 83; Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," I, p. 13.

system prior to the formation of the Diet. This meant that all the rules regarding the structure and functioning of the bureaucracy were embodied in imperial ordinances rather than in statutes. This practice was continued even after the Diet came into being.^[11]

Although the Diet did emerge as a significant political force, particularly during the Taisho era (1912-26), it never attained sufficient power to control the executive branch. As the instrument and embodiment of executive power, the bureaucracy was thus assured a dominant role in the political system. Further enhancing bureaucratic power was the entry of bureaucrats into political parties, eventually constituting one of the two key groups in ruling parties, together with the so-called "pure politicians."^[12] As Spaulding suggests, the bureaucracy was never a pliant tool of the cabinet, its putative master. Virtually all cabinets, including military cabinets "at the zenith of their power," found it necessary to govern the country "by informal coalitions or working agreements with career civilian bureaucrats, chiefly examination men."^[13] A striking index of the power of the bureaucracy is that, of the thirty men who served as prime ministers in prewar Japan, only two lacked a bureaucratic background, either civil or military. The exceptions were Prince Saionji Kinmochi (1906-08 and 1911-12) and Prince Konoe Fumimaro (1937 and 1940-41).^[14]

Generally speaking, power and prestige go hand in hand; hence, despite the absence of survey data, one may surmise that bureaucrats in prewar Japan, symbols as well as wielders of awesome power, enjoyed high prestige. One indication of their prestige was the consistently keen competition for the higher civil-service examinations, the gateway to the upper ranks of the bureaucracy. In the period 1928-43, the failure rate of applicants for the administrative section of the higher civil-service examinations averaged 90 percent. Moreover, the overwhelming proportion of the successful candidates came from Tokyo Imperial Univer-

[11] Inoki, "The Civil Bureaucracy," pp. 291-92.

[12] Robert A. Scalapino, "Elections and Political Modernization in Prewar Japan" in Robert E. Ward, ed., Political Development in Modern Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 249-91; Robert A. Scalapino, Democracy and the Party Movement in Prewar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962).

[13] Robert M. Spaulding, Jr., "The Bureaucracy as a Political Force, 1920-45" in James W. Morley, ed., Dilemmas of Growth in Prewar Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 76.

[14] Inoki, "The Civil Bureaucracy," p. 293; Bessatsu kokkai benran: Shiryo soshuhen [Separate-Volume Supplement to the National Diet Handbook: Complete Collection of Materials] (Tokyo: Nihon Seikei Shinbun Shuppanbu, 1975), pp. 6-7.

sity, the most prestigious of all institutions of higher learning in prewar Japan.^[15]

It is worth noting that bureaucrats may have been more feared than respected. Their arrogance was legendary, and tales of the abuse of bureaucratic power were legion.^[16] The well-known phrase, kanson minpi (officials revered, citizens despised), not only summed up a major theme in the political culture of prewar Japan; it also epitomized the reality, of bureaucratic dominance in Japanese society.

Structure And Behavior

Stratification

The prewar Japanese bureaucracy was a veritable caste system. It embraced distinct classes of persons, and the status differences and social distances between the classes were wide. The most basic distinction was between officials (kanri ) and nonofficials (hikanri ). The officials, who were appointed either by the Emperor or by the government to which authority had been delegated, owed an unlimited loyalty to the Emperor and were regulated by public law. The nonofficials, on the other hand, lay outside the scope of the Emperor's appointment authority and were subject to the rules of employment contract in private law.^[17]

The officials were divided into four distinct classes: (1) shinninkan , (2) chokuninkan , (3) soninkan , and (4) hanninkan . The main criterion of this classification was the distance from the Emperor or, alternatively, the mode of appointment. Shinnin officials were awarded their letters of appointment, signed by the Emperor and countersigned by the prime minister, in a palace ceremony called the shinnin shiki and attended by the Emperor. Chokunin officials, too, received letters of appointment bearing the signatures of both the Emperor and the prime minister but without a palace ceremony. Sonin officials, on the other hand, were appointed by the prime minister acting on behalf of the cabinet and on

[15] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , pp. 265, 268-69. Some relevant statistics will be presented later in this chapter (see table 2).

[16] See, for example, Fukumoto, Kanryo , pp. 80-95; Mori and Yazawa, Kanryosei no shihai , pp. 162-65 and passim.

[17] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," pp. 112; Miyake Taro, Gyoseigaku to gyosei kanri [Public Administration and Public Management] (Tokyo: Sakai Shoten, 1974), pp. 78-88.

authority delegated by the Emperor. Finally, hannin officials were appointed by the individual ministers exercising delegated authority. The first three classes of officials were collectively known as kotokan (higher officials). There were nine grades among the kotokan and four among the hanninkan .^[18] Table I displays the ranks and grades of the higher officials, together with their corresponding positions. The barrier between the higher and ordinary officials was so great as to be all but insurmountable; they could be compared with commissioned and noncommissioned officers in the armed forces.^[19]

Because they were outside the realm of public law, the nonofficials (hikanri ) were subject to the vagaries of the changing needs and budgetary resources of individual ministries. Neither their qualifications nor their duties were precisely defined. Nonetheless, there were generally three types of nonofficials: (1) koin , (2) yonin , and (3) shokutaku . The koin performed routine clerical tasks, but many of them aspired for promotion to the hannin rank eventually. The yonin engaged in manual

[18] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," pp. 112-13; Miyake, Gyoseigaku to gyosei kanri , pp. 79-82; Murobushi Tetsuro, Kokyu kanryo [Higher Civil Servants] (Tokyo: Sekai Shoin, 1983), pp. 28-29.

[19] For a comparison of the kotokan-hanninkan dichotomy to the distinction between commissioned and noncommissioned officers in the military, see Spaulding, "The Bureaucracy as a Political Force," pp. 37-38 and Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle , pp. 57-58. For an inside account of the privileges of kotokan , see Hayashi, Nihon kanryo kenkoku ron , pp. 5-10.

labor. Finally, the shokutaku typically had special ties with a cabinet minister or a parliamentary vice-minister, serving him for the duration of their terms of office. Many shokutaku were retired officials and persons engaged in specialized research activities for the government.^[20]

We have already seen that civil-service examinations were the principal means by which civil officials were recruited. Those who passed the higher civil-service examinations were eligible for appointment as soninkan trainee (shiho ), whereas those who passed the ordinary civil-service examinations could become hanninkan apprentice (minarai ). In neither case was appointment automatic. Passing these examinations simply certified that the successful candidates were qualified for government service. The actual hiring was done by each government ministry or agency, typically following an interview. In most cases the candidates themselves had to take the initiative. From 1887 to 1893, graduates of Tokyo Imperial University were exempt from the higher civil-service examinations. In a sense, graduation from Todai could be viewed as the chief means of recruitment into the higher civil service, whereas passing the examination was the auxiliary means. For Todai was intended from the outset to serve as a training school for the core members of the bureaucracy.^[21]

Another important mode of civil-service recruitment was senko (evaluation), which was applied to teachers, engineers, physicians, and other technical personnel. Until 1899, moreover, all chokunin officials, which included not only section chiefs, bureau chiefs, and vice-ministers but also the chief of the cabinet secretariat, the chief of the cabinet legislation bureau, and prefectural governors, were subject to "free appointment." The scope of discretionary appointment, however, steadily dwindled in subsequent years. Finally, the significance of the ordinary civil-service examinations was considerably diluted in 1913, when all graduates of middle schools were granted exemption; previously, only public-middle-school graduates had been exempt. In addition, all koin with five years or more of experience became eligible for hannin positions.^[22]

Behind the veil of seeming complexity stood one simple fact: the prewar Japanese bureaucracy contained distinctly unequal strata. At the bottom of the pecking order were "nonofficials." Then came ordinary

[20] Watanabe, "Nihon no kanryosei," pp. 113-14.

[21] Ibid., pp. 114-15; Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," I, pp. 11-13.

[22] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," pp. 115-16; Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," II, Jinji-in geppo 96(Feb. 1959): 13-15.

or hannin officials. Above them all reigned higher officials or kotokan . Although the wall separating the ordinary and higher officials was by no means impenetrable, it was nonetheless high. After the abolition of the "imperial university privilege" (teidai tokken ) in 1893, nearly all aspirants for elite administrative positions had to scale the heights of the higher civil-service examinations.

Elitism

Another striking characteristic of the prewar Japanese bureaucracy was its domination by graduates of Tokyo Imperial University. Of the ninety-seven men who were appointed as higher-civil-service trainees (administrative) in the 1888-91 period, all but nine were Todai graduates. More important, in two of the four years involved, not a single examination candidate was appointed. In fact, administrative examinations were not even held in 1891, a situation that was repeated in the following year. Inasmuch as "the function of the examinations was simply to fill positions not claimed by Todai graduates," no examinations were necessary in those years, because of the availability of a sufficient number of Todai men. The government's decision in 1893 to abolish the Imperial University exemption stemmed not simply from its desire to accommodate the critics of the privilege but also from the practical need to cope with growing numbers of Todai graduates.^[23]

However, the preponderance of Todai men in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy continued unabated. The principal reason for this was that Todai men dominated the administrative section of the higher civil-service examinations in both absolute and proportionate terms. Whereas the overall success rates (ratios of successful to total candidates) were 25 percent in 1906, 7 percent in 1941, 14 percent in 1942, and 15 percent in 1943, those for Todai men were 50 percent, 16 percent, 29 percent, and 25 percent in those years. About 47 percent of all successful candidates in the 1941-43 period came from Todai, whereas about 10 percent was supplied by Kyoto Imperial University.^[24] If we look at longer time periods, as we do in table 2, the preponderance of Todai men in the examinations becomes even more pronounced. Roughly six out of ten successes came from Todai. The two top

[23] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , pp. 90-99. The quotation is from p. 91.

[24] These statistics were either adapted or estimated from ibid., pp. 268-69 and 277 (tables 48, 49, and 54).

universities, Todai and Kyodai, together accounted for seven out of every ten successes.

Inoki Masamichi's analysis of the academic background of 1,377 higher civil servants (excluding judicial officials) whose biographical sketches appeared in the 1937 edition of Jinji koshinroku (Who's Who) revealed that 73.1 percent were Todai graduates and 9.0 percent were Kyodai graduates.^[25] This is consistent with the data on the successful candidates in the higher examinations discussed above. In comparative terms, the only other country that can match this record is the United Kingdom. According to R. K. Kelsall, the academic background of British senior civil servants (those above the rank of assistant secretary) in 1939 was as follows: of those who entered the civil service through open competition, 51.3 percent had graduated from Oxford and 25.7 percent from Cambridge. When those who entered the civil service through other routes are added, the overall proportion of Oxford men becomes 41.3 percent, and that of Cambridge men 20.1 percent. Significantly, 19 percent of the 1939 senior civil servants included in Kelsall's analysis lacked university education altogether.^[26]

If, as suggested above, the predominance of Todai men in the upper ranks of the bureaucracy was a function of their preponderance among the successful candidates in the higher civil-service examinations, then

[25] Inoki, "The Civil Bureaucracy," p. 296.

[26] R. K. Kelsall, Higher Civil Servants in Britain (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955), p. 138. table 22. The size of Kelsall's sample was 179.

what accounted for this latter phenomenon? A simplistic explanation might be that, assuming that the examinations were valid and reliable, Todai men were better prepared for them by virtue of their superior intellectual ability and academic training. Given its high prestige, Todai attracted both high-caliber students and distinguished faculty. It is also widely believed that Todai men enjoyed an edge in competition thanks to the near monopoly of the posts of higher examiners by Todai professors.^[27]

According to Spaulding, the proportion of Todai professors among administrative examiners in four different time periods was as follows: 1894-1905: 46.0 percent; 1906-17: 66.0 percent; 1918-28: 44.6 percent; and 1929-41: 41.2 percent.^[28] With the exception of 1906-17, Todai professors were in the minority among the administrative high examiners. In terms of the university background of all administrative high examiners during the four periods, however, the picture changes substantially, with Todai graduates accounting for 72.5 percent, 95.9 percent, 85.7 percent, and 67.5 percent, respectively.^[29] Although Spaulding interprets these data as disproving the view that the performance of Todai men in the higher examinations was related to the control of the latter by the professors and alumni of Todai, it seems nonetheless clear that Todai men did enjoy advantages in more ways than one. Their previous exposure to lectures and examinations by such a high proportion of the examiners was bound to be beneficial not only in the written but also in the oral phase of the higher examinations.

The preponderance of Todai graduates in the higher civil service also bespoke its elitist character in terms of social origins. Although admission to Todai was open to all on the basis of merit, in practice only a very small number of students from poor families could attend it on "scholarships provided by former feudal lords and other rich people." Because "one had to be able to afford six years of schooling—three of higher, or preparatory, school and three of university work," most students at Todai were in fact "the sons of upper and upper-middle-class families (of civil bureaucrats, military officers, landlords, rich farmers, businessmen, and industrialists)."^[30] Of the 1,377 higher civil servants in 1937 analyzed by Inoki, "358 (26.4 percent) were of

[27] Sato Tomoyuki et al., Todaibatsu [University of Tokyo Clique] (Tokyo: Eru Shuppansha, 1972), p. 196.

[28] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , p. 249.

[29] Ibid., p. 251.

[30] Inoki, "The Civil Bureaucracy," pp. 295-96.

samurai (shizoku ) origin and 17 (1.2 percent) were of noble (kazoku ) origin." This means that "72.4 percent of the civil servants were commoners (heimin )."^[31]

Table 3 provides us with a few more details regarding the social origins of prewar Japanese bureaucrats. A major drawback of the data displayed in the table, however, is that they do not specify the time period to which they pertain. The table nonetheless reveals that the single largest category of fathers' occupation is government officials, indicating a high degree of occupational succession. If we discount ordinary officials, however, the proportion of government officials drops to 21.2 percent, which is below that of "agriculture and forestry" (noringyo ). This broad category probably subsumes landlords and rich

[31] Ibid., p. 296.

farmers. No matter how one defines elitist occupations, they appear to be disproportionately represented.

Legalism

Closely related to the phenomenon of Todai dominance in the higher civil service was its markedly legalistic orientation. This was manifested in two related ways: the preponderance of law graduates among the higher civil servants and their preoccupation with formal rules. The popular or journalistic term for this phenonomenon was hoka banno (the omnipotence of law). The emergence of hoka banno was due to a number of circumstances. First and foremost, the decision of the Meiji leaders to emulate the Prussian model and to require legal training as the principal qualification for civil-service appointment was a key contributing factor. The preferential treatment given to Todai law graduates in the early days of the civil service was another. In fact, within Todai itself, the faculty of law (hogakubu ) enjoyed the status of primus inter pares: in the 1880s its dean served concurrently as the president of Todai. He was also empowered to supervise all other law schools that had come into being in Tokyo, of which there were five.^[32]

The subjects in which candidates were tested in the higher civil-service examinations were predominantly law-related. The administrative examinations from 1894 to 1928 had six required subjects: constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, civil law, international law, and economics. In addition, candidates were required to select one subject from a set of four electives: criminal procedure, civil procedure, commercial law, and finance.^[33] From 1929 to 1941, criminal law and international law were dropped from the list of compulsory subjects; instead, they were added to the greatly expanded list of elective subjects. The other subjects that were newly added were political science, political history, Japanese history, economic history, agricultural policy, industrial policy, social policy, ethics, logic, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and Japanese and Chinese literature. Candidates were required to choose three subjects from the preceding

[32] "Tokyo Daigaku no hyakunen" Henshu Iinkai, Tokyo Daigaku no hyakunen, 1877-1977 [Hundred Years of the University of Tokyo, 1877-1977] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1977), pp. 85-93. From 1886 to 1919 the Faculty of Law was called the College of Law (Hoka Daigaku ).

[33] Spaulding, Imperial Japan , p. 210.

list.^[34] The 1929 reorganization, then, made it possible for administrative candidates to take only three law-related subjects, instead of five.

The 1937 data examined by Inoki indicate that about 47 percent of the higher civil servants were graduates of Todai's law faculty. If graduates of other law faculties were added, such as those of Kyoto, Tohoku, Kyushu, and Chuo universities, the proportion of law graduates would increase markedly. Of the Todai men in the sample, over 63 percent were products of its law faculty.^[35] Another study, by Hata Ikuhiko, found that a total of 5,969 Todai men passed the administrative higher examinations between 1894 and 1947 and that 94.7 percent of them (N = 5,653) were graduates of its law faculty.^[36]

The legalistic approach to administration spawned and perpetuated by the predominance of law graduates in Japanese bureaucracy was exemplified by extreme stress upon rules and precedents: nearly all important matters of administration, and sometimes even trivial ones, needed to be grounded in law—statutes, ordinances, regulations, or precedents. In the words of Milton J. Esman:

Regardless of the emergency nature of specific situations or social necessity, [the official] construes the absence of specific legal authority as full justification for failure to act; and regardless of common sense, he follows regulations m the letter. This dependence on legality resolves all new operating problems into legal problems which can be met only by the issuance or amendment of regulations. The code of regulations thus increases in bulk and complexity. To those trained to understand them, the provisions of the code become surrounded with an inviolability which frequently overrides in importance the situation they are designed to settle.^[37]

Esman argues that an explanation of the prevalence of legalism and other aspects of prewar Japanese administration in terms of German and Prussian origins is inadequate. For "while many features of German administration were successfully transplanted, others never took root." As examples of the procedures the Japanese failed to emulate, Esman cites the "in-service training of young officials" and "Germany's highly integrated budget system and its flexible central departmental staff organization."^[38] It should be pointed out, however, that the Japanese

[34] Ibid., p. 213.

[35] Inoki, "The Civil Bureaucracy," pp. 296-97.

[36] Hata, Kanryo no kenkyu , p. 17.

[37] Milton J. Esman, "Japanese Administration—A Comparative View," Public Administration Review 7, no. 2 (Spring 1947): 101.

[38] Ibid., p. 109.

did embrace the idea of postentry training, even though it was never fully implemented.

In any event, Esman believes that cultural and societal variables offer better clues to Japanese practices. Whereas, in the United States, the tradition of individual rights, equality, limited government, and utilitarianism helped to foster a distinctly pragmatic approach to administration, such a tradition was conspicuously absent in Japan. On the contrary, Japanese society valued the collectivity above the individual, hierarchy above equality, loyalty to the emperor and the state, and reverence for established authority and traditional ways of doing things. Furthermore, legalism served the interests of the ruling elite in the Meiji period and beyond. According to Esman:

The concept of Rechtsstaat . . . . was adopted [from Prussia] primarily to convince the western world that because all acts of Japanese officials were regulated by a strict rule of law, extraterritoriality could safely be withdrawn. Legalism, however, had other important uses for Japanese officialdom. It provided them a detailed and intricate mystery which only initiates into the legal priesthood could properly understand. By making government a complex web of administrative regulations, by thus establishing the indispensability of legal learning, the Samurai and their successors have protected their monopoly of higher administrative positions and preserved the power of the bureaucracy against possible assault by the military, the nobility, the financial clique, or the political parties.^[39]

Although quite plausible, these ideas are necessarily speculative; credible evidence with which to test their validity is not readily available. Nonetheless, the salience of legalism in the prewar Japanese bureaucracy is beyond challenge, and its deleterious effects are widely recognized.

Jimukan Vs. Gikan

A corollary of the ascendancy of legalism was the subordination of technical specialists (gikan ) to administrative generalists (jimukan ).^[40] We have previously noted that the gikan were recruited without

[39] Ibid., pp. 109-11. The quotation is from p. 111. It should be stressed that the "successors" to the samurai mentioned by Esman were predominantly commoners (72.4 percent in Inoki's 1937 sample). Only 26.4 percent of the 1937 sample was of samurai (shizoku ) origin. see n. 30, above.

[40] In prewar Japan, the term jimukan was used in two distinctly different senses. First, it referred to all non-gikan . Second, it encompassed soninkan with grades 4 through 6. See table 1.

examination through screening (senko ). Although they acquired sonin rank and therefore were classified as higher officials (kotokan ), only a small fraction of them was given managerial or supervisory positions. Chiefs of sections, divisions, and bureaus dealing with complex technical matters were typically jimukan trained in law but totally lacking in substantive expertise.

Moreover, as table 4 shows, there was a sizable gap between the two types of officials in the speed of promotion. In the Ministry of Home Affairs, gikan trailed behind jimukan every step of the way. It took gikan eleven more years than jimukan to reach grade 1. Those who made it, however, were the lucky ones, for the vast majority did not. In the technically oriented Ministry of Posts and Communications, gikan had an edge over jimukan in the early years of their career and then began to lose ground. The overall disadvantage of six years and three months, nonetheless, was considerably better than the lag of eleven years and four months in the Home Affairs Ministry. When all six ministries are considered, jimukan enjoy an edge in all stages of promotion, accumulating a net advantage of over seven years.

This anomalous situation bred inefficiency and conflict and had demoralizing effects on technical personnel, many of whom were graduates of Todai and other prestigious universities. Because there were more gikan than jimukan in the prewar higher civil service (about 53 percent to 47 percent), the situation in effect amounted to minority rule—the triumph of dilettantism over expertise.^[41]

Sectionalism

Nakane Chie has coined the term tate shakai (vertical society) to underscore the precedence of vertical over horizontal relationships—or ba (frame) over shikaku (attribute)—in Japan.^[42] In organizational terms, this idea implies the development of a strong sense of identification with the organization and intense feelings of solidarity among all members of the organization. Two personnel practices helped to bolster such a tendency: decentralized recruitment and lifetime employment. The former meant that although the civil-service examinations were centrally administered, the actual recruitment and appointment of qualified candidates was the responsibility of each ministry. Hence one became an official, not of the Japanese imperial government as such, but of the Home Ministry, the Finance Ministry, and so on. The custom of lifetime employment meant that one was expected to stay in the same organization until retirement. Temporary assignments outside one's own ministry were more frequent than interministerial transfers on a permanent basis. Within the same ministry, however, officials were rotated between the headquarters and the field as well as between different bureaus, divisions, and sections.^[43]

[41] Lt. Col. Hugh H. MacDonald and Lt. Milton J. Esman, "The Japanese Civil Service," Public Personnel Review 7. no. 4 (Oct. 1946): 218-19; Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," p. 130. Of the 186 gikan covered by table 4, 145 (78 percent) were Todai graduates and 20 (10.8 percent) were graduates of Kyodai. All of the remainder had gone to either Kyushu or Tohoku University. On the other hand, 142 of the 152 jimukan (94 percent) were Todai men. The remainder were all Kyodai graduates. See Jinji-in, Kyuyokyoku, "Kyu kanri seidoka ni okeru kotokan no keireki chosa no kekka gaiyo" [A Summary of the Results of an Investigation into the Background of Higher Officials Under the Old Bureaucratic System], Kikan jinji gyosei [Public Personnel Administration Quarterly] 25 (Aug. 1983): 96.

[42] Nakane Chie, Tate shakai no ningen kankei: Tan'itsu shakai no riron [Human Relations in a Vertical Society: The Theory of a Homogeneous Society] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1967), pp. 26-67 and passim.

[43] The administrative officials in Jinji-in's study, on which table 4 was based, experienced between eleven and thirteen changes of assignment; the average duration of each assignment was less than two years. Jinji-in, Kyuyokyoku, "Kyu kanri seidoka ni okeru kotokan no keireki chosa no kekka gaiyo," p. 108.

Takahashi Hideki's analysis of the career patterns of 145 officials who entered the Finance Ministry after passing the higher civil-service examinations during the Taisho era (1912-26) shows that those who eventually achieved the positions of bureau chief or administrative vice-minister typically served as financial clerks (zaimu shoki ) in overseas diplomatic or consular missions within the first year or two of appointment and then as heads of local tax offices (zeimushocho ) before being assigned to the headquarters. After serving in a number of posts, they would reach the post of section chief in their fourteenth year of service.^[44]

Such practices, reinforced by the cultural norms of tate shakai , bred jurisdictional rivalries between ministries that were dysfunctional for the government as a whole. Jealous guarding of turfs even occurred within the same ministry in some cases.^[45]

Security Of Tenure

Civil servants in prewar Japan enjoyed security of tenure, a sine qua non of rational-legal bureaucracy as stipulated by Max Weber.^[46] As was true in the Weberian model, this was a relative kind of security rather than an absolute one. In Weber's words, "where legal guarantees against arbitrary dismissal or transfer are developed, they merely serve to guarantee a strictly objective discharge or specific duties free from all personal considerations."^[47]

An imperial ordinance on the status of civil officials (Bunkan Bungenrei ) promulgated in 1899 enumerated three grounds on which civil officials might be discharged: (1) inability to perform duties due to injury, illness, or enfeeblement of mind and body; (2) request by an official invoking illness or other personal circumstances; and (3)

[44] Takahashi Hideki, "Kobun seidoka no shoshin jittai no bunseki" [Analysis of Promotion Patterns Under the (Prewar) Higher Examination System] I, Jinji-in geppo 342(Aug. 1979): 23-24.

[45] For an elaboration of this point, see Albert M. Craig, "Functional and Dysfunctional Aspects of Government Bureaucracy" in Vogel, ed., Modern Japanese Organization and Decision-Making , pp. 15-17. See also Spaulding, "The Bureaucracy as a Political Force," pp. 56-60. Spaulding points out that the adverse effects of sectionalism were somewhat mitigated by "informal collaboration among bureaucrats of different ministries," which "appears to have been very common.' Ibid., p. 58.

[46] Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, trans. and eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 202-3; Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization , trans. A.M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 333-34.

[47] Gerth and Mills, From Max Weber , p. 202.

reduction in force occasioned by reorganization. The same ordinance specified that officials might be furloughed for any of the following reasons: (1) recommendation of disciplinary action by the disciplinary committee; (2) being charged with a crime; (3) reduction in force occasioned by reorganization; and (4) administrative necessity in the ministry or agency concerned. Because this last-mentioned ground lent itself to abuse by party politicians, it was tightened up in 1932 by requiring review of any proposed furlough on grounds of administrative necessity by the committee on the status of officials. The second ground for furlough was also revised to read "being indicted in a criminal case."^[48]

Early Retirement

Although civil servants enjoyed a relatively high degree of job security and were in effect guaranteed lifetime employment, their actual careers were fairly short. According to MacDonald and Esman, most higher officials were expected to retire in their late forties. In as much as the pension scheme allowed civil officials "to retire after 17 years of service on one third of their base pay," those who retired in their late forties or even in their early fifties found it necessary to supplement their income somehow.^[49] Some found their "second careers" in private business, and others "received Imperial nominations to the old House of Peers."^[50]

[48] Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," II, pp. 10-11; ibid., III, Jinji-in geppo 97 (Mar. 1959): 8-9.

[49] MacDonald and Esman, "The Japanese Civil Service," pp. 222-23. The quotation is from p. 222. Chalmers Johnson writes, however, that the "prewar civilian bureaucracy did not retire as early as contemporary officials do." See his article "The Reemployment of Retired Government Bureaucrats in Japanese Big Business," Asian Survey 14, no. 11 (Nov. 1974): 958. In the absence of any statistical evidence, it is difficult to reconcile the conflicting views.

[50] Johnson, ibid., p. 958. Kusayanagi Daizo writes that prewar pensions were generally sufficient to support retired civil officials. See his book, Kanryo okoku ron [On the Kingdom of Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 1975), p. 78. Strictly speaking, whether pensions were adequate or not is a relative matter. From 1931 to 1945, for example, the basic salary of administrative vice-minister was 5,796 yen, and that of bureau chief was 4,572 yen. The amount of annual pension for a former vice-minister, therefore, would be 1,932 yen, and that for a former bureau chief 1,524 yen. This would mean that the retired vice-minister would still receive more than the highest-paid hannin official in his midcareer. The pension for a retired bureau chief, on the other hand, would be on a par with the salary of the second-highest-paid hannin official (1,540 yen) and a sonin official with four or five years of service. See the salary schedule for 1931 officials in Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," p. 129. Between 1894 and 1935, a total of 146 retired bureaucrats served as cabinet ministers, 152 as members of the House of Peers, 295 as members of the House of Representatives, and 24 as elected prefectural governors. Fifteen others served as advisers to the Privy Council. See Hata, Kanryo no kenkyu , p. 25.

A key factor that helps to explain the phenomenon of early retirement was the unwritten rule within the bureaucracy decreeing that all members of the same entering class in a given ministry should resign as soon as one of them attained the position of administrative vice-minister. This custom served the dual function of sparing the vice-minister the embarrassment of having to issue orders to members of his peer group and of clearing the way for advancement of younger officials to senior posts. The former is an important consideration in Japanese culture, where a strong sense of hierarchy is counterbalanced by an equally strong sense of equality among the cohort. Having passed the higher civil-service examination and entered the ministry in the same year, the cohort typically forged extremely close personal ties throughout their government careers.

Conclusion

In sum, the emergence of a modern government bureaucracy in prewar Japan resulted from both internal and external factors. The decision of the Meiji oligarchs to adopt the trappings of modern government, including a constitution, a parliament, a cabinet, and a merit bureaucracy, reflected their desire not only to appease the internal forces championing the cause of democracy but also to convince foreign powers that Japan merited respect and, above all, equal treatment.

Both the constitutional framework and the structure and principles of bureaucracy that the Japanese ultimately adopted were patterned after the German model. Enshrining the myth of imperial supremacy, the new system, in effect, bestowed awesome powers on those who presumed to act as the emperor's agents, which included the bureaucrats. The single most important feature of the bureaucracy was the institutionalization of the merit principle: civil-service examinations became firmly established as the principal means of selecting the most qualified candidates for the exercise of bureaucratic authority.

The Japanese also borrowed from their German model a system of rigid stratification, which separated officials from nonofficials and divided officials into two distinctly unequal status groups, kotokan and hanninkan . The former was in turn divided into three classes and nine grades. The veritable caste system all this spawned necessarily entailed a pronounced degree of elitism. Such elitism, it should be stressed, was based not on ascription but on achievement. A major factor contributing to and sustaining this tendency was the domination of the higher

civil service, both in number and in influence, by graduates of Tokyo Imperial University, an institution designed originally as a training school for government officials.

Another notable feature of the prewar Japanese bureaucracy was legalism, which manifested itself in two ways: the preponderance of law graduates in the higher civil service and the preeminence of laws, rules, regulations, and precedents in public administration. A corollary of these twin phenomena was the ascendancy of administrative officials trained in law over technical specialists. Although a numerical minority, the former controlled most of the levers of power, outperforming the latter in promotion by a substantial margin.

The propensity of bureaucratic organizations to guard their bailiwicks against encroachment by their rivals is a universal phenomenon. However, it was reinforced in Japan by the cultural norms of a "vertical society" and by institutional practices; the latter included the decentralized hiring of civil servants, the custom of lifetime employment, and the infrequency of interministerial transfers. Like their counterparts elsewhere, Japanese civil servants enjoyed a high degree of job security. However, its benefits were somewhat diluted by the practice of early retirement; "lifetime" employment meant considerably less than what it implied, for, according to MacDonald and Esman, retirement typically occurred in the late forties, the prime of the bureaucrat's life. This, too, was a function, in part, of cultural norms, notably a strong sense of equality among the cohort and the resultant difficulty of maintaining hierarchical relationships among them. No less important was the function the practice performed for the organization as a whole: facilitating frequent turnovers at its upper echelons, where, because of the structural imperative of a hierarchical organization, positions become progressively scarce.

The Japanese experience demonstrated the inherent limits of foreign institutional models. Although they perform the indispensable function of guiding the uninitiated groping in the dark, their actual impact in the adopted country is contingent upon the dynamics of politics and, above all, their interaction with cultural norms.

Chapter Three
Civil-Service Reform Under the American Occupation

After its unconditional surrender in World War II, Japan entered a new phase: the first foreign occupation in its history. Nominally an Allied occupation, it was in reality an American show. The seven-year occupation proved to be an epochal turning point in Japanese history, for it helped to lay the groundwork for the democratization of Japanese society and polity alike.

As part of the multifaceted program of political democratization, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) carried out a comprehensive reform of Japan's civil-service system. What were the objectives of the reform? How was it implemented? What problems and difficulties did it encounter? What did it actually accomplish? This chapter will explore these questions, with special attention to the differing perceptions of SCAP and Japanese participants in what Robert E. Ward has called "an experiment in planned political change."^[1]

The Backdrop

The Legacy Of Abortive Reforms

The prewar Japanese bureaucracy, which struck American observers as archaic, even abominable, had its share of domestic critics as well. There

[1] Robert E. Ward, "Reflections on the Allied Occupation and Planned Political Change in Japan" in Ward, ed., Political Development in Modern Japan , pp. 477-535.

were a series of proposals for reform, some emanating from the government itself. The first serious proposal for reform came from the Hirota Koki government (March 1936-February 1937), which had been formed in the aftermath of the attempted coup d'éat known as the 26 February incident. Widely viewed as originating in the military, the proposal called for the establishment of a central personnel agency under the direct control of the prime minister and for the expansion of the scope of discretionary appointment. The former was aimed at increasing government efficiency by combating "sectionalism"—the endemic interministerial rivalries—whereas the latter must be viewed against the backdrop of the emasculation of political parties. In as much as the possibility that party politicians might abuse the power of discretionary appointment had been eliminated, there was no longer any compelling reason to restrict the appointment powers of the government.^[2]

The first Konoe government (June 1937-January 1939) revived the idea of civil-service reform. In January 1938 it circulated a proposal, drafted by the cabinet legislation bureau, to establish a central personnel agency, increase the scope of discretionary appointment, revise the higher civil-service examination, initiate a program for retraining officials, and abolish security of tenure for officials. Among other things, these measures were aimed at undercutting sectionalism, enabling the government to recruit capable people from a broader base, combating hoka banno (the omnipotence of law graduates), and rejuvenating the bureaucracy. However, the proposal ran into stiff resistance by bureaucrats, particularly those in the powerful Home Ministry. It was eventually watered down to two components: utilizing the existing mechanism of periodic administrative vice-ministers' conferences in lieu of a new personnel agency and setting up a cabinet personnel committee designed to foster personnel exchanges among the various ministries.^[3]

The year 1941 saw a proliferation of proposals for civil-service reform: they emanated from such diverse sources as the Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Taisei Yokusankai), the newly created government party that replaced all other political parties; the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Nihon Shoko Kaigisho); and the Associa-

[2] Ide Yoshinori, Nihon kanryosei to gyosei bunka [Japanese Bureaucracy and Administrative Culture] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1982), pp. 151-52; Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei, p. 131."

[3] Watanabe, "Nihon no komuinsei," p. 131; Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 152-55; Miyake, Gyoseigaku to gyosei kanri, pp. 88-97.

tion for the Study of National Policy (Kokusaku Kenkyukai). The proposal put forth by the Taisei Yokusankai is particularly noteworthy, for it was based on comments elicited from thirty-five leading scholars, journalists, and former officials. Among other things, it advocated (1) the establishment of a cabinet personnel agency (Naikaku Jinji-cho) empowered to unify, coordinate, and control personnel administration in all ministries and agencies; (2) the reclassification and refinement of all government positions along functional lines; (3) the elimination of hoka banno , coupled with the recruitment of promising persons solely on the basis of character and ability; (4) the introduction of an administrative audit system and the clarification of responsibility on the part of officials; (5) the curtailment of frequent reassignments among officials; (6) the replacement of lethargy (koto nakare shugi ) with an active and responsible posture; (7) the training and retraining of officials; (8) the replacement of sectionalism with communication and cooperation among the various ministries and agencies; and (9) the promotion of scientific procedures, efficiency, and speed in public administration.^[4]

The Kokusaku Kenkyukai echoed most of the preceding ideas and added a few new ones: the preferential treatment of persons possessing special skills, improved treatment of lower-level officials, and the exchange of personnel between the public and private sectors, the central government and localities, and the center and the periphery (kanmin, chuo-chiho, nai-gaichi no koryu jinji ). Endorsing all of these ideas, the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry particularly stressed the importance of reforming the civil-service examinations and expanding the scope of discretionary appointment. The reform of the examinations, in its view, should focus on the elimination of both hoka banno and what it saw as as an overemphasis on knowledge. In sum, there emerged a broad consensus on three key points: (1) the need for change in the basic posture of officials and for the establishment of a new code of behavior for officials, (2) the need for the reform or introduction of various institutional and technical devices, and (3) the importance of setting up a central personnel agency.^[5]

These sweeping suggestions, however, produced but meager results. The only thing the second Konoe cabinet (July 1940-July 1941) succeeded in implementing was a limited reform of the higher examina-

[4] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 147-49; Miyake, Gyoseigaku , pp. 98-99.

[5] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 149-50.

tions.^[6] Whether what happened can be described as reform is debatable. As analyzed by Spaulding, there were three changes in the examination system, of which the "first two were obviously political: Japanese history was to become a compulsory subject in all three career fields [administrative, judicial, and diplomatic], and there was to be a compulsory oral in constitutional law which would include a 'character' examination." The third change had to do with the abolition of diplomatic examinations as a separate, independent category. This, according to Spaulding, was an "essentially punitive" move against the diplomatic service, which "had long annoyed other ministries with its air of exclusiveness and had antagonized the army by resisting its policies in China."^[7]

Instead of being abolished altogether, however, the diplomatic examinations were absorbed into the administrative examinations; moreover, because candidates for the diplomatic service continued to be differentiated from other candidates, what had changed was form, not substance. The effects of the Konoe revisions were further diluted by the suspension of all examinations after 1943, a development that was necessitated by the conscription of university students into military or other war-related services.^[8] The compromise solution of the proposal for a cabinet personnel agency, namely, the setting up of an interministerial liaison committee within the Home Ministry, fizzled amidst the confusion of a wartime government in its final throes.^[9]

Prelude To Reform In Occupied Japan

The Occupation took the form of indirect rule, hence the Japanese government nominally retained authority to initiate some policy measures. More important, the Japanese government was primarily responsible for implementing all policy directives emanating from SCAP. As it became clear that SCAP's top priority was the democratization of Japan, the leaders of the Japanese government realized that reform of the bureaucracy would be a matter of time. As a self-defensive measure, they tried to anticipate and forestall any SCAP-initiated reform: as early as September 1945 the cabinet legislation bureau was instructed

[6] For details of the reform, see Wada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," III, pp. 10-11.

[7] Spaulding, Imperial Japan's Higher Civil Service Examinations , p. 175.

[8] Ibid., p. 176.

[9] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , p. 156.

to mobilize all of its resources to study the matter and submit a draft plan.^[10]

On 13 November, the Shidehara cabinet approved a plan containing the following features:

First, official nomenclature (kanmei ) shall be streamlined and unified. All the titles bearing the expression kan (literally "official") shall be replaced by one or another of the two titles, jimukan (administrative official) and gikan (technical official).

Second, the distinction between higher officials (kotokan ) and ordinary officials (hanninkan ) shall be abolished. The ranks of chokuninkan, soninkan , and hanninkan shall be replaced by grades 1 through 3 (ikkyu, nikyu , and sankyu ).

Third, there shall be established a unified compensation system that distributes rewards according to length of service and merit, regardless of rank or grade.

Fourth, the frequency of reassignments shall be curtailed. Means of implementing the principle whereby each official serves in one position for a fixed period of time shall be studied.

Fifth, while maintaining the system of appointing officials from among those who have passed competitive examinations, the government shall explore ways of increasing the scope of appointments based on evaluation (senko nin'yo ) and of improving the examination system in the following way: (1) reappraise the subjects in which candidates are examined with a view to identifying the best-qualified candidates for all openings; (2) appoint a substantial number of practitioners from both the public and private sectors as examiners so as to achieve a balance between theory and practice in the examinations; (3) study the possibility of instituting a trainee (or probationary) system in conjunction with the higher examinations.

Sixth, the possibility of providing all new appointees with several months of training both within the government and in the private sector shall be studied. For in-service training, either an institute shall be established or existing academic institutions such as universities shall be utilized.

[10] Ibid., pp. 157-58.

Seventh, the possibility of placing an inspector (kansatsukan ) both in the cabinet and in each ministry shall be studied. It will be his responsibility to monitor performance and study ways of improving employee welfare with a view to increasing efficiency and equity.

Eighth, the possibility of establishing a performance-evaluation system both within the cabinet and in each ministry shall be studied. All officials in grade 2 or below shall be subject to such a system insofar as their promotion, salary increase, and other rewards are concerned.^[11]

What was striking about the preceding plan was that the proposed changes were more cosmetic than substantive. The substitution of "grades 1, 2, and 3" for chokuninkan, soninkan , and hanninkan , for example, did not really address the fundamental issue of status hierarchy in the bureaucracy. Nor did the plan contain many ideas that were really new. Nearly all of the ideas had been proposed before. Moreover, most of the items in the plan called for further study rather than immediate action. Finally, there was a conspicuous omission in the plan: nowhere did it mention the idea of setting up a central personnel agency, notwithstanding its prominent place in the wartime proposals for reform. In a word, this episode demonstrated that the Japanese government was either unable or unwilling to initiate meaningful change in the bureaucracy on its own.

Drawing Up The Blueprint For Reform

The Esman Memorandum

It was against this backdrop that the first significant step in the direction of civil-service reform was taken by SCAP. On 30 January, 1946, First Lieutenant Milton J. Esman of the Public Administration Division, Government Section, SCAP General Headquarters, wrote a memorandum for Brigadier General Courtney Whitney, chief of the Government Section. Esman, who had served on the staff of the United States Civil Service Commission before entering military service, began by noting the power and pivotal position of the bureaucracy in Japanese society.

[11] Ibid., pp. 158-60; Miyake, Gyoseigaku , pp. 110-11.

"Of all the major bulwarks of feudal and totalitarian Japan," he wrote, "only the bureaucracy remains unimpaired. The bureaucracy will definitely outlast the occupation and will play a decisive role of moulding the future of Japan."^[12]

What disturbed Esman most was the absence of any sign that the bureaucracy was likely to change its ways "without constant pressure and guidance from this Headquarters." He saw a direct linkage between democracy and bureaucracy: "Modern democratic government requires a democratic and efficient public service. Merely to reform obvious abuses—which has not yet been accomplished will not provide the minimum level of efficiency necessary to democratic administration now that the police are no longer available to perform the operating function of government." Hence, Esman concluded, only "a thoroughgoing democratization and modernization of the civil service" would ensure the survival of a democratic political system in the post-Occupation period. Such a step would necessitate "relentless pressure from this Headquarters" as well as "guidance on the proper techniques to employ."^[13]

In addition to the concerns noted above, there was a compelling practical consideration: SCAP feared the possibility that "ideologically hostile bureaucrats would by administrative sabotage nullify Occupation policies or the programs of Japanese political leaders evolved pursuant thereto." SCAP sought to reduce the risk not only by "constant vigilance and surveillance" but also by "the removal of identifiable militarists and ultranationalists from public life." Another countermeasure was the strengthening of countervailing institutions, notably the Diet.^[14] Yet SCAP was under no illusion that these measures could effectively curb the entrenched powers of the bureaucrats. In fact, SCAP's purge program that was implemented between 1946 and 1948 hardly touched the bureaucracy. According to Hans H. Baerwald, only "145 members of the senior civil service" were actually removed. All

[12] See the text of Esman's memorandum in the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), Government Section, Political Reorientation of Japan (Grosse Pointe, Mich.: Scholarly Press, 1968), vol. 2: Appendixes, p. 578. This is a reproduction of a report originally published in 1949 by the U.S. Government Printing Office.

[13] Ibid., In prewar and wartime Japan, the police performed multiple functions: in addition to maintaining law and order, they exercised "thought control," mobilized the populace for various purposes, and served as the bulwark of state power. This is what Esman was referring to when he used the phrase, "now that the police are no longer available to perform the operating functions of government."

[14] Ibid., I, pp. 246-47.

told, 830 out of 42,251 bureaucrats (1.9 percent) who were screened were purged.^[15] In short, it was plain that a basic restructuring of Japanese bureaucracy was prerequisite to both the short-term needs and the long-term goals of the Occupation.

Recognizing the need for reform, however, was one thing; undertaking effective measures to fill that need was quite another. As T. J. Pempel shows, there was a considerable gap between American rhetoric and behavior. Not only did civil-service reform receive a relatively low priority from SCAP; both its conception and its implementation were flawed by the "unquestioned search for rationality and efficiency" and by "organizational politics."^[16] Let us nonetheless examine the sequence of key events pertaining to civil-service reform in occupied Japan.

Japanese Request For Assistance

Consistent with the tone of the Esman memorandum, which strongly advocated the need for pressure and guidance, SCAP first considered the option of issuing a formal memorandum "directing the Japanese Government to appoint a special commission of experts to draft proposals for basic reform of civil-service system under SCAP guidance pursuant to standards to be set up by SCAP." However, it decided that a more prudent course of action would be to try to induce the Japanese to initiate the necessary action in the direction desired by SCAP. In February 1946 the cabinet legislation bureau submitted to the government section a plan for limited reform of the civil service based on the cabinet decision of November 1945. Included in the proposed plan were a simplification of official nomenclature; the abolition of the ranks of chokuninkan, soninkan , and hanninkan in favor of three numbered grades; a simplification of pay and allowance scales; and some changes in the content of the higher civil-service examination. Acknowledging that the plan would not entail any fundamental changes, the bureau nonetheless "claimed that it represented an initial break in the traditional system and was a forerunner of more basic changes." The government section cleared the plan with reservations: it called the plan

[15] Hans H. Baerwald, The Purge of Japanese Leaders Under the Occupation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. 82.

[16] T. J. Pempel, "The Tar Baby Target: 'Reform' of the Japanese Bureaucracy," in Robert E. Ward and Sakamoto Yoshikazu, eds., Democratizing Japan: The Allied Occupation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 157-87. The quotations are from p. 181.

"a step in the right direction" but insisted that "fundamental reforms" must still occur.^[17]

As it became increasingly plain that the strategy of inducing the Japanese government to initiate basic structural reform of its bureaucracy was ineffective, the idea of a more forceful approach was resuscitated. In April 1946, the government section reconsidered the option of issuing a formal SCAP directive on civil-service reform to the Japanese government. There was support for the idea from five other sections of the General Headquarters. The main obstacle to such action was that it would be inconsistent with the "technique of leadership as opposed to direction employed by the Government Section beginning about March 1946." Had an unexpected break not come, however, such a directive would most probably have been issued. On 3 May, a letter signed by Finance Minister Shibusawa Keizo was delivered to the finance division of the economic and scientific section of the SCAP General Headquarters. It requested assistance in the revision of the salary and allowance system of Japanese government personnel in accordance with a position-classification plan and suggested that SCAP invite some experts from the United States to "give advice and make a draft plan for the revision now under consideration."^[18]

The immediate response of the finance division was to forward the letter to the government section for appropriate action. The latter's counterpart in the Japanese government was the cabinet legislation bureau, which also had jurisdiction over matters affecting the civil service as a whole. However, in keeping with the tradition of "sectionalism," the Finance Ministry had neither consulted nor notified the bureau of what it was doing. The two government agencies, in short, were on a collision course. A potentially serious conflict was averted, however, when the Japanese cabinet on 14 May reached a compromise: in return for an apology from the finance minister, the director general (chokan ) of the legislation bureau accepted the idea of requesting the visit of an American advisory mission. Accordingly, the cabinet approved and forwarded to SCAP a formal request to that effect in its

[17] SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 247-48. The quotation is from p. 247. See also Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 161-62 and 169-70.

[18] SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 248 and 259. Although the narrative says on p. 248 that the letter was "personally submitted" by the Finance Minister on 3 May 1946, the text of the letter on p. 579 bears the date 25 Apr. 1946. It is probable that the letter was written and signed on 25 Apr. but not delivered to the SCAP General Headquarters until 3 May.

name. The stage was thus set for the entry of American experts onto the scene.^[19]

It should be stressed that there was a considerable gap between Japanese and American perceptions of these moves. The Japanese left no doubt that what was being requested was technical assistance on a specialized subject—a restructuring of their salary and allowance system based on a position-classification plan. The Americans, on the other hand, interpreted the Japanese request as envisaging a comprehensive review of the entire civil-service system. The official history of the Occupation prepared by the government section states: "The Japanese Government was now officially on record as requesting, with complete cabinet accord, the assistance of a mission of American experts to study and draft plans for a fundamental reform of its civil service system ."^[20] This is not to suggest that the reform-minded Americans were not aware of the perception gap. In fact, the official SCAP history goes on to note that whereas "the Japanese request was motivated by a desire for higher efficiency and morale, . . . the Occupation's basic aim was democratization."^[21]

The Hoover Mission

In November 1946, the United States Personnel Advisory Mission to Japan arrived in Tokyo. It was headed by Blaine Hoover, president of the Civil Service Assembly of the United States and Canada, and included three other members: Manlio F. DeAngelis, Chief, Program Planning Staff, the United States Civil Service Commission (USCSC); Robert S. Hare, Chief, Field Classification, USCSC; and W. Pierce MacCoy, Director of Personnel, the United States Department of State. Prior to the arrival of the Hoover mission, the Japanese government had set up the Administrative Research Bureau (Gyosei Chosabu) under the jurisdiction of the prime minister, with the understanding that the Bureau would serve as the counterpart to the mission.^[22]

[19] Ibid., pp. 248 and 580.

[20] Ibid., p. 248. Emphasis added. For a discussion of Japanese perceptions, see Asai Kiyoshi, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi [Detailed Commentaries on the National Public Service Law, New Edition] (Tokyo: Gakuyo Shobo, 1970), pp. 1-3; Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 174-75.

[21] SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 248-49. For an informative discussion of the perception gap and other problems during the Occupation, see Kusayanagi Daizo, Nihon kaitai [The Dissolution of Japan] (Tokyo: Gyosei, 1985), pp. 241-53 and passim. The focus of this book is on the SCAP-ordered dissolution of the Home Ministry.

[22] SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 249-50; Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , p. 2.

How the two worked together or failed to work together is another interesting story that illustrates the inherent asymmetry of victor and vanquished in an occupied territory. Whereas the official history of the Occupation gives the impression that the two worked closely and harmoniously, a Japanese participant in the process paints a strikingly different picture. According to SCAP's version:

Organized conferences between the Mission and the President and Division Directors of Staff of the Administrative Research Bureau were instituted [on] December 24, 1946. The work of the Mission and the Bureau was integrated and for technical purposes decentralized. Committees under the advisorship of the Mission members and including Division Directors of the Administrative Research Bureau were set up to conduct investigation in designated areas of personnel administration within the Japanese Government. These committees immediately launched their programs.^[23]

Asai Kiyoshi, who served as the director of the Public Servants' Division (Komuinbucho) in the bureau at the time, writes, however, that the "organized conferences between the Mission and . . . the Bureau" consisted of two get-togethers during which only idle remarks (zatsudan ) were exchanged, that the nature of collaboration between the two sides was confined to technical matters only, and that no one from the Japanese side had been asked to provide any input into the drafting of a new public-service law then under way.^[24] In short, what the Japanese did was not to work with but to work for the Americans.

An important step in the Hoover mission's work was to supervise the Administrative Research Bureau in conducting a "pilot" position-classification survey with multiple aims: to generate data on the relationship between pay and the actual work performed by the various types of government employees, "to develop effective methods of making position classification surveys in the Japanese Government and to try them out," and to train Japanese experts in position classification.^[25]

What the pilot survey yielded was not only the first position-classification plan in the history of Japanese public administration but also a wealth of information about the structure and functioning of the Japanese bureaucracy. In general, the new data served to confirm the old impressions about Japanese administration and to reinforce the ethnocentric biases of Western observers: Japanese bureaucracy was found to

[23] SCAP, Political Reorientation , p. 250.

[24] Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , p. 2.

[25] SCAP, Political Reorientation , p. 250.

be "weak" in virtually all areas—recruitment, examination, compensation, employee utilization and evaluation, recreation, retirement, equitable treatment of employees, and even discipline. The only areas in which "Japanese administrators had gained some experience . . . [that] could be utilized in building a modern personnel program" were those of "personal [sic ] training, health and welfare." What concerned the American experts was that, apart from its premodern nature, the Japanese bureaucracy was still dominated by "old-line officials of the predemocratic" era who might impede, even sabotage, programs and policies aimed at the democratization of Japan. The mission concluded that "the legislative enactment of a national public service law" embodying high "standards of merit and equitable treatment in public personnel administration" would help "force out" such people, while simultaneously allowing "the selection and appointment of objectively qualified replacements."^[26]

In drafting a national public-service law, the mission sought to be guided by four key criteria: (1) adequacy, (2) simplicity of standards, (3) recognition of the individuality of Japan, and (4) practicality.^[27] Whether the actual performance matched the professed goals, however, is open to question. Total exclusion of the Japanese in the drafting process, for example, seriously undercut the mission's ability to implement the last two criteria. Even the first two lost much meaning, because their contents were unilaterally determined by the Americans without a sufficient understanding of Japanese perceptions of what was adequate and simple.

On 24 April 1947, five months after its members set foot in Japan, the mission completed a draft of the proposed law and submitted an interim report to SCAP. The speed with which this was done reflected the mission's sense of urgency in replacing "the feudalistic bureaucracy" with a "modern system of civil service." The report contained three key recommendations:

first, the creation within the Japanese Government of a powerful central personnel agency;

second, action to secure enactment of the proposed national public service law, providing service-wide standards of personnel administration under

[26] Ibid., pp. 250-51. The Americans were not alone in perceiving the threat to democratic reforms posed by the entrenched bureaucrats. For an expression of similar views, see Tsuji, Shinpan Nihon kanryosei no kenkyu , pp. 242-81.

[27] SCAP, Political Reorientation , p. 251.

which a democratically oriented merit service could be established and the efficiency of the service promoted; and

third, the establishment of civil service division in the Government Section to advise the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers on programs, policies, and procedures relative to the reform of the personnel system of the Japanese Government.^[28]

The civil-service division was established on 1 June 1947, and took over the work of the mission, which was officially terminated on 16 June 1947. The chairman of the mission, Blaine Hoover, however, was appointed as head of the new division, thus ensuring continuity of outlook and a smooth transition. Hoover was concurrently appointed special assistant to the chief of the government section.^[29] Meanwhile, on 11 June 1947, the Japanese government learned for the first time of the existence and contents of the draft legislation. Its leaders, including those who had supposedly collaborated in the work of the Hoover mission, were dumbfounded. Some of them used the expression "Yabu o tsutsuite hebi o dashita" ('One pokes at a bush and causes a snake to come out'). That is to say, what the Japanese did was to ask for technical assistance in reforming their pay and allowance system but received instead a comprehensive plan for a fundamental reform of the entire civil-service system. What is more, the plan was in reality a command. Hoover is said to have told Katayama Tetsu, the newly elected Socialist prime minister of Japan, that the draft must be enacted into law "without any revision within a few weeks."^[30]

Enacting The National Public-Service Law

Japanese Handling Of The Hoover Draft

So long as the Occupation adhered to the policy of indirect rule, it was the responsibility of the Japanese to turn the draft into a law. Furthermore, if the goal of effecting fundamental reform that would outlast the Occupation was to be attained, it was imperative that the Japanese be persuaded of the intrinsic merits of the draft. Viewed from this perspective, the apparently high-handed manner in which the

[28] Ibid., p. 252.

[29] Ibid., p. 253.

[30] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 183-90; Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , pp. 2-3; Ward, "Reflections on the Allied Occupation," p. 509.

Hoover mission behaved was bound to be counterproductive in the long run. The personality of Blaine Hoover appears to have been a source of difficulty, for he was perceived by the Japanese as arrogant, arbitrary, and insensitive to Japanese needs.

The cabinet legislation bureau and the administrative research bureau worked jointly on the translation of the draft into Japanese, completing the task within a week. The Japanese version laid bare numerous problem areas. For one thing the articles were overly long. In many cases, what would normally require twenty separate articles in a Japanese statute was jammed into a single article. As for its substance, the Japanese were particularly struck by the extensive powers and special status of the proposed National Personnel Authority, the prohibition of strikes by government employees, and the position of the Emperor. After dividing the national public service into the regular government service (ippan shoku ) and the special government service (tokubetsu shoku ), the American draft had listed the Emperor under the latter.^[31]

Even though the new constitution of Japan that had just entered into force formally downgraded the Emperor to a mere "symbol of the state and of the unity of the people" (art. 1), the Japanese found it hard to swallow the notion that the Emperor was a tokubetsu shoku employee of the Japanese government, along with the prime minister, ministers of state, vice-ministers, ambassadors, judges, and other high-ranking officials.^[32]

The Japanese version of the draft was circulated among all government ministries and agencies, and their views and comments were solicited. On the basis of the latter, the administrative research bureau, in collaboration with the cabinet legislation bureau, prepared a memorandum on "Opinions on the Draft National Public-Service Law." The memorandum, dated 24 June 1947, acknowledged the need for a "fundamental reform of our country's bureaucratic system" so as to enable "national public servants" to become the "servants of the people in a true sense," noted that the draft was designed to fill that need, and stated that the document, on the whole, was an acceptable one. However, it added, there were a number of problems from a technical standpoint as well as from the perspective of the new constitution and

[31] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 190-91.

[32] The constitution was promulgated on 3 Nov. 1946, and entered into force on 3 May 1947. It replaced the Meiji constitution of 1889. See SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 82-118.

other related laws that needed to be ironed out before the draft could be fully accepted. It then enumerated ten points:

1. It is not clear whether the National Personnel Authority will be independent of or subject to the supervision of the prime minister; it will be necessary to make the status of the authority consistent with the constitution that enshrines the basic principles of a parliamentary cabinet system (gi'in naikakusei ).

2. The draft lacks any provisions regarding the status of officials, such as a guarantee against arbitrary dismissal. Even though the gap may be filled by regulations of the authority, the basic principles on this issue should be embodied in the proposed law.

3. The draft states that regulations issued by the authority (Jinji-in kisoku ) shall have the same effect as laws and that its decisions shall be final and not subject to judicial review. This raises questions about the authority's relationship with the Diet and the Supreme Court and ought to be changed.

4. The scope of this law ought to be limited so as to exclude the Emperor, court employees who are not judges, employees of the public prosecutor's office (Kensatsucho), and teachers.

5. The organization and finances of the National Personnel Authority are questionable. It may be advisable to delete the provisions that confer special status on its president and commissioners as well as those dealing with its finances.

6. The significance of promotion examinations remains unclear; it seems unwise to base all promotions on the results of examinations.

7. There is a need to clarify the meaning of the provisions regarding strikes by employees.

8. The provisions dealing with punishments need to be streamlined and made more explicit in accordance with the principle that all crimes and punishments ought to be determined by law (zaikei hotei shugi ).

9. The format of this law should be changed to conform to that of other Japanese laws.

10. There is a view that the draft should be so revised as to make it applicable to local-government employees as well.^[33]

[33] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 191-92.

The preceding views were conveyed to the American authorities on 26 June in a document that had been especially drawn up for that purpose. The Japanese argued that stylistic changes were necessary to dispel the impression that the law was of foreign origin. Substantive changes were justified on the ground that, without them, the Japanese government would lack the confidence to submit the draft to the Diet as its own and to argue convincingly and responsibly for its passage. Stressing that it had no objections whatever to the purposes and general principles of the proposed law, the Katayama government appealed for American cooperation in adapting the draft to the realities of Japan.^[34]

These were indeed compelling arguments vis-à-vis the Occupation, which officially adhered to the policy of government by leadership rather than by direction and had reiterated the view that the Japanese must be allowed to develop institutions suited to their own needs if the democratic experiment was to succeed. Nonetheless, Hoover told Prime Minister Katayama that since the charge given to him by General MacArthur was to ascertain whether the Japanese government accepted or rejected the draft in its entirety, he lacked the authority to forward a conditional answer. He did, however, intend to report to General MacArthur that the Japanese authorities concurred in the aims and basic ideas of the draft and predicted that discussions with the Japanese would soon begin. Incidentally, Hoover reportedly insisted on dealing only with the prime minister. On 3 July, Hoover asked the Japanese government to submit proposed changes in the form of draft legislation by 7 July. Katayama sought and received an extension of this deadline to 31 July.^[35]

On 10 July, Hoover left Japan for the United States on an extended leave, entrusting the task of overseeing the passage of the proposed law to C. P. Marcum, his deputy in the civil-service division. The Japanese, recalling the maxim "oni no inai aida no sentaku" (doing laundry while the devil is away), worked feverishly to produce their own draft legislation incorporating all desired changes, both stylistic and substantive. In a covering letter accompanying the new draft sent to the government section on 31 July, Prime Minister Katayama minimized the importance of proposed changes, saying that they were either stylistic or minor. "Although [the revised draft] may appear to be considerably different from your original draft," he said, "it is not substantially

[34] Ibid., pp. 192-94.

[35] Ibid., p. 194.

different from [your draft] in terms of basic principles." The key changes cited in his letter, nonetheless, were revealing. The power of the National Personnel Authority would be reduced by, inter alia, omitting the provisions dealing with its finances that would have given it a measure of independence in budgetary matters; the authority's power to enact regulations having the effect of law would be reduced; and key provisions dealing with the prohibition of strikes by public servants would be deleted.^[36]

Significantly, all of the preceding points remained intact in the final version approved by the government section on 26 August 1947. What is more, when the Japanese authorities failed to resolve a dispute pertaining to a key concept in position classification with Marcum, it resorted to the devious tactic of leaving it in the English version but deleting it in the Japanese version. Needless to say, it was the latter that was submitted to the Diet for approval. The subsequent discovery of this ploy by Hoover led to the temporary abolition of the cabinet legislation bureau.^[37]

Up to this point, at the request of SCAP, all the information regarding civil-service reform had been withheld from the public, including members of the Diet. The publication of the draft by the Katayama government on 27 August, three days prior to its formal submission to the Diet, therefore marked its entrance into the public arena. Press reaction was generally favorable. Major dailies endorsed the proposed legislation; they noted that the establishment of the National Personnel Authority and the proposal to use examinations not only for recruitment but also for promotion would help bolster the merit principle, place personnel administration on a scientific basis, and improve efficiency, equity, and objectivity.^[38]

The reaction of other groups, on the other hand, was far from favorable. Even the Japan Socialist party, the senior partner in the coalition government of Katayama, voiced reservations in the Diet. The Socialists were concerned that the draft's emphasis on preserving the independence and political neutrality of civil servants and on promoting

[36] Ibid., pp. 194-96.

[37] Ibid., pp. 196-97; Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , p. 3. The disputed concept was "class" in English and shokkyu in Japanese. The two sides could not agree on its precise meaning or importance in position classification. The Cabinet Legislation Bureau was abolished on 15 Feb. 1948, and reestablished on 1 Aug. 1952. Naikaku Seido Hyaktunen-shi Hensan Iinkai, ed., Naikaku hyakunen no ayumi [The Path of One Hundred Years of the Cabinet] (Tokyo: K. K. Okyo, 1985), pp. 129 and 137.

[38] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , p. 198.

technical efficiency entailed the risk that the supreme goal of democratization might be compromised. The greatest danger, in their view, was not the patronage system but the feudalistic, faction-ridden, and privilege-conscious nature of Japanese bureaucrats. They favored the replacement of the National Personnel Authority with a five-member personnel committee (Jinji Iinkai) and the introduction of a free appointment system (jiyu nin'yo seido ) for officials above a certain level that would rely on the evaluation of candidates by the personnel committee. Such a system would, among other things, open the way for the appointment (that is, lateral entry) of experts from outside the government.^[39]

The view that the goal of democratization should take precedence over all others was echoed by the Association for the Study of Public Law (Koho Kenkyukai). The association called for the introduction of an impeachment system for corrupt officials, for further limitation of the authority's rule-making power, for the adjustment of official nomenclature to eliminate undemocratic connotations (for example, the deletion of the suffix kan from titles of public servants), and for the protection of the rights of lower-grade employees to guard against discrimination.^[40]

The Coordination Council for Public Service Unions (Zen Kanko Rodo Kumiai Kyogikai or Zenkanko) also found the draft to be weak, even retrogressive, from the standpoint of democratizing the bureaucracy. It was particularly disturbed by what it saw as the denial of fundamental rights of public servants, notably labor-related rights, arguing that such matters as their status, separation, and compensation should not be covered by the proposed law but be subject to labor legislation and contracts. The Zenkanko also favored replacing the National Personnel Authority with a personnel committee, restricting its rule-making power, and expanding the scope of free appointments. It further called for the abolition of educational requirements in civil-service examinations, the guarantee of the freedom of political activity by public servants, and the substitution of a social-security system for a pension system.^[41]

[39] Ibid., pp. 199-200.

[40] Ibid., pp. 200-201.

[41] Ibid., pp. 201-2. The phrase "educational requirements" needs to be clarified. Theoretically, "graduates of a middle school or recognized equivalent" could take the higher civil-service examination under the old system by first passing the preliminary examination. "Graduates of a higher school or recognized equivalent," however, were allowed to skip the prelim. In reality, most of the successful candidates had some college education. Spaulding, Imperial Japan , p. 262.

A surprisingly large proportion of these ideas found their way into the national public-service law that was approved by the House of Representatives of the Diet on 15 October and by the House of Councillors the following day. The National Personnel Authority thus gave way to the National Personnel Commission; the term of office for its three members was reduced from six years (renewable up to eighteen years) to four years (renewable up to twelve years); its rule-making powers were further reduced; impeachment was added to the causes for dismissal of public servants; and their political rights, such as the right to stand for an elective office, were recognized.^[42]

In sum, it is plain that, from the American standpoint, what was enacted into law by the Japanese Diet in October 1947 was a watered-down version of the original draft. However, it would be too simplistic to view the revisions in the hands of the Japanese as the product of the bureaucracy's scheme to perpetuate its power. The notion of a powerful central personnel agency, although by no means alien to the Japanese, evoked fear and resistance from the Left and the Right alike. The entrenched bureaucrats justifiably saw the danger of the erosion of their power, whereas proponents of democracy feared that the proposed agency might help perpetuate the privileged position of senior bureaucrats. The near-unanimous support for the guarantee of labor and political rights for public servants, moreover, stemmed primarily from the widespread desire for democratization.

The First Revision Of The Law

So long as the Occupation continued and Hoover remained as chief of the civil-service division, however, the Japanese had but a slim chance of getting away with what they had done. Upon returning to his post in November 1947, Hoover was infuriated to learn of the fate of his draft and assigned a top priority to the revision of the law. Simultaneously, he initiated the process of organizing and staffing the Temporary National Personnel Commission and collecting information on the structure, functions, and key personnel of the various ministries and agencies.^[43]

A detailed schedule of operations prepared by the civil-service division reflected Hoover's determination to guide the Japanese every

[42] Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 202-03.

[43] Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , p. 4; "Zadankai: Jinji-in no omoide arekore" [Roundtable Discussion: Recollecting Aspects of the National Personnel Authority], Jinji-in geppo 100 (June 1969): 11; SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 253-55.

step of the way toward the goal of implanting a new civil-service system on their soil. However, practical difficulties hampered his task. The official history of the Occupation dealing with civil-service reform, prepared under Hoover's supervision, noted that the need to rely on "remote control," the language barrier, and cabinet reshuffles had contributed to unforeseen delays.^[44]

The language barrier appears to have been a major source of difficulty, for the Japanese complained of the low caliber of translators in the SCAP General Headquarters. Most of the translators were nisei (second-generation Japanese born in the United States) who did not understand the legal terminology so prevalent in the vocabulary of Japanese government.^[45] Indeed, the ease with which the Japanese succeeded in circumventing the intentions of SCAP with regard to the initial enactment of the national public-service law probably had a great deal to do with the language barrier, which had been turned into an advantage by the Japanese.^[46]

These problems notwithstanding, the civil-service division took complete charge of recruiting the staff for the Temporary National Personnel Commission. In January 1948 it devised an open competitive examination, had it translated into Japanese, and supervised its administration. A quarter of about one thousand persons who took the examination were selected and given the first basic-training course, also devised by the civil-service division. Not only was the training material prepared by the Americans, but lectures were delivered by American instructors in English and then translated into Japanese. Members of the first class of this training program, which lasted for five months, were utilized as discussion leaders in the next session, which was shortened to two months. Thereafter, Japanese instructors took over the classes.^[47]

[44] SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 255-56. The schedule of operations is reproduced on p. 255.

[45] Ashitate Chuzo, "Kohei shinsa no omoide" [Recollections of the Equity Process (i.e., evaluation of complaints concerning adverse action against civil servants)], Jinji-in geppo 274 (Dec. 1973): 18-19.

[46] This episode exemplified the general tendency of Japanese bureaucrats and politicians to engage in subtle subversion of SCAP policy whenever the latter was perceived as threatening. In the words of a perceptive Japanese observer: "Although [Japanese politicians and bureaucrats] permitted themselves no display of open opposition, they attained their ends by undercover resistance of various kinds. Agreeing to the principle of a given reform, they very often succeeded in subtly changing its nature in the course of carrying it out." Masataka Kosaka, 100 Million Japanese: The Postwar Experience (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1972), p. 50.

[47] "Zadankai: Jinji-in no omoide arekore," p. 11; Nagahashi Susumu, "Kaisobun: Jinji-in sosetsu no koro" [Reminiscences: the Early Days of the National Personnel Authority], Jinji-in geppo 274(Dec. 1973): 16-17; SCAP, Political Reorientation , p. 257.

Meanwhile, work on the revision of the national public-service law proceeded, and a series of proposed amendments was completed in May 1948. Continuing labor unrest, particularly "strikes and other dispute tactics on the part of organized government employees" underscored the urgency of prompt legislative action. However, "serious differences of opinion . . . developed between the Government Section's Civil Service Division and the Economic and Scientific Section's Labor Division on such questions as scope of coverage of the National Public Service Law, the meaning of collective bargaining as applied to government workers, and the use of strikes or dispute tactics against the government." The impasse was broken by General MacArthur on 6 July; on 22 July he sent a letter to the prime minister of Japan suggesting that the law be revised in accordance with his recommendations.^[48]

Given the realities of the Occupation, the MacArthur letter had the force of a command, leaving the prime minister no option but to comply. Addressing the various weaknesses in the existing law, MacArthur laid a special emphasis on the prohibition of strikes by government employees. "No person holding a position by appointment or employment in the public service of Japan or in any instrumentality thereof should resort to strike or engage in delaying or other dispute tactics which tend to impair the efficiency of government operations," he wrote. In his view, "any person, holding such a position, who resorts to such action against the public of Japan thereby betrays the public trust reposed in him and forfeits all rights and privileges accruing to him by virtue of his employment." Recalling that the aim of civil-service reform was to ensure the democratization of Japan, he declared that the "success of this reform is accordingly no less a primary objective of the Occupation than it is a prerequisite to the future well-being of the people of Japan." Finally, he urged the prime minister to undertake "immediately" "a comprehensive revision of the National Public Service Law" along the lines suggested by him, promising all necessary assistance by the SCAP headquarters.^[49]

The government of Prime Minister Ashida Hitoshi acted with dispatch. Within nine days of receipt of the letter, it promulgated a government ordinance (seirei ) temporarily prohibiting public servants from engaging in collective bargaining, strikes, or delaying or other dispute tactics. The ordinance specifically cited the letter from the

[48] SCAP, Political Reorientation , pp. 258-59.

[49] See the text of the letter in ibid ., vol. II, Appendixes, pp. 581-83.

Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers as the basis for the prohibition.^[50]

Three days earlier, on 28 July, the Japanese government had received from Hoover SCAP's proposed amendments in both English and Japanese. Determined not to repeat the same mistake, Hoover had instructed the Temporary National Personnel Commission to prepare the Japanese translation in utmost secrecy. His apparent calculation that the commission, which would become a major beneficiary of the proposed revisions, would keep the vow of secrecy was off the mark. Asai Kiyoshi, then chairman of the commission, decided that, given the importance of the matter, he was duty-bound to apprise his government of the situation. Prime Minister Ashida, the chief and deputy chief of his secretariat, and a few other cabinet members thus became aware of what was happening. Hoover was reported to have been asked by the Japanese whether his proposals left any room for amendments and to have replied in the negative.^[51]

The proposals sent a shock wave through both the Japanese government and, particularly, labor circles. The Ashida government therefore tried very hard to persuade SCAP to accept some amendments. In the end, only minor ones were allowed. On 9 November, a bill to revise the national public-service law was submitted to the Diet, convened especially for that purpose, by the newly formed second Yoshida government. Although the special Diet session proved to be turbulent, with the opposition parties trying to inject other issues, it nonetheless approved the bill in three weeks. Whereas the House of Representatives added a few minor amendments, the House of Councillors failed to do so because of the lack of time. The revised law was promulgated on 3 December 1948 and entered into force on the same day.^[52]

Of the 125 articles in the original law, 32 had been extensively revised and 77 partially revised. Fourteen new articles had been added. Hence this represented a major overhaul of the law. Nonetheless, the key changes could be summed up under three headings:

First, the scope of the law was expanded. This was accomplished by shifting certain types of positions from the special government service to the regular government service. Examples of positions so affected

[50] Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen no ayumi [The Path of Twenty Years of Public Personnel Administration] (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1968), p. 37.

[51] Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , pp. 5-6.

[52] Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen , pp. 37-38; Ide, Nihon kanryosei , pp. 219-23.

were the director general of the cabinet legislation bureau, the vice-minister of each ministry, the counselor of each ministry, manual laborers, employees of the National Diet, court investigators, and certain personnel of government enterprises. All of these positions came within the purview of the national public-service law.

Second, the powers of the central personnel agency were strengthened. Not only was the name that SCAP had originally recommended, the National Personnel Authority (Jinji-in), restored, but its status was upgraded from that of an external agency (gaikyoku ) of the prime minister's office to a component agency of the cabinet. Its rule-making powers were enhanced: it now monopolized the power to make rules aimed at implementing the standards set in the national public-service law; the erstwhile requirement that all rules must be approved by the prime minister was jettisoned. The authority's financial position was bolstered by the acquisition of the privilege of "double budget": should the cabinet decide to revise the authority's proposed expenditures, it must submit to the Diet both the revision and the original request.

Third, measures to tighten discipline in the public service were introduced. This meant, primarily, that public servants were stripped of the right to strike and to employ delaying and other dispute tactics, were forbidden to run for elective offices or become officers in a political party or any other political organization, and were barred from all political activities other than voting. As a result, the gap between public servants and private-sector employees widened considerably.^[53]

The Aftermath

S-1 Examination

The passage of the national public-service law in 1947 and its substantial revision in 1948 helped to establish the basic legal and institutional framework for the modernization and democratization of the Japanese-government bureaucracy. However, SCAP knew all along that a comprehensive civil-service law and a strong central personnel agency would be powerless to overcome the inertia, or, worse yet, the resistance of the old-line bureaucrats. What was needed, therefore, was

[53] Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen , pp. 37-39; Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , pp. 6-11.

a mechanism through which to identify and weed out the most unfit and to infuse the bureaucracy with fresh blood. To accomplish this goal, article 9 of the supplementary provisions of the national public-service law required the holding of an examination to fill all administrative positions at the level of section chief and above.^[54]

In the course of preparing for the examination, SCAP's Civil Service Division decided that "the examination should have none of the aspects of a purge," even though that "would probably make it difficult to attain the objectives of the examination in full measure." Underlying this decision were two considerations: first, "many of the more recalcitrant and unadaptable officials had [already] been eased out under pressure of the various SCAP sections"; second, it was deemed most important "to preserve the integrity and objectivity of the examination." The civil-service division also decided to make the examination "open and competitive," rather than qualifying. In other words, all incumbents of designated positions would be required to compete with other candidates if they wished to be reappointed. Insofar as designating positions subject to examination was concerned, the key criterion was whether or not their duties were primarily administrative. The positions of administrative vice-minister, bureau chief, division chief, and section chief in the regular administrative agencies were included, in accordance with the law. A total of 2,621 positions were designated as subject to examination, and they were in turn grouped into 60 occupational areas ranging from general administration to police.^[55]

Each designated position was not only allocated to an occupational group but also placed in one of four administrative levels. Level 1 encompassed administrative vice-ministers and comparable positions (such as directors general of agencies) and level 4 encompassed section chiefs and their equivalents. The examination was designed to measure four essential characteristics: "(a) administrative aptitude, (b) technical competence, (c) satisfactory character, and (d) physical fitness." Administrative knowledge and aptitude were tested through two procedures. First, each candidate was required to take a written examination

[54] Maynard N. Shirven and Joseph L. Speicher, "Examination of Japan's Upper Bureaucracy," Personnel Administration 14, no, 4 (July 1951): 48-50. When they wrote this article, the authors were on the staff of the SCAP General Headquarters. Shirven was Chief of the Civil Service Division, the Government Section, and Speicher was Chief of the Examinations Branch of the same Division.

[55] Ibid., pp. 50-52.

consisting of "90 multiple-choice items relating to organization, personnel administration, financial management, principles of supervision, interpretation of data, and other facets of the practical work of public administrators." Second, in addition to the written test, a candidate was required to meet "a qualifying standard of practical experience." A candidate for the position of administrative vice-minister, for example, "was required to have served at least one year as a bureau chief or in a position of similar responsibility."^[56]

The decision to include a test of technical competence was based on SCAP's perception that "one of the principal weaknesses of the Japanese civil-service system was the preponderance of officials with only legal training and background in positions where technical knowledge was essential." Candidates for positions in 45 of the 60 occupational groups were required to take tests consisting of "80 multiple-choice items constructed from basic reference material and from experience in the occupation." These tests were said to have been "rather elementary in nature." In addition, the candidates had to meet the experience requirement in the occupational area of their choice.^[57]

Determination of "satisfactory character" was the responsibility of the National Personnel Authority's bureau of investigation. First, the candidate's own statements relating to his experience, education, and personal history contained in his application were verified. Second, an attempt was made to evaluate his personality traits by obtaining ratings on such qualities as "ability to train subordinates, originality, and planning ability" from at least three persons familiar with the candidate's previous experience. On the basis of these data, each candidate was given an overall score of either pass or fail. The final component of the examination was designed "to eliminate those candidates who were physically unfit for the performance of the duties of the designated positions." Inasmuch as incumbent employees of the national and local governments and other public bodies were subjected to periodic medical examinations, only candidates from outside the government were required to take the physical examination.^[58]

Unhappy about the imposed nature of the examination and uncertain about its results, the bureaucrats tried to force its cancellation by postponing the submission of applications until the last minute. The

[56] Ibid., pp. 52-53.

[57] Ibid., p. 53.

[58] Ibid., pp. 54-55.

"war of nerves," however, was won by SCAP, and before the deadline was past "a total of 12,000 applications from 8,076 individuals had been filed for the 2,621 designated positions." After preliminary screening, 7,815 candidates were allowed to take the examination. The administrative aptitude test was given on 15 January 1950, and the technical tests for various occupational groups were given from 20 to 22 January. Because no time limit was imposed and candidates were permitted to smoke and were served hot tea, the examination was dubbed a "paradise examination." It was also called S-1, signifying that it was the first examination for supervisory personnel in postwar Japan.^[59]

Did the examination accomplish its purpose? Directly, it helped to eliminate about 21 percent of incumbents. At level 1 (administrative vice-minister), however, the attrition rate was only 12 percent. "Indirectly, it is estimated that an additional 10-20 percent may have been eliminated. For example, when the examination was announced, a number of incumbents either resigned or did not apply for the examination, while others secured transfers to non-designated positions." One reason for the remarkably high rate of retention of incumbents was that they were given preferential treatment: once they passed the examination, they "were likely to be reappointed regardless of their position on the eligibility list"—that is, regardless of their actual scores in the examination.^[60]

Unbeknownst to SCAP, the Japanese bureaucrats also resorted to the "self-defensive measure" of asking other qualified candidates to withdraw their names from the eligibility list.^[61] So widespread and effective was this practice, in fact, that of the 175 persons who were appointed to levels I and 2 positions following the examination, only one was a "civilian"—that is, a person who had not previously served as a government official.^[62] Not surprisingly, the examination served to tarnish the image of SCAP even among those who survived the ordeal. The administrative-aptitude test, for example, was perceived as being too simplistic and of questionable validity. Recalling his experience two decades later, one Japanese participant wrote that senior civil servants

[59] Ibid., p. 55; Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen , p. 119. For a detailed analysis of the S-1 examination, see Miyake, Gyoseigaku , pp. 112-28. He provides examples of questions along with correct answers.

[60] Shirven and Speicher, "Examination of Japan's Upper Bureaucracy," pp. 56-57.

[61] Kaneji Hiroshi, "Jinji-in no omoide" [Recollections on the National Personnel Authority] in Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen , p. 53.

[62] Hata, Kanryo no kenkyu , p. 106.

taking the test had been appalled by SCAP's low opinion of their ability reflected in the "simpleminded and mechanical" questions in the test.^[63]

Post-Occupation Developments, 1952-87

Notwithstanding the lofty goals pursued by the Occupation, its methods of operation were autocratic and frequently high-handed, generating resentments on the part of the Japanese people, particularly those in the bureaucracy and in the Diet. The formal termination of the Occupation in April 1952, therefore, paved the way for a reappraisal of the various reform measures implemented under American tutelage. The sentiment for revision of the national public-service law was quite strong, because it was perceived as an alien imposition not suited to Japanese needs. The National Personnel Authority had become an object of intense resentment, not only because of its unprecedented powers but also because it had served as a tool of SCAP's civil-service division. Proposals for reform, even abolition, of the authority were justified on various grounds.^[64]

The government and the ruling party argued that the authority's independence and powers undermined the cabinet-responsible system on which the Japanese government was based. They further pointed to what they described as deleterious effects of the authority's annual recommendations on compensation: the latter allegedly provided fuel for organized labor's spring offensive for wage increases and influenced wage levels in the private sector. The opposition parties and labor organizations, on the other hand, advocated reform of the authority on the ground that it was not fulfilling its original goal of safeguarding the interests of public servants. The main function of the annual recommendations on compensation, they argued, was to legitimize the government's policy of holding wages and salaries to a minimum.

Another consideration that underscored the need for revision of the law was its incompatibility with Convention Number 87 of the International Labor Organization (ILO), which the Japanese government was interested in ratifying. The ILO treaty called for a guarantee by its contracting parties of their citizens' right to establish and join

[63] Hayashi Shuzo, "Shiken jigoku iroiro" [Aspects of an Examination Hell], Jinji-in geppo 236 (Oct. 1970): 4. See also "Zadankai: Jinji-in no omoide arekore," p. 13.

[64] Asai, Shinpan kokka komuinho seigi , pp. 15-16. For an account of the resentment the authority faced and how it overcame attempts to emasculate it in the waning days of the Occupation, see Tomioka Shozo, "'Hoittoni keikoku shokan' o sukupu" [Getting a Scoop on the "Whitney Warning Letter"], Kankai [The Official World], July 1986, pp. 188-93.

labor unions, the unions' autonomy, their right to establish and join federations and international organizations, and other labor-related rights.^[65]

None of the nine formal proposals for the revision of the national public service law submitted to the Diet between May 1952 and December 1963, however, succeeded in mustering sufficient support. By the time a bill for revision of the law was submitted to the Diet for the tenth time in January 1965 by the first Sato government, a sense of urgency had been added: the powerful labor federation Sohyo (Nihon Rodo Kumiai Sohyogikai, or the General Council of Japan Labor Unions) and a union representing locomotive engineers of the national railroads had filed a complaint against the Japanese government with the ILO, and there were signs that other labor unions might follow suit. The ILO had already initiated an investigation into the complaint. Against such a backdrop the Sato government cited the need to amend the provisions in the national public-service law pertaining to the rights of public servants to organize so that Japan might ratify ILO Convention Number 87.

Additionally, the government stressed the need to establish a system of responsibility in public-personnel administration, proposing to set up a new personnel agency within the office of the prime minister. Instead of replacing the National Personnel Authority, however, the new agency, to be called the Bureau of Personnel (Jinji-kyoku), would simply take over some of the functions previously performed by the authority and by the Finance Ministry. Specifically, the bureau would be given jurisdiction over the efficiency, welfare, and service of public servants, their retirement allowances, the compensation of special-service public servants, the coordination of personnel management among the various ministries and agencies, and the collection and analysis of statistical data regarding personnel administration. The bill embodying the preceding proposals was approved by both houses of the Diet on 17 May 1965. On the same day the Diet also passed a bill empowering the government to ratify ILO Convention Number 87.

In sum, the period of "trial" for the National Personnel Authority came to an end in 1965 with its powers only marginally altered.^[66] The

[65] Asai, Shinpan komuinho seigi , p. 16; Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen , pp. 39-40.

[66] Tsuji Kiyoaki, a distinguished student of Japanese public administration, characterized the thirteen years following the end of the American Occupation as the "period of trial for the National Personnel Authority" (Jinji-in no kuro no jidal ). See "Zadankai: Korekara no jinji gyosei" [Roundtable Discussion: Public Personnel Administration in the Days Ahead], Jinji-in geppo 274(Dec. 1973): 4.

civil-service reform spearheaded by the Occupation thus overcame the first significant challenge to its viability. Although numerous changes were introduced in subsequent years, none can be characterized as major. The more noteworthy changes pertained to (1) civil-service examinations, (2) the expansion of postentry training programs, (3) the introduction of a mandatory retirement system, and (4) reorganization of government agencies.

The civil-service-examination system has undergone change three times in the postoccupation period. Until 1956, higher' civil servants were recruited through the examination to recruit sixth-grade national civil servants (6-kyu shoku kokka komuin saiyo shiken ). But in 1957, in conjunction with the revision of the grade system from a fifteen-grade to an eight-grade system, the sixth-grade civil-service examination was renamed the higher civil-service examination (kokka komuin saiyo jokyu shiken ). The erstwhile fifth-grade civil-service examination became the intermediate civil-service examination (kokka komuin saiyo jukyu shiken ). Along with the lower civil-service examination (kokka komuin saiyo shokyu shiken ), the civil-service-examination system now consisted of three distinct levels.^[67]

Then in 1960, the higher civil-service examination was subdivided into types A and B (koshu and otsushu ). Officially, however, this change was characterized as the renaming of the previous higher civil-service examination (HCSE) as the type-B HCSE, accompanied by the introduction of an entirely new examination, the type-A HCSE. The stated rationale for the change was that the new type-A examination would make the civil service more competitive with the private sector, for it would upgrade the initial rank of new employees (from grade 7 to grade 6) and improve their prospects for promotion to managerial positions.^[68] As we shall see shortly, however, what really happened was the creation of two distinct classes of higher civil servants: those in the elite track (type-A-examination graduates) and those in the quasi-elite track (type-B-examination graduates).

The latest change in the examination system occurred in 1985, when the type-A HCSE was renamed the type-I civil-service examination (isshu shiken ), the type-B HCSE was abolished, the intermediate examination was, in effect, replaced by the type-II civil-service examination (nishu shiken ), and the lower examination was renamed the

[67] Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen , p. 136.

[68] Ibid., p. 137.

type-Ill civil-service examination (sanshu shiken ). Officially, however, the type-II examination was described as an entirely new examination rather than a successor to the intermediate examination. It was, in fact, characterized as an upgraded version of the intermediate examination, which in the preceding years had become a vehicle for recruiting not high-school graduates but primarily university graduates. This reflected in part the increase in the number of university graduates in the general population and in part the competitiveness of the higher civil-service examinations. Whether the change will lead to the recruitment of candidates for middle-level management who are better qualified than before, however, remains to be seen.

On the other hand, the educational level of the applicants for the type-II examination in the first two years of its existence was slightly higher than that of applicants for the intermediate examination. Whereas in 1984, the last year in which the intermediate examination was given, only 1 percent of applicants had done some graduate work, the proportion increased to 1.6 in 1985 and to 1.8 in 1986. Among the successful candidates, the increase was more substantial: from 1.8 percent in 1984 to 4.2 percent in 1985 and to 3.8 percent in 1986. So far as university graduates were concerned, however, the picture changed very little. Although the proportion of university graduates increased slightly among all applicants (80.5 percent in 1984, 82.1 percent in 1985, and 81.5 percent in 1986), it remained all but identical among the successful candidates (91.3 percent in 1984, 91.5 percent in 1985, and 91.3 percent in 1986). Overall, the proportion of the applicants with at least some university education increased from 81.5 percent in 1984 to 83.3 percent in 1986, and that of the successful applicants with the same level of educational attainments increased from 93.1 percent in 1984 to 95.1 percent in 1986. There was also notable change in the type of universities attended by successful applicants. The proportion of those who had attended national universities increased from 31.8 percent in 1984 to 38.7 percent in 1986, whereas that of those who had attended private universities decreased from 57.2 percent to 52.2 percent in the same period.^[69] Although this may be viewed as an indirect indicator of the greater competitiveness of the type-II examination as compared with that of its predecessor, it also suggests a step backward from the standpoint of making the civil service more democratic.

[69] Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho [White Paper on Civil Servants], 1987 (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1987), p. 36.

Another development related to the civil-service examinations is the gradual lifting of restrictions on women, a development that is plainly conducive to democratization. In 1979 women were allowed for the first time to take entrance examinations to state-run schools that train air-traffic controllers, maritime-security officers, and meteorologists. There were 479 women applicants, of whom 36 were successful.^[70] In the following year, women were allowed to take civil-service examinations for "national tax specialists" (kokuzei senmonkan ) and guards in the imperial palace. There were 573 women applicants for the former, of whom 32 were successful, and 91 women applicants for the latter, of whom 2 were successful.^[71] Restrictions were further relaxed in 1981, allowing women to become border guards (nyukoku keibikan ) and prison guards (keimukan ). Three women (out of 163 female applicants) passed the examination for the former, and 54 women (out of 466 female applicants) passed the examination for the latter.^[72]

Another noteworthy trend is a phenomenal increase in the number and variety of training programs for civil servants. Inasmuch as we shall examine the civil-servants' postentry training at length in chapter 6, it will suffice here to note a few statistics. Whereas in the late 1940s there existed only a dozen or so training programs, in which less than 1 percent of the civil servants participated, by the late 1960s the number of training programs had exceeded 4,100 and nearly 17 percent of the civil servants participated in them. By the late 1970s, nearly one out of every four civil servants was participating in some 6,700 programs. Finally, in the mid-1980s nearly four of every ten civil servants were participating in 9,200 programs. These programs encompassed a wide array of organizations, the entire spectrum of civil servants up to the section-chief level, and the whole gamut of subjects.^[73]

In 1985, a mandatory retirement system for civil servants went into effect. With a few exceptions, the retirement age was set at sixty. Civil servants whose duties and responsibilities are deemed to be "special" or who cannot be easily replaced, however, would be allowed to extend their retirement age up to five years. Physicians and dentists were prime examples of such persons.^[74] The new system, however, was not

[70] Ibid., 1980, p. 25.

[71] Ibid., 1981, p. 25.

[72] Ibid., 1982, p. 26.

[73] Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho [Annual Report], 1948-49 through 1986 (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1950-87).

[74] Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1982, pp. 44-47; ibid., 1986, pp. 51-52.

expected to affect the retirement practices of higher civil servants, who retire in their fifties. We shall examine this issue in detail in chapter 8.

Finally, we shall note briefly salient changes in the structure of the executive branch of the Japanese government. To list the most noteworthy of them, we must mention the establishment of the Economic Planning Agency in 1955, the Science and Technology Agency in 1956, the Ministry of Home Affairs (Jichisho, initially translated as the Ministry of Autonomy) in 1960, the Environment Agency in 1971, the Okinawa Development Agency in 1972, the National Land Agency in 1974, and the Management and Coordination Agency in 1984. In most of these cases, existing organizations were renamed, upgraded, or restructured. To cite two examples, in 1960 the Autonomy Agency (Jichicho) was upgraded to the Ministry of Home Affairs, and in 1984 the Administrative Management Agency was in effect replaced by the Management and Coordination Agency (Somucho), which also assumed some of the functions that had previously been performed by the prime minister's office.^[75]

Even though the goal of "administrative reform" (gyosei kaikaku ) has received much attention in the postoccupation period, actual results attained have been meagre. The number of "regular service" national civil servants (ippan shoku kokka komuin ) has ranged from 643,057 in 1955 to 867,172 in 1981. In 1986, it declined to 847,004.^[76] Although a significant streamlining of the government structure would require a thoroughgoing reappraisal and a substantial reduction of the powers of the central-government ministries and agencies, the entrenched powers of the bureaucracy have thus far forestalled such an approach, necessitating the adoption of a "uniform reduction method" whereby all ministries and agencies are required to eliminate the same number of bureaus, sections, or other units.^[77] A recent example of such an approach is Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru's plan to seek a transfer

[75] Gyosei Kanricho, Gyosei kanri no genjo: Gyosei kaikaku no doko [The Present Condition of Administrative Management: Trends in Administrative Reform] (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1984), pp. 56-57.

[76] For these and related statistics, see Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei sanjunen no ayumi [The Path of Thirty Years of Public Personnel Administration] (Tokyo: Okurasho, In-satsukyoku, 1978), p. 544; idem, Komuin hakusho , 1978 through 1987.

[77] For a critical assessment of this issue, see Yoshinori Ide, "Administrative Reform and Innovation: the Japanese Case," International Social Science Journal 21, no. 1 (1969): 56-67; Naka Mamoru, "Kongetsu no shoten: Nakasone gyokaku no sannenban o sokatsu suru" [Focus of the Month: Summarizing Three and a Half Years of Nakasone's Administrative Reform], Kankai , Aug. 1986, pp. 82-93.

of one unit from each national-government ministry or agency to the local level.^[78]

The poor record of the Japanese government in administrative reform should caution against minimizing the results of the Occupation reforms. Let us attempt to assess the latter in an impressionistic way.

An Assessment Of The Occupation Reform

SCAP's program of civil-service reform in Japan was part of its larger program of democratization. Convinced that the democratization of the political system as a whole would be incomplete or even jeopardized without a corresponding change in the government bureaucracy, SCAP pursued the twin goals of modernizing and democratizing the Japanese civil-service system.

The principal instrument of the reform was a comprehensive civil-service law, of which the centerpiece was to be a powerful central personnel agency. Armed with quasi-legislative powers as well as a measure of independence, such an agency would function as the principal guardian of merit principles in the recruitment, promotion, and remuneration of civil servants. The civil-service law would also pave the way for the introduction of a position-classification system for the first time in Japanese history; additionally, by prohibiting strikes and other dispute behavior by civil servants, the law would help ensure both the integrity of government operations and the political neutrality of its personnel.

Paradoxically, however, the lofty objective of democratization was pursued in a patently undemocratic fashion. As the Japanese appeared to be incapable of initiating and implementing any significant reform on their own, SCAP simply imposed its will on them, behaving in a "highly dogmatic and inflexible" manner.^[79] Although the relationship between the conqueror and the conquered was bound to be asymmetrical, it nonetheless allowed the Japanese some room for maneuver. This was facilitated by SCAP's policy of indirect rule and the language barrier. The unauthorized revision of the American draft of the national

[78] Asahi shinbun , 5 Dec. 1987. Prime Minister Takeshita did, however, indicate some flexibility, which would allow certain agencies exemption from the proposed reduction.

[79] Ward, "Reflections on the Allied Occupation," p. 509.

public-service law in the legislative stage was a case in point, although it proved to be short-lived.

In the short run, SCAP attained all of its major goals: the enactment of a comprehensive civil-service law, the establishment of a central personnel agency, and the introduction of modern concepts and procedures of public-personnel management. Nonetheless, whether all this would materially change Japan's bureaucratic landscape hinged on how the Japanese themselves would respond to the innovations.

As things turned out, some of the ideas, although enshrined in law, were never implemented, notably position classification and the use of examination in promotions. Nor have the power and influence of the National Personnel Authority turned out to be nearly as great as its American architects had hoped. As will be shown in the following pages, moreover, the old patterns of Japanese bureaucracy—stratification, elitism, legalism, retirement practices, and the like—have proved to be singularly resilient.

Our tentative assessment of this unique experiment—an externally imposed reform inspired by democratic ideals but implemented in an authoritarian fashion—is, then, a mixed one. It was neither a rousing success nor a dismal failure. At a minimum, it accomplished something the Japanese had never been able to do: the establishment of a central personnel agency endowed with a modicum of independence and modest amounts of authority to safeguard the ideals of democracy, equity, and efficiency in public administration.

In comparative terms, what the Americans did in occupied Japan was not actually unique. Efforts to reform the civil-service system were also made in occupied Germany. Even though the two occupations occurred contemporaneously, they differed in a major way: whereas the Allied occupation of Japan was in fact an American show, that of Germany was a joint or, more accurately, a disjointed operation. That may help account for the meagre results of the American and British attempts at civil-service reform in their occupation zones. The reform implemented by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany bore little relationship to the objectives embodied in Military Government Law No. 15, jointly proclaimed by the American and British occupation authorities on 19 February 1949.^[80]

[80] For an informative analysis by a former participant in the U.S. occupation of Germany, see Arnold Brecht, "Personnel Management" in Edward H. Litchfield et al., Governing Postwar Germany (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1953), pp. 263-93.

Before we leap to the conclusion that all externally guided reforms of civil-service systems have but slim chances of success, however, we need to note that some of the SCAP-initiated reforms were more successful than others. The modest outcome of the civil-service reform, for example, stands in stark contrast to SCAP's record in other areas, notably the revision of the Japanese constitution, the expansion of the franchise, and land reform. As Ward has demonstrated, the Occupation was most successful when it was able to implement the strategy of creating "new vested interests" by finding a clientele group, activating it, and enacting reform legislation that created new vested interests for the clientele. SCAP's "failure to establish and cultivate a clientele group of adequate size and influence," in his view, may have been "a basic reason" for the "failure" of the civil-service reform.^[81]

In other words, it is theoretically possible that SCAP could have attained better results had it made determined efforts to create a structure of vested interests among the Japanese bureaucrats. To be sure, the constraints were formidable indeed: the Japanese bureaucrats' instinct for self-preservation, the perception gap between the Americans and the Japanese, the language barrier, and the myopia and ethnocentrism of some of the key American participants.

Most important, perhaps, was the gap between American rhetoric and behavior. Although SCAP extolled the importance of bureaucratic reform and underscored its pivotal role in Japan's democratization, what it actually sought was not a fundamental reduction of bureaucratic power nor a measurable increase in the external constraints on bureaucrats but the more modest goal of making the bureaucracy efficient and modern. As T. J. Pempel argues, this was perhaps a logical concomitant of dominant traditions in "American administrative practice during the mid-twentieth century," which also included functional fragmentation and "the dominance and penetration of particular government agencies by special interests."^[82] Pempel shows that jurisdictional rivalries among not only Japanese government ministries but also their counterpart units in the SCAP General Headquarters, particularly cross-national alliances that resulted therefrom, played a significant role in impeding reform.^[83] In sum, even though SCAP accomplished what no Japanese government had managed to do, the accomplishment nonetheless left something to be desired.

[81] Ward, "Reflections on the Allied Occupation," pp. 528-31.

[82] Pempel, "The Tar Baby Target," p. 161.

[83] Ibid., pp. 173-79.

Chapter Four
Recruitment

Of all the variables affecting the performance of a government bureaucracy, none is as universally important as the caliber of its personnel. No matter how well endowed it may be in terms of funds, legislative mandate, and constituency support, a bureaucracy's operating effectiveness is likely to be severely curtailed unless it is staffed by competent and dedicated people. How to recruit and retain such people, then, becomes a task of the highest priority for nearly all bureaucracies.

In the case of the Japanese-government bureaucracy, however, a number of factors magnify further the importance of recruitment. First, the custom of lifetime employment underscores the imperative necessity of selecting the right persons initially. Second, the persistence of decentralized recruitment despite the creation of a central personnel agency, coupled with an extremely low degree of lateral mobility—that is, interagency transfers—helps to foster both competition and caution in the recruitment process. Third, the multiple-track system of recruitment, under which the future leaders of government ministries and agencies must be identified and selected at the outset, raises the stakes of initial recruitment. Moreover, the virtual absence of probationary appointment further enhances the importance of selectivity in recruitment.

In this chapter we shall first note a few general attributes of the Japanese civil service that may help us to understand its system of recruitment. We shall then scrutinize the modes of recruitment, with

particular attention to the higher civil-service examination. Next, we shall examine the patterns of recruitment. That is, what are the actual results obtained during the postwar period? Statistical data will be analyzed with the aim of ascertaining continuity and change in key areas. Finally, we shall compare the Japanese experience with those of four industrialized democracies in the West.

An Overview Of The Japanese Civil Service

To place the discussion of recruitment in perspective, it is necessary to note a few outstanding aspects of the Japanese civil service. The preceding chapter has already delineated its basic legal and institutional framework. The national public-service law spells out its basic standards, principles, and procedures. The law sets up the National Personnel Authority as one of the two "central personnel administrative organs" (chuo jinji gyosei kikan ).^[1] Until 1984, the Bureau of Personnel in the prime minister's office was the other organ. In July of that year, however, the Bureau of Personnel was transferred to the newly created Management and Coordination Agency (Somucho).^[2] In practice, the authority functions as. the principal personnel agency in the Japanese government.

At the policy making level, the authority consists of three commissioners (jinjikan ) who are appointed by the Cabinet for four years with the approval of both houses of the Diet. No two commissioners may belong to the same political party or be graduates of the same faculty of the same university. They may be reappointed but their maximum term of office is twelve years. One of the commissioners is designated by the cabinet as president (sosai ) of the authority. The commissioners may not be removed from office except through impeachment. The daily operations of the authority are in the hands of a staff of about seven hundred persons headed by the secretary general (jimu socho ).^[3]

[1] hapter 2, articles 3 through 25 of the national public-service law in Jinji-in, Ninmen kankei horeishu [Collection of Laws and Ordinances Concerning Appointments and Dismissals], 1984 ed. (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatusukyoku, 1984), pp. 14-19.

[2] yosei Kanricho, Gyosei kanri no genjo: Gyosei kaikaku no doko , pp. 26-28. In the 1984 reorganization the Administrative Management Agency (Gyosei Kanricho) was abolished and most of its functions were taken over by the newly created Management and Coordination Agency.

[3] or details regarding the organization and functions of the National Personnel Authority, see Kato Hisabumi, Jinji-in: Nihon no shihai kiko [The National Personnel Authority: An Organization That Controls Japan] (Tokyo: Rodo Junposha, 1966); Kyoikusha, ed., Kaikei Kensa-in, Jinji-in, Naikaku Hoseikyoku [The Board of Audit, the National Personnel Authority, and the Cabinet Legislation Bureau] (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1979), pp. 69-116; and Sato Tatsuo, Kokka komuin seido [The National Public-Service System] (Tokyo: Gakuyo Shobo, 1975), pp. 13-16. See also the text of the National Public Service Law (kokka komuinho ) in Jinji-in, Ninmen kankei horeishu , 1984 ed., pp. 12-45.

In 1987, the president of the authority was Utsumi Hitoshi. Born in 1917, Utsumi graduated from the law faculty of the University of Tokyo in 1941 and entered the Home Ministry in the same year. He retired from the civil service after serving as the administrative vice-minister of the Defense Agency. He was appointed to his current position in 1984 by his former classmate in both Todai and the Home Ministry, Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro. The other two commissioners were Sano Hiroyoshi (b. 1916) and Ishizaka Seiichi (b. 1922). A 1937 graduate of Aoyama Gakuin University who majored in English literature, Sano had worked as a journalist for Asahi shinbun and NHK and as a political commentator before being appointed to his present position in 1985. Ishizaka graduated from Todai's engineering faculty in 1944, where he also did graduate work, and served in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) for twenty-five years. He was appointed a commissioner in 1986. Traditionally, one of the three commissioners has always been a former journalist and another has had a scientific or engineering background.^[4]

The basic principles guiding the Japanese civil service may be summed up in two words: democracy and efficiency. Democracy implies that unlike the Emperor's officials in prewar Japan, the public servants in postwar Japan must be true to their name: as article 15 of the 1946 constitution puts it, "all public officials are servants of the whole community and not of any group thereof."^[5]

To help attain this goal, the public service must be opened up to the entire people: the principle of open and equal access to civil-service appointments needs to be implemented. This does not mean that all citizens are guaranteed government jobs, which no government can afford to do, but that they are assured of an equal opportunity to compete for such jobs. This is where the other principle comes into play:

[4] aniai Kenzo, "Kankai jinmyaku chiri: Chuo shochohen: Jinji-in no maki" [Who's Who in Central-Government Ministries and Agencies: The National Personnel Authority], Kankai , Aug. 1987, pp. 39-41.

[5] or the English text of the Japanese constitution, see Suekawa Hiroshi, ed., Iwanami kihon roppo, Showa 49-nenban [Iwanami Six Fundamental Laws, 1974 Edition] (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1973), pp. 110-16.

that of efficiency. In other words, the guiding criterion of civil-service appointments shall be merit—the objective qualifications of candidates as demonstrated in their educational attainments, experience, and performance in examinations. The mechanism through which and the degree to which these twin principles are translated into reality will be the focus of our inquiry in this chapter.

Let us now attempt to clarify the bewildering array of categories in the Japanese civil service. As of 1 July 1987, there were a total of 4,506,725 public employees (komuin ) in Japan, of whom 1,172,797 belonged to the national government and the remainder to the various local governmental units. As figure 1 shows, the national public employees are divided into two broad categories: the general service (ippan shoku ) and the special service (tokubetsu shoku ). The latter, which comprised 328,507 employees in July 1987, encompasses such diverse positions as the prime minister, ministers of state, commissioners of the National Personnel Authority, deputy director general of the cabinet secretariat, director general of the cabinet legislation bureau, parliamentary vice-ministers, judges and other employees of the courts, members of the Diet and their secretaries, and employees of the Defense Agency.^[6]

The ippan shoku public employees are in turn divided into (1) those governed by the regular compensation law (kyuyoho shokuin ), (2) those governed by the special compensation law (kyuyo tokureiho shokuin ), and (3) public prosecutors. In July 1987 there were 505,791, 336,332, and 2,167 persons respectively in the three categories. Nearly 90 percent of public employees who are subject to the special compensation law are postal employees; the remainder are engaged in such specialized occupations as forestry, printing, and engraving.^[7]

Finally, the ippan shoku public employees who are subject to the regular compensation law are subdivided into seventeen categories, each of which carries its own salary schedule. They are (1) the Administrative Service I, (2) the Administrative Service II, (3) the Specialized Administrative Service (senmon gyosei shoku ), (4) the Taxation Service, (5) the Public Security Service I, (6) the Public Security Service II, (7) the Marine Service I, (8) the Marine Service II, (9) the Educational

[6] ee art. 2 of the national public-service law in Jinji-in, Ninmen kankei horeishu , 1984 ed., p. 13. All the statistics cited here are taken from Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1988, esp. p. 251.

[7] bid., pp. 39 and 168.

Fig. 1.
Number of National Public Employees

Source: Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho, 1988 (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1988), p. 251.

Service I, (10) the Educational Service II, (11) the Educational Service III, (12) the Educational Service IV, (13) the Research Service, (14) the Medical Service I, (15) the Medical Service II, (16) the Medical Service III, and (17) the Designated Service (shitei shoku ).^[8]

By far the single most important of these categories in terms of both size and relevance for this study is the Administrative Service I. In 1987 it consisted of 227,725 or 46.8 percent of all persons covered by the seventeen salary schedules. It includes most people whom one ordinarily associates with civil service. The Administrative Service II salary schedule, on the other hand, covers drivers of automobiles, operators of all mechanized equipment, guards, and other people who are engaged in similar activities. The Specialized Administrative Service, which was newly established in 1985, encompasses inspectors and judges of the Patent Agency, inspectors of ships, those who work in the air-traffic-control field, and others whose duties require specialized knowledge and skills. The Educational Service I schedule covers the faculty and staff of colleges and universities. With 52,619 persons under its rubric, it was the second-largest category in 1987. The schedule for the Designated Service, on the other hand, is one of the smallest, subsuming under its rubric such positions as administrative vice-minister, head of

[8] bid., p. 168.

an external bureau (gaikyoku )—an entity that is affiliated with but not an integral part of a ministry or an agency—bureau chief, dean of a college, head of a laboratory or a research institute, and director of a hospital or a sanatorium. In 1987 these positions numbered 1,357.^[9]

Modes Of Recruitment

Among the continuities between the prewar and postwar civil-service systems is the reliance on both competitive examinations and evaluation (senko ) in recruiting government officials. The national public-service law makes the use of competitive examinations the rule and permits the use of evaluation only in those cases where the National Personnel Authority has certified that the use of competitive examination would be inappropriate (article 36). Competitive examinations are administered by the National Personnel Authority. There are four general categories of exceptions: (1) top-level executive positions such as administrative vice-minister that call for managerial and supervisory abilities and competence to deal with external groups; (2) positions requiring licenses or certificates issued by the state, such as physicians, dentists, and nurses; (3) positions for which the candidates have already demonstrated their suitability by performing satisfactorily either in equivalent positions or in those requiring a greater degree of expertise and responsibility; and (4) special positions for which there is a scarcity of qualified candidates.^[10] It should be noted that evaluation does not preclude but frequently entails some kind of written examination.

Although the first civil-service examination for the recruitment of national public employees under the national public-service law was not held until January 1949, there were other examinations both prior to and following that date. In 1946 and 1947 a modified version of the higher examination (koto shiken ) was given three times.^[11] As noted in the preceding chapter, competitive examinations were also held in 1948 to recruit staff members of the temporary National Personnel Authority. Then in 1950 there were "S-1 examinations," which was a unique experiment designed to further the Occupation's policy of democratiza-

[9] bid.; "Sanko shiryo (kyuyo kankei)" [Reference Material (Related to Salary)], Jinji-in geppo 440 (Sept. 1987): 30.

[10] Jinji yogo haya wakari: senko [A Quick Guide to Personnel Terms: Evaluation], Jinji-in geppo 87(May 1958): 17. For a more technically oriented explanation, see "Senko ni yoru shokuin no saiyo" [Selection of Public Employees by Evaluation], ibid. 94 (Dec. 1958), 20-23.

[11] ada, "Bunkan nin'yo seido no rekishi," III, p. 13.

tion. Meanwhile, the regular civil-service examinations under the new law have been held every rear since 1949. Although they have undergone many changes over the years, their principal characteristics are nonetheless worth noting.

First, there are three distinct levels. The highest level (jokyu until 1984, isshu since 1985) is aimed at graduates of four-year colleges; the intermediate level (chukyu until 1984, nishu since 1985) at graduates of junior colleges; and the lower level (shokyu until 1984; sanshu since 1985) at high-school graduates. From 1960 to 1984 the jokyu examinations were divided into two types: A (koshu ) and B (otsushu ).^[12] During this period, then, there were in effect four levels of examinations, each of which led to appointment at a different grade. Of the four levels, the type-A higher examination was equivalent to the prewar higher civil-service examination, and the lower examination approximated the ordinary civil-service examination. The remaining two—the type-B higher exam and the intermediate exam—must be viewed as postwar innovations.

It is noteworthy that none of these examinations has ever had a formal educational requirement. The type-A higher civil-service examination, for example, was open to anyone between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-three regardless of educational attainments. In practice, however, the educational level of candidates taking the civil-service examinations has been quite high, reflecting the rising level of educational attainments in the general population. Between 15 and 16 percent of applicants for the type-A (or I) higher civil-service examination in recent years have had postgraduate education. The proportion increases to about 40 percent among the successful candidates. Moreover, the success rates of candidates with graduate education seem much higher than those of university graduates. For graduates of junior colleges and high schools, the probability of passing the higher examination seems negligible. Most striking of all, perhaps, are the statistics pertaining to the intermediate examination. Although geared to junior-college graduates, it has attracted growing numbers of applicants with four years of university education and more. By the 1980s, the latter accounted for

[12] he type-B higher civil-service examination was originally designed to serve as a supplemental means of recruiting scientists and engineers into the higher civil service. So far as administrative personnel were concerned, it was intended to be a gateway for future midlevel managers. However, until 1966 nearly all of those who passed the type-B examination in the administrative fields were those who had failed the type-A higher civil-service examination, which applicants were allowed to take in tandem. In 1967 this privilege was rescinded. Jinji-in, Jinji gyosei nijunen no ayumi , p. 123.

more than 90 percent of the successes in the examination. Even the lower examination has attracted a sizable number of university and junior-college graduates. These two groups together have accounted for about 17 percent of the successes in the lower examination in recent years.^[13]

It was partly in response to the changing character of the intermediate examination that the examination system was reorganized in 1985. The intermediate examination having effectively been turned into a vehicle for recruiting university graduates, there was a need to come to grips with that reality. Specifically, its prestige needed to be upgraded in order that the national government might compete successfully with local governments and private firms in the recruitment arena. Moreover, the demand for graduates of the type-B higher civil-service examination had steadily decreased over the years. On the other hand, the implementation of a mandatory retirement system beginning in 1985 would pave the way for generational change in the middle echelons of the national-government bureaucracy, making it necessary to increase the supply of capable middle-level administrators. Given these considerations, the National Personnel Authority decided to abolish the type-B higher examination, upgrade the intermediate examination, and rename all three examinations. The type-A higher examination became simply type I, the intermediate became type II, and the lower examination became type III.^[14]

A second noteworthy feature of the civil-service examinations pertains to specialization, for all candidates are required to choose a specific field of specialization. In the higher (type I) examination, candidates must choose one of the following twenty-eight fields: public administration, law, economics, psychology, education, sociology, mathematics, physics, geology, information engineering, electrical engineering, electronics and communications, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, chemistry, metallurgy, energy engineering, pharmacy, agriculture, agricultural economics, agricultural chemistry, agricultural engineering, animal husbandry, forestry, fishery science, erosion control (sabo ), and landscape design (zoen ).^[15]

[13] or relevant statistics, see Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1985, p. 28; ibid., 1986, pp. 29-31; ibid., 1987, pp. 35-36.

[14] Saiyo shiken taikei no saihen seibi ni tsuite" [On the Reorganization and Adjustment of the Recruitment Examination System], Jinji-in geppo 411(Apr. 1985): 10-17.

[15] inji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1987, p. 29.

From 1949 to 1954, candidates for the higher examination opting for the field of public administration were allowed to choose an additional field of specialization. Now candidates for the type-II examination are given a choice of twelve fields: public administration, library science, physics, electrical engineering and electronics, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, chemistry, energy engineering, agriculture, agricultural civil engineering (nogyo doboku ), and forestry. All but three of these fields are also available for type-III-examination candidates. The exceptions are library science, physics, and energy engineering. Two fields that are unique to the type-III examination are postal affairs (yusei jimu ) and taxation.^[16]

Table 5 presents some statistics regarding the fields of specialization represented in the hiring of those who have passed the higher civil-service examination (HCSE) in the 1960-86 period. Note that this table pertains not to the successful applicants but to those who were actually hired by the various ministries and agencies. As we shall see below, only about half of the successful applicants receive appointments. The table shows that those choosing law and the social sciences as their fields of specialization in the HCSE, most of whom become administrative officials (jimukan ), have always been a minority. In fact, until 1972 they were eclipsed by those choosing engineering and the natural sciences. In subsequent years, although "law and the social sciences" has become the largest of the three categories, it has nonetheless remained well below the 50-percent mark, hovering around 40 percent.

A third feature of the examination system is that all examinations have multiple stages. The first stage in the higher examination consists of two sets of multiple-choice tests. The first set, known as kyoyo shiken (general-culture test), is made up of sixty questions designed to test general knowledge, aptitude, and intelligence; it lasts three hours. The second set, called senmon shiken (specialized test), contains the same number of questions and is designed to measure the level of expertise in the candidate's chosen field of specialization and lasts three and a half hours. Between 90 and 95 percent of candidates are eliminated in this initial phase.^[17]

[16] or the type-Ill examination, public administration is subdivided into administrative affairs (gyosei jimu ) A and B. See ibid., pp. 30-31 and "Saiyo shiken taikei no saihen," pp. 14-15.

[17] uken Shinpo Henshubu, Komuin shiken mondai to taisaku: Jokyu shiken, '85-nenban [Questions and Strategies for Civil-Service Examinations: The Higher Examination, 1985 Edition] (Tokyo: Hogaku Shoin, 1984), pp. 2-206.

In the second phase, candidates are again subjected to two sets of tests, one specialized and the other general. But unlike the previous tests, these consist of essay-type or problem-solving-type questions. Those opting for the field of public administration, for example, must choose three subjects out of five (constitutional law, political science, social policy, public administration, and principles of economics) and answer one essay question in each subject. They are given three hours in which to compose three essays. To give some examples of questions: "discuss equality and discrimination in democracy" (political science), "discuss the similarities and differences between public administration and private management" (public administration), "discuss measures for dealing with the aging of the work force" (social policy), and "discuss

the microeconomic foundations of the Keynesian macroeconomics" (economics).^[18]

The general test (sogo shiken ) in this phase typically requires the applicant to answer two questions in two and a half hours. Its aim is to test the candidate's ability to synthesize ideas and his judgment, analytic ability, and ability to think. A frequently used device is to present long excerpts from an article, often in English, and then ask the candidate to summarize and evaluate the main arguments.^[19] There is then a brief oral examination (jinbutsu shiken ) during which the candidate is questioned about his motives for choosing government service, his interests and hobbies, and other matters. About half of the candidates surviving the first round are eliminated in the second round of competition.^[20]

A fourth and final feature of the examination system that needs to be explained is the decentralization of hiring. Officially, recruitment activities should not commence until early October after the final results of the higher examination have been announced. The National Personnel Authority compiles rosters of successful candidates (saiyo kohosha meibo ) for each field of specialization; names are listed in the order of the scores earned. Upon receipt of requests from the ministries and agencies, the authority forwards lists of eligible candidates, whose numbers typically exceed the number of vacancies by a ratio of five to one. Actual hiring is supposed to begin in early November.^[21]

Unofficially, however, the process begins in early August immediately after the completion of the second phase of the higher examination. Even though half of them will be eliminated in the competition, the candidates nonetheless begin to pound the pavement in Kasumigaseki—a section of Tokyo's Chiyoda district where government offices are located—in a ritual known as kancho homon (visits to government

[18] omuin Shiken Joho Kenkyukai, ed. 88 nendo-han komuin saiyo shiken shirizu: Isshu kokka komuin shiken [1988 Edition, Civil-Service-Examination Series: Type-I National Public-Employee Examination] (Tokyo: Hitotsubashi Shoten, 1986), p. 46. All of these questions are from the tests intended for applicants taking the public-administration option.

[19] or examples of questions in the general test, which are too long to be translated here, see ibid., pp. 382-99.

[20] ashiro Ku, "Nihon gyoseikan kenkyu, III: gyoseikan no kyaria keisei katei (1)" [A Study of Japanese Public Administrators, Part III: The Making of Administrator's Career (1)], Kankai , Dec. 1981, pp. 69-71; Juken Shinpo Henshubu, ed., Watashi no totta kokka jokyu shiken toppaho, 86-nenban [How I Passed the National Higher (Civil-Service) Examination, 1986 Edition] (Tokyo: Hogaku Shoin, 1984). The last-mentioned source is a collection of essays by nineteen persons who passed the higher examination in 1984.

[21] Komuin shiken gokaku kara saiyo made" [From Passing the Civil-Service Examination to Being Hired], Jinji-in geppo 103 (Sept. 1959): 14-15.

agencies). It is widely believed that candidates from top-rated universities enjoy an edge, particularly if they have strong academic records and are likely to receive high scores in the examination. A participant-observer notes that grades received at Todai's Law Faculty carry more weight than scores in the higher examination, for, in his view, the former is a more reliable gauge of the candidate's intellectual ability than the latter. Inasmuch as the level of difficulty is about the same in both the higher examination and examinations taken in Todai's Law Faculty, he states, how one has performed over a two-and-a-half-year period ought to mean more than one's score in a single examination.^[22] Another observer notes, however, that one's rank in the higher examination is far more important than one's grades in college. He speculates that to have a good chance of being selected by the Ministry of Finance, which hires only twenty-five or so elite-track civil servants a year, one must rank among the top fifty successful candidates in HCSE.^[23]

Government ministries and agencies are known to seek out outstanding candidates from time to time, utilizing their kone (connections). Senpai (seniors) from the same university, especially from athletic or other clubs, and professors can play the role of match-maker. A candidate who had earned the third highest scores in the higher examination in the mid-1960s, for example, received a telephone call from a senpai , a former member of Todai's English Speaking Society. Over lunch, the senpai made a pitch for the Finance Ministry, which the candidate eventually chose over the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.^[24]

During the unofficial visits to government ministries and agencies, some candidates receive signals about possible appointment. Typically, a candidate visits a number of ministries and agencies and then narrows his choice to a few. After repeated visits to a ministry or agency, he may even receive a signal about a possible offer of appointment. Some candidates report having received an informal decision (nainaitei ) as early as late August—a full month before the final results of the HCSE are published and formal ministerial examinations (oral) begin.^[25]

As we shall see later in the chapter, there are signs that the gap

[22] ato, Kanryo -desu, yoroshiku , pp. 39-40.

[23] Kuribayashi, Okurasho shukeikyoku , p. 30. Kato served in the Home Ministry, whereas Kuribayashi is referring to the Finance Ministry.

[24] bid., pp. 19-22. In this case the recruitment activity took place after the final results of the higher civil-service examination were announced.

[25] uken Shinpo Henshubu, ed., Watashi no totta kokka jokyu shiken , pp. 120-21.

between Todai and the other universities is slowly being narrowed and that the disadvantages of private-university graduates are becoming increasingly less severe.

Table 6 presents some statistics about the higher civil-service examinations. It is plain that they are keenly competitive. As column D shows, only a small proportion of the applicants pass the examinations. What needs to be stressed is that the number of applicants is invariably greater than the number of those who actually take the examinations. During the years for which relevant statistics are available, about 18 percent of those who submitted their applications failed to show up. This means that the numbers in column D overstate the extent of competition during the years 1967 and 1973-1988. Nonetheless, during most years, over 95 percent of those who took the examinations failed. The number of applicants peaked in 1979 and leveled off in subsequent years, whereas the number passing increased steadily during the same period. This led to a notable increase in the proportion of successful candidates (column D), although it still remains well below 10 percent even after allowance is made for the discrepancy between the number of applicants and the number of those taking the examinations.

The table also demonstrates that passing the highly competitive examinations by no means ensures an appointment to a civil-service position. As column E shows, only about half of the successful candidates are actually hired. This does not mean, however, that the remainder are simply bypassed. In the 1976-84 period, three out of ten candidates who had passed the type-A higher examination and four out of ten candidates who had passed the type-B higher examination either withdrew their names from the rosters of eligibles or failed to respond to further communication from the government. In the 1981-86 period, the withdrawal rate of type-A candidates increased sharply, to about 37 percent. The proportion of type-B candidates withdrawing from the roster also increased, from 33 percent in 1981 to 52 percent in 1984.^[26]

The higher withdrawal rate of type-B candidates reflected their somewhat limited career prospects as compared with those of type-A candidates. Not only did the former have relatively limited choice in terms of potential employers, but they were not expected to rise to the apex of the bureaucratic pyramid. Type-A candidates, on the other hand, faced a wider range of options as well as fairly rapid advancement in the civil service. Although all graduates of the HCSE theoretically

[26] he rates of withdrawal or nonresponse were calculated from the data in Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1978-1986.

qualified as kyaria (career civil servants), in practice the prestige and upward mobility implied by the term kyaria were not equally shared by all of them. In Japan, kyaria refers to elite-track bureaucrats, and nonkyaria (noncareer) refers to all the remainder.^[27]

Since 1971, the largest proportion of type-B graduates was hired by the National Tax Administration Agency (Kokuzeicho). In that year the proportion was 51.6 percent, and by 1975 it had risen to 59.0 percent. In 1985, the last year for which type-B graduates were eligible for civil-service appointment, the proportion stood at 77.8 percent.^[28] In the Finance Ministry, of which the NTAA is an external bureau (gaikyoku ), informal distinctions are maintained among honsho kyaria ("career" civil servants hired by the ministry proper), kokuzei kyaria ("career" civil servants hired by the NTAA), zaimu kyaria ("career" civil servants hired by the Financial Bureau [Zaimukyoku], and zeikan kyaria ("career" civil servants hired by the customs). Journalists who cover the Finance Ministry sum up the differential speeds of promotion among the various groups of civil servants as follows: "The honsho kyaria rides the jet airplane, the kokuzei kyaria the bullet train (shinkansen ), the zaimu kyaria the special express (tokkyu ), the zeikan kyaria the express (kyuko ), and the nonkyaria the slow train (donko )."^[29]

The successful applicants who either voluntarily withdraw their names or fail to fill out forms required for further consideration do so because they have other options. Some have offers from private firms. Others may choose to pursue graduate studies. Still others may have passed the judicial examination and opted for entry into the Judicial Training Institute. If we add up those who are hired and those who withdraw, then we are left with only 20 to 25 percent of the successful applicants who fail to receive offers of appointment from government ministries and agencies. No data are available regarding what happens to those people.^[30]

[27] ashiro Ku, "Nihon gyoseikan kenkyu, VII: kyaria to nonkyaria" [A Study of Japanese Public Administrators, Part VII: Career and Noncareer], Kankai , Apr. 1982, pp. 68-79.

[28] he National Tax Administration Agency (NTAA) began to hire type-B graduates in 1968; however, the number remained small (17 in 1968, 16 in 1969, and 26 in 1970) until 1971, when 197 were hired. Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1961-1986 (Tokyo: 1962-87).

[29] Kuribayashi, Okurasho shukeikyoku , p. 43.

[30] he proportion of the successful candidates who neither withdrew nor were hired in selected years is as follows: 1960, (type A) 15.4 percent, (type B) 26.0 percent; 1965, (A) 26.1 percent, (B) 27.3 percent; 1970, (A) 20.9 percent, (B) 18.2 percent; 1975, (A) 25.0 percent, (B) 7.1 percent; 1980, (A) 23.2 percent, (B) 10.0 percent; 1985, (type I) 19.6 percent. Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, and 1986 (Tokyo, 1962-1987).

Patterns Of Recruitment

Examination Vs. Evaluation

The available statistics suggest a number of noteworthy patterns in the recruitment of civil servants during the postwar period. In the first place, although competitive examination was intended to be the principal mode of recruitment, evaluation (senko ) has played and continues to play a very imporant role. As table 7 shows, if we look at the civil service as a whole, it is evaluation, not competitive examination, that has served as the primary mode of recruitment. Until the early 1960s, fewer than one in four new appointees had taken civil-service examinations. Although the proportion has increased steadily since then, it has yet to reach the 50-percent mark.

The overall picture, however, is misleading, for it is affected, to a large extent, by the recruitment patterns of specialized personnel, such as educators and health-care specialists. When such personnel are excluded, that is to say, when we focus on civil servants in the Administrative Service I only, the picture changes appreciably.^[31] In 1957, almost seven of every ten Administrative Service I bureaucrats were recruited through competitive examinations, and by 1965 the proportion rose to 78 percent. In the 1980s, eight of every ten civil servants who were appointed to Administrative Service I positions each year were examination-certified.

Because these numbers pertain to new hirings only, however, we need to take note of the situation concerning the incumbent civil servants. So far as the total population of the Administrative Service I was concerned, those who had been recruited through the various competitive examinations constituted 60.7 percent of the total in March 1986, a substantially lower proportion than that for the new appointees in recent years.^[32] It should also be stressed that only a very small proportion of the examination-qualified appointees had passed the higher civil-service examinations. When both types A and B are considered, the proportion has averaged about 9 percent. The average drops to about 6 percent when type A alone is taken into account.

Another glimpse of the patterus of recruitment is provided by table 8. It must be borne in mind that whereas table 7 pertained to new appointees only, this table presents data on incumbent civil servants covered by the Administrative Service I salary schedule. To make our task manageable, however, only the occupants of grades I through 3 will be analyzed.^[33] Focusing on grade 1 first, we see a clear trend toward institutionalization, in which the higher civil-service examination has emerged as the dominant mode of entry into the elite positions. Whereas in 1970 only one-quarter of the grade 1 occupants had passed the higher civil-service examination, by 1972 over one-third of them had done so. By 1974, higher-examination-qualified incumbents were in the major-

[31] As mentioned previously, the Administrative Service (I) accounts for nearly half of general-service civil servants and includes most people who perform clerical, administrative, and managerial functions. The other categories of civil servants encompass revenue and custom agents, crews of state-owned vessels; teachers, professors, researchers, and educational administrators; and health-care personnel.

[32] Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1987, p. 46.

[33] These grades refer to the system that was in use until 20 Dec. 1985. On 21. Dec. 1985, a new system went into effect. See "Kyuyoho no kaisei ni tsuite" [On the Revision of the Compensation Law], Jinji-in geppo 421 (Feb. 1986): 6-47.

ity, and by the early 1980s the higher civil-service examination had become the source of 80 percent of grade-1 officials.

Note also that since 1974 those who had passed the intermediate civil-service examination began to appear in grade 1. Although their actual number is quite small—3 each in 1974, 1976, and 1978, 7 each in 1980 and 1981, 16 in 1982, and 27 each in 1983 and 1984—it is nonetheless significant that products of the intermediate-level examination can and do rise to such high positions. What is more, in 1981 an alumnus of the lower civil-service examination reached grade 1 for the first time in the postwar period. The number has steadily increased in the ensuing years: 2 in 1982, 5 in 1983, and 18 in 1984.

Turning to grade 2, we see the same general trend: a steady increase in the proportion of examination-qualified incumbents over the fifteen-year span. Unlike the situation in grade 1, however, it was not until the end of 1983 that examination had produced a bare majority of incumbents. While the proportion of those who passed the higher civil-service examination appears to have stabilized at the 40-percent mark since 1974, that of the intermediate-examination graduates has shown a marked growth throughout the period. We also find a steady increase in the number of lower civil-service-examination graduates: 2 in 1976, 3 in 1978, 40 in 1980, 53 in 1981, 80 in 1982, 120 in 1983, and 143 in 1984.

As for grade 3, the situation is notably different. Not only has evaluation eclipsed examination by a ratio of seven to three, but the rate of change has been rather low. Alumni of both the intermediate and lower examinations have nonetheless made steady progress. In sum, table 8 demonstrates several distinct trends: (1) access to the positions of assistant bureau chief, division chief, senior-level section chief, and their equivalents is gradually becoming limited to those who have passed the higher civil-service examinations; (2) a tiny fraction of those who entered the civil service by way of the intermediate examination can attain these high-level positions; and (3) that goal is within the reach of even alumni of the lower examination. Realistically, however, the highest position level that the latter can aspire to appears to be that of junior-level section chief or its equivalent.

A statistical breakdown among the higher-examination-certified civil servants is available for the years 1982 through 1984 only. It shows that graduates of the type-B higher examination are concentrated in lower grades: whereas 51 (1982) to 53 percent (1984) of the type-A higher-examination graduates occupied the top three grades, only 12 (1982) to

14 percent (1984) of the type-B higher-examination graduates did so. The actual number of type-B graduates in grade I was negligible: 3 each in 1982 and 1983 and 7 in 1984. This means that there were more lower-examination graduates in the top grade than there were type-B graduates (18 compared with 7 in 1984). In grade-2 positions, lower-examination graduates outnumbered type-B graduates by 80 to 30 in 1982, 120 to 46 in 1983, and 143 to 56 in 1984.^[34]

University Background Of Successful Candidates

In chapter 2 we saw that the prewar Japanese bureaucracy was dominated by graduates of Tokyo Imperial University in its higher echelons and that the phenomenon was a function of the preponderance of Todai men among the successful candidates in the higher civil-service examinations. Table 9 presents statistics that suggest the continuation of that age-old pattern. At first glance, the phenomenon of Todai dominance in the higher civil-service examinations appears to be less pronounced in the postwar period than it was during the earlier era. Even though Todai has never ceased to be the single largest supplier of successful candidates in the higher examinations, its share of the pot has declined somewhat. The precipitate decline in 1972, however, (41-percent decline in absolute numbers and 45-percent decline in proportional terms) is an aberration triggered by an unusual circumstance: because of disruptions caused by campus unrest, no students were admitted to the University of Tokyo in 1968, which in turn led to a sharp decline in the number of its graduates in 1972. In the succeeding years, Todai has supplied between three and four out of every ten successful candidates.

Kyoto University (Kyodai) has retained its position as the number-two supplier of senior bureaucrats in the postwar period. Although its share has generally remained well below one-half of Todai's share, there has consistently been an unbridgeable gap between Kyodai and all other universities. In the 1966-84 period, the number-three position alternated among three schools Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, and Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku). Hokkaido

[34] hese statistics are not displayed in table 8; they were taken from Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1984, p. 36; ibid., 1985, p. 44, and 1986, p. 44.

University retained the third spot continuously from 1977 to 1984.^[35] Even in its best years, Hokkaido University, which is clearly the strongest of the three contenders for the number-three position, did not come close to matching Kyodai's performance, even though it did break through the 100 barrier in 1979 for the first time, repeating the feat in 1984.

Significantly, all of these universities are national universities (kokuritsu daigaku ). In 1985, however, Waseda University, a private institution of higher learning, captured the number-three position for the first time: it produced eighty successful candidates in the higher examination, accounting for 4.8 percent of all successes. Even though Waseda's total was identical to its 1984 total, it turned out to be one more than Hokkaido's, which had suffered a nearly 20-percent decline in the number of successful candidates.^[36] In 1986 Waseda, which had increased its total to eighty-two, was overtaken by Tokyo Institute of Technology, which produced eighty-nine successes.^[37] In 1987 Tohoku University had ninety-two successful applicants, and in 1988 it had ninety-five. Waseda had eighty-five successful applicants in 1987 and ninety-one in 1988.^[38]

As table 10 shows unmistakably, national universities have consistently outperformed the other two types of universities, public (koritsu daigaku ) and private (shiritsu daigaku ). In all five years for which data are available, we see substantially higher success rates (ratio of successful to all applicants) for national-university graduates than for those of the other two types of universities. In those years, national-university graduates were between 2 and 4.5 times more likely to pass the type-A higher examination than those of public universities and between 7 and 20 times more likely to pass the examination than those of private universities. Graduates of public universities were better off than those of private universities by a substantial margin: the former's chances of passing the examination were between 1.7 and 7.7 times greater than the latter's. If we look beyond the aggregate figures, we find

[35] Jinji-in geppo 197 (July 1967): 15, and 209 (July 1968): 15; Sato Tomoyuki et al., Todaibatsu , p. 15; Asahi shinbun , 22 Aug. 1972, 9 Sept. 1974 (evening ed.), 1 Nov. 1975 (evening ed.), 26 Oct. 1976 (evening ed.), 25 Oct. 1978, 15 Oct. 1983, and 1 Oct. 1984 (evening ed.); Mainichi shinbun , 11 Sept. 1973, 15 Oct. 1979, 15 Oct. 1980, 15 Oct. 1981, and 15 Oct. 1982.

[36] Asahi shinbun , 1 Oct. 1985 (evening ed.).

[37] Ibid., 1 Oct. 1986 (evening ed.). In 1987, undergraduate enrollments at selected universities were as follows: Tokyo, 14,379; Kyoto, 11,553, Hokkaido, 10,167; Tohoku, 10,075; Kyushu, 9,978; Tokyo Institute of Technology, 3,578; Waseda, 40,532; Keio, 22,839; and Chuo, 30,745. Association of International Education, Japan, ed., Japanese Colleges and Universities 1987 (Tokyo: Maruzen, 1987).

[38] Nihon keizai shinbun , 15 Sept. 1987; Asahi shinbun , 7 Sept 1988 (evening ed.).

wide variations among individual universities within each type. Unfortunately, a breakdown by university is available for 1967 only. As the notes in table 10 show, the success rate of Todai graduates was the highest (33.3 percent) and that of Kyodai trailed not too far behind (25.7 percent). The top performers among public and private universities were virtually indistinguishable in terms of their success rates: Osaka City University and Tokyo Metropolitan University in the former group, with 7.3 and 6.8 percent, respectively, were only a fraction of a percentage point ahead of Keio (7.0 percent) and Waseda (6.7 percent) in the latter group.

As we have seen previously, however, those who have passed the higher civil-service examinations do not ipso facto become civil servants. To get a more meaningful picture, therefore, we need to ascertain whether the pattern of dominance by graduates of national universities and, particularly, by a few elite universities continues in the hiring stage. Table 11 gives us a breakdown by type of universities for recent years. It reveals that the advantages of national-university graduates have begun to diminish at the hiring stage. Only in 1975 did they enjoy a substantial edge over graduates of public and private universities. In 1980, the latter registered higher rates of appointment than the former, and the same pattern was repeated in 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986.

What is especially noteworthy is the performance of private-university graduates: their hiring rates in the 1980s have eclipsed those of national-university graduates by a substantial margin. When this is viewed in conjunction with a steady increase of private-university graduates in the proportion of successful candidates in the higher examination (for example, 8.5 percent in 1982, 10.1 percent in 1983, 12.8 percent in 1984, 11.1 percent in 1985, 12.6 percent in 1986, 13.1 percent in 1987, and 13.4 percent in 1988),^[39] we can anticipate the dawning of the day when attending a private university is no longer perceived as a handicap in civil-service employment. The slight decline in the share of private-university graduates in 1985 was offset by an increase in absolute numbers from 167 in 1984 to 184 in 1985. In 1986, their share nearly returned to the 1984 level in proportional terms and reached a new high (N = 217) in absolute numbers. The year 1987 saw the best record in twenty-one years for private universities in absolute (N = 221) and proportional (13 percent) terms alike. In 1988 the record improved further: 243 private university graduates passed the

[39] Yomiuri shinbun , 16 Oct. 1983, and 15 Sept. 1987; Mainichi shinbun , 1 Oct. 1984 (evening ed.); Asahi shinbun , 1 Oct. 1985 (evening ed.), 1 Oct. 1986 (evening ed.), and 7 Sept. 1988 (evening ed.).

higher examination, accounting for 13.4 percent of all sucesses. A look at absolute numbers, on the other hand, helps us to appreciate a key fact: notwithstanding the increase in the rates of hiring, the number of private- and public-university graduates entering the higher civil service remains low. Between eight and nine out of every ten new appointees in the six years covered by table 11 came from national universities.

The continued dominance of national universities becomes plain when we turn from aggregate statistics to more specific data, of which only fragments are available. First, we have the testimony of Tashiro Ku, a former bureau chief in the National Personnel Authority, who writes that between 110 and 115 of the 160 candidates hired from the 1980 roster of type-A eligibles in the field of law were graduates of Todai's law faculty. That accounted for 69 to 72 percent of the total. Tashiro reports that this was not an atypical year.^[40]

[40] Tashiro, "Nihon gyoseikan kenkyu, VII: kyaria to nonkyaria," pp. 89-90.

Second, we have data regarding the university background of the new hiring by the Ministries of Finance and Home Affairs. Looking at the Finance Ministry in selected years first, we find the predominance of Todai graduates; they constituted 77.3 percent (17 out of 22) of the 1970 entering class, 76.9 percent (20 out of 26) of the 1975 class, 82.6 percent (19 out of 23) of the 1980 class, and 84.6 percent (22 out of 26) of the 1985 class. About 75 percent of Todai men hired by the Finance Ministry during these years were graduates of its law faculty. Non-Todai graduates came principally from Kyodai and Hitotsubashi University. In 1970, 1975, and 1980, these three universities were the exclusive sources of Finance Ministry recruits. In the twenty-three-year period from 1960 to 1982, only 8 graduates of private universities were hired by the Finance Ministry on the career track: 4 from Keio, 3 from Waseda, and 1 from Chuo.^[41]

Turning to the Home Ministry, we find a similar situation. The proportion of Todai graduates among all new appointees in selected years was as follows: 1950: 100.0 percent (3 out of 3); 1955: 62.5 percent (5 out of 8); 1960: 75.0 percent (9 out of 12); 1965: 76.9 percent (10 out of 13); 1970: 80.0 percent (12 out of 15); 1975: 81.3 percent (13 out of 16); 1980: 88.2 percent (15 out of 17); and 1985: 93.7 percent (14 out of 15). All but 3 of the 81 Todai graduates hired by the Home Ministry in these years came from its law faculty. Of the 18 non-Todai men, 10 were Kyodai graduates, all of them in law, and 3 were graduates of Tokyo Institute of Technology. Only 2 came from private universities.^[42]

How may one account for the slow increase in the number of private-university graduates in the higher civil service? If one may hazard a speculation, a number of factors may be cited. One is the changing perception of the higher civil service: the view that it is the exclusive preserve of graduates of a few elite national universities is being increasingly rejected by students of private universities. And the success of the latter in scaling the wall of the higher civil service will undoubtedly help reinforce this trend. Another factor may be the

[41] The data for 1960 through 1982 are from Jin Ikko, Okura kanryo: Cho-erito shudan no jinmyaku to yabo [Finance Ministry Bureaucrats: the Personal Connections and Ambitions of a Super-Elite Group] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1982), appendix: "Okurasho zen kyaria ichiran" [Complete List of Career Civil Servants in the Finance Ministry], unpaged. The 1985 data are from Shukan Yomiuri [Weekly Yomiuri], 16 Dec. 1984, p. 171.

[42] Jin Ikko, Jichi kanryo [Home Ministry Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1986), pp. 232-57. These pages list all new appointees from 1947 to 1985.

narrowing of the gap between national and private universities in terms of the caliber of students. That is to say, the gap between those who enter the top-rated national universities and those who enter the top-rated private universities may not be as great as is generally believed.^[43] A third, and probably the most important, factor is the apparent change in the attitudes of the hiring agencies. Many of them appear to be making a conscious effort to diversify the background of new elite-track appointees.

Another dimension of the educational background of new recruits into the higher civil service is their level of education. As we have already noted, the educational level of applicants for all types of civil-service examinations has increased appreciably over the past two decades, and this is bound to affect the situation at the hiring stage as well. Nearly four out of ten persons who were hired as higher civil servants in 1975, 1980, and 1983, for example, had done graduate work. Scientists and engineers show the highest level of educational attainments, whereas "law and the humanities" graduates display the lowest. Indeed, it is striking that between 65 and 76 percent of scientists and engineers hired during the three years mentioned above had done graduate work.^[44]

All this is clearly linked to the rapid increase in the graduate population. Whereas the number of university students increased 2.9 times between 1960 and 1980, that of graduate students increased 3.4 times during the same period. What is more, the number of graduate students in the natural sciences and engineering grew 6.7 times in the twenty-year period, as compared with a mere two-fold increase in the number of graduate students in the humanities and social sciences.^[45] It

[43] of the applicants who take entrance examinations to both Todai and a top-rated private university, a sizable proportion is known to pass the former but fail the latter. In 1984, for example, 30 (or 24 percent) of the 127 graduates of Yoyogi Seminar, a leading preparatory school in Tokyo, who passed the entrance examination to Todai's Law Faculty failed the entrance examination to Waseda University's Faculty of Politics and Economics. Overall, 32 percent of the 275 Yoyogi graduates who were admitted to Todai's humanities faculties (bunka kei ) were rejected by Waseda's Faculty of Politics and Economics. Of the Yoyogi graduates who passed the entrance examination to Todai's Faculty of Medicine, reputed to be the most competitive in Japan, about 20 percent failed the entrance examination to Keio University's Faculty of Medicine. "Juken sensen de kigyo kyoso de ima 'Todai shinwa' no hokai ga hajimatta!" ["The Myth of the University of Tokyo" Has Begun to Crumble on the (University) Entrance Examination Front and in the Competition Among Business Enterprises], Shukan gendai , 2 Mar. 1985, pp. 22-27.

[44] These statistics were obtained from the National Personnel Authority during the author's visit to that agency in June 1985.

[45] Monbusho, ed., Waga kuni no kyoiku suijun [The Educational Level of Our Country], 1980 (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1981), appendixes 66 and 67.

is noteworthy that the door to the higher civil service is not totally closed to those lacking university diplomas: a total of 15 such persons were hired in 1975, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986 (see table 11).

On balance, however, the picture that emerges from the preceding survey is the continuing dominance of a few elite universities, particularly Todai, in both the examination and hiring stages of higher civil servants. On the other hand, the steady increase in the proportion of private-university graduates, both among the successful candidates in the higher examination and among those who are actually hired by government ministries and agencies, suggests that the process of incremental change may have already begun.^[46]

Hoka Banno

Let us now turn to another age-old pattern in Japanese bureaucracy: the dominance of law graduates (hoka banno ). Table 12 displays some data suggestive of how law has fared as a field of specialization in the higher civil-service examination in the postwar period. In a word, it has become the single most important field, accounting for between 14 and 27 percent of the successful candidates during the 1955-87 period. The total number of fields during the period has ranged from twenty-four to twenty-seven. The number and proportion of successful candidates in the next four fields (type A or type I only) in selected years are as follows:

1955: economics, 142 (10.8 percent); public administration, 111 (8.4 percent); civil engineering, 100 (7.6 percent); mechanical engineering, 93 (7.1 percent).

1965: mechanical engineering, 165 (10.2 percent); civil engineering, 160 (9.9 percent); physics, 149 (9.2 percent); chemistry, 100 (6.2 percent).

1975: civil engineering, 150 (12.4 percent); chemistry, 84 (7.9 percent); economics, 83 (6.9 percent); physics, 80 (6.6 percent).

[46] Another sign of change worth mentioning is that in 1986 the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MITI) hired a graduate of a foreign university as a career civil servant for the first time in its history: a 24-year-old Japanese who had graduated from Brown University with a major in econometrics. MITI's chief of the Minister's Secretariat said that the appointment reflected MITI's goal of securing "persons with rich international experience" in view of the growing internationalization. See "Kasumigaseki konhidensharu" [Confidential Report from Kasumigaseki], Bungei shunju , Jan. 1986, p. 171.

1985: civil engineering, 212 (12.8 percent); economics, 110 (6.6 percent); physics, 110 (6.6 percent); electronics, 110 (6.6 percent).^[47]

The preceding data indicate that the gap between law and the other top fields is fairly wide: only in the 1980s has the next field begun to

[47] Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1955, 1965, 1975, and 1985 (Tokyo, 1956, 1966, 1976, and 1986).

challenge law in number and proportion. In 1983, civil engineering surpassed law for the first time, with 228 successful candidates, 7 more than law. In 1985, however, law recaptured its paramount position, and the situation remained unchanged in 1986 and 1987.

More important, about a quarter of the successful candidates who are actually hired have law as their field of specialization. Comparison of columns G and H in table 12 shows that the proportion of successful candidates in law who are actually hired has consistently surpassed that of all candidates by 15 to 20 percent, reaching an all-time high of 29 percent in 1986. Moreover, law offers the widest range of options to the successful candidate in terms of government employment, for virtually every agency recruits law specialists every year. The other fields that offer relatively abundant options to the candidates are economics and public administration, but neither can match law.

It should also be noted that the hiring rates for successful candidates in engineering and the natural sciences are relatively low. Because of attractive alternatives in the private sector, a large proportion of these candidates withdraw, and this has in turn prompted the government to pass a larger number of candidates in the technical fields than would be the case otherwise. The hiring rates for candidates who passed the 1986 higher examination in selected scientific and engineering fields were as follows: physics, 23.6 percent; chemistry, 26.8 percent; information engineering, 18.7 percent; electrical engineering, 25.8 percent; electronics, 25.9 percent; mechanical engineering, 25.0 percent; civil engineering, 25.9 percent; and metallurgy, 15.0 percent. Among the technical fields, those related to agriculture have the highest hiring rates, which reflects the relative scarcity of private-sector alternatives in them.^[48]

The preponderance of law as a field of specialization in the higher civil-service examination tends to accentuate the influence of elite universities. As table 13 shows, Todai supplies about seven out of ten successes in the field of law. Comparison of this table with table 9 indicates that Todai's share of successful candidates in law is about twice its share of all successful candidates. When law, economics, and public administration are combined—the three fields have traditionally supplied a disproportionate share of top administrators in Japanese bureaucracy—Todai's share declines slightly.

[48] These rates were calculated from the data in Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1986, p. 25, and 1987, pp. 40-41. The hiring rates for agriculture-related fields in 1986 were as follows: agriculture, 56.0 percent; agricultural economics, 38.7 percent; agricultural chemistry, 42.2 percent; agricultural engineering, 50.0 percent; animal husbandry, 48.0 percent; and forestry, 62.9 percent.

As we shall see in the following chapter, the importance of law increases further when promotion patterns are examined. The nature of the educational experience that candidates in law undergo, therefore, will be a major component of our inquiry into the socialization of Japanese higher civil servants. At this point, however, it is necessary to explain briefly what specialization in law signifies in the Japanese context. The most important thing to bear in mind is that being a law graduate (that is, a graduate of a faculty of law in a university) is not the same thing as being a lawyer. All faculties of law in Japan are undergraduate institutions. Although their graduates receive a substantial amount of legal training as well as law degrees (hogakushi [bachelor of law]), only a small proportion of them take the judicial examination, and still a smaller proportion pass it.

In 1986, for example, only 1 in 49 applicants passed the examination. Of the 486 successful candidates, 97 (20.0 percent) came from Todai, 85 (17.5 percent) each from Waseda and Chuo universities, 32 (6.6 percent) from Kyodai, and 25 (5.1 percent) from Keio University. Interestingly, three of the top five universities are private—Waseda, Chuo, and Keio. The judicial examination is said to be so difficult that only a handful of those who pass it do so on their first try. The average age of the successful candidates in recent years has hovered around twenty-eight, about five years higher than the average age of graduation from a law faculty. In 1986, a record number of women (59 or 12.1 percent of all successes) passed the judicial examination.^[49]

Those who pass the judicial examination must undergo two years of postgraduate training at the state-run Judicial Training Institute (Shiho Kenshujo). At the end of the two years they must take another examination, consisting of both written and oral tests. Those who pass the second examination are officially certified to enter the legal profession, as judges, public prosecutors, and attorneys. Of the 450 persons who successfully completed their training in April 1986, 70 became judge trainees (hanjiho ), 34 became public prosecutors, and the remainder opted for careers as attorneys.^[50] In a sense, the Judicial Institute can be equated with a law school in the United States. Given that only five hundred or fewer qualified lawyers are produced in this fashion each year, it is not surprising that the number of lawyers in Japan is exceedingly small. In 1983 there were an estimated 12,500 attorneys in private practice, approximately 1 per 10,000 population. This contrasts sharply with the situation in the United States, where the ratio was about 1 lawyer per 400 population (about 600,000 attorneys).^[51]

For all but a handful of the people involved, then, graduation from a faculty of law does not foreshadow a career in the legal profession; it simply signifies completion of what amounts to general education. Law graduates, in other words, are generalists, not specialists. As such they

[49] Asahi shinbun , 1 Nov. 1986, and 21 May 1987. For a description of the Judicial Examination, see Tokyo Daigaku shinbun (weekly), 5 July, 1976, p. 3.

[50] Although nearly all trainees of the Judicial Training Institute pass the second examination, it is by no means automatic. In 1986, eight trainees were accused of cheating in the examination and failed to graduate with their classmates. Asahi shinbun , 27 Mar., 3 Apr. (evening ed.), 4 Apr. and 5 Apr. 1986.

[51] "Land Without Lawyers," Time , 1 Aug. 1983, pp. 64-65. "Although the Japanese have a highly developed sense of individual rights, social harmony, not personal justice, is the basis of their law. Litigation, never common, has actually decreased over the past 15 years." Ibid., p. 64.

enjoy a wide range of options. A study of some 24,000 graduates of Todai's law faculty about whom information was available in 1958 showed that the largest proportion, 44 percent, were either in banking or in private enterprises. The second-largest group, 23 percent, was in the civil service. Next, about 13 percent were in the legal profession (7 percent as judges or prosecutors and 6 percent as attorneys). The remainder were scattered in such fields as education, journalism, and politics.^[52] Data on the destinations of Todai law graduates in the 1970s and 1980s confirm that the preceding trend continues without any notable modifications.^[53]

Male Dominance

Prewar Japan was a male-dominated society. Politically, this was symbolized by the lack of franchise for women. It was natural that the government bureaucracy should mirror the inferiority of women in the larger society. Legally, however, women were placed on an equal footing with men in the competition for civil-service appointments as early as 1909, when they became eligible for the higher civil-service examination. However, they did not actually end male monopoly until 1928, when three women passed the judicial section of the higher civil-service examination. In 1931, a women passed its administrative section for the first time but was never offered an appointment to the higher civil service. Although more women passed the judicial section, no other women passed the administrative section before it was abolished after the Japanese defeat in World War II.^[54] As two American observers wrote in 1946: "The status system shows little scope for female service. The only women who have invaded the higher civil service are a few physicians and one labor executive in the Welfare Ministry. Even among ordinary officials, there are very few women; generally the exclusion is quite complete."^[55] To what extent has the situation changed since 1946?

The earliest available information regarding the sexual composition of the civil service pertains to 1958. A government survey of general-service employees covered by the regular compensation law revealed

[52] Shimizu Hideo, Tokyo Daigaku Hogakubu: Nihon erito no manmosu kichi [The University of Tokyo Faculty of Law: A Mammoth Base of Japan's Elite] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1965), p. 48.

[53] See Tokyo Daigaku shinbun , 28 June 1976, and Hata, Kanryo no kenkyu , p. 189.

[54] Hata, Kanryo no Kenkyu , pp. 103-4.

[55] MacDonald and Esman, "The Japanese Civil Service," p. 215.

that 62, 128 (17.2 percent) of the 360,328 civil servants were women. However, only 802 of the women civil servants had college degrees. In other words, only 1.6 percent of all civil servants with college degrees were women. The proportion increased sharply—to 14.7 percent—when graduates of junior colleges were examined.^[56]

In terms of average monthly salaries, female college graduates in the civil service earned 41.9 percent less than their male counterparts, and female graduates of junior colleges earned 30.5 percent less than their male colleagues with the same amount of education. When the length of service is held constant, the gender gap in compensation narrows somewhat. Women college graduates with less than one year of service earned 5.6 percent less than men with the identical background, but the disparity nearly quadrupled for women with fifteen to twenty years of service.^[57]

By 1976, some progress had been registered in the overall picture. The proportion of women in the civil service increased slightly, to 19.5 percent, and the proportion of women among college graduates in the civil service increased fourfold, to 6.8 percent. Meanwhile, the gender gap in compensation became markedly narrower. This was especially true when comparison was made between men and women with the same level of education and the identical length of service; in fact, women with less than two years of service earned slightly more than their male counterparts. However, the gap for those with longer experience remained, although it had been substantially reduced.^[58]

Table 14 shows that women have by no means been shut out of the higher civil-service examination. On the contrary, between 4 and 8

[56] Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1958, p. 50. To a large extent, the scarcity of college-educated women in the Japanese civil service reflected the scarcity of college-educated women in Japanese society as a whole. Of 1,858 persons who graduated from four-year colleges in 1950, only 31 (1.7 percent) were women. The situation had improved markedly by 1955:13,544 (14.3%) of the 94,735 university graduates that year were women. The proportion of women among university graduates increased steadily thereafter: 16.2 percent in 1965, 21.6 percent in 1975, and 24.7 percent in 1980. Among graduates of junior colleges, women began to surpass men in 1953, and by the late 1960s, eight of every ten junior-college graduates were women. In 1980, 155,200 (91.3 percent) of the 169,930 persons who graduated from junior colleges were women. Monbusho, ed., Waga kuni no kyoiku suijun , 1980, appendixes 137 and 138.

[57] Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1958, pp. 48-49.

[58] The gap for women with 15 to 20 years of service had been reduced from 19 percent in 1958 to 8.3 percent in 1976. See Jinji-in, kyuyokyoku, Kokka komuin kyuyoto jittai chosa hokokusho [Report on an Investigation into the Actual Conditions of National Civil Servants' Compensation and Related Matters], 15 Jan. 1976 (Tokyo: Okurasho, Insatsukyoku, 1976), pp. 4-5 and 38-39. Chap. 8 discusses further the question of the gender gap in compensation.

percent of the successful candidates in recent years have been women. The peak for women was reached in the early 1960s, when they constituted 8 to 9 percent of the successful candidates. From 1966 to 1982, the number of successful women candidates remained well below 100—in fact, close to half that number—and their proportion consistently fell short of the 5 percent mark. In 1983, however, women registered a substantial gain in both absolute and proportional terms. In

1984 not only did women sustain the same rate of gain as the previous year's, but, for the first time in the history of the higher civil-service examination, they received the highest grade in four fields: sociology, pharmacy, agriculture, and agricultural economics.^[59] In 1985 women broke the 100 barrier for the first time in twenty years, and their proportion among all the successful candidates, too, was the highest since 1964. Women were top-scorers in two fields, chemistry and pharmacy.^[60] In 1986 women continued their upward trend, gaining twenty-three in absolute numbers and 1.2 percentage points in their share of the successes over the previous year.^[61] In 1987 although women registered a slight decline both in absolute numbers and in proportional terms, they produced top scorers in four fields for the second time in three years: sociology, psychology, education, and pharmacy. In 1988 women had their best performance in twenty-five years: 150 successes (8.3 percent of all successes). They also produced top scorers in three fields: public administration, psychology, and animal husbandry.^[62]

Another notable pattern has to do with the ratios of types A and B. As we saw in table 6, since the 1970s successful type-A candidates have outnumbered successful type-B candidates by the ratios of between ten and fifteen to one. Among women, however, the ratios until 1984 hovered around four to one. In fact, when women's share of successful type-A candidates alone is examined, there is a slight deterioration in the picture. Except for 1963, 1964, and 1984, women's share of the total type-A successes is about a half percentage point below that of type-B successes. To sum up, in the category that really counts in terms of upward mobility, women still have a long way to go.

How do women compare with men in terms of their rates of success in the higher civil-service examination? Table 15 presents the relevant statistics for 1983 and 1984. It shows that although women lag behind men in their success rates in all major categories of specialization, the gap is the narrowest in "law and the humanities," where the difference is only a half percentage point. The widest gap is found in "science and engineering," where men's success rates were 2.6 to 2.7 percentage points higher than women's. Although women's success rates improved

[59] Mainichi shinbun , 1 Oct. 1984 (evening ed.).

[60] Asahi shinbun , 1 Oct. 1985 (evening ed.).

[61] Ibid., 1 Oct. 1986 (evening ed.).

[62] Yomiuri shinbun , 15 Sept. 1987; Asahi shinbun , 7 Sept. 1988 (evening ed.).

somewhat in 1984 compared with 1983, so did men's, thus leaving the overall gender gap intact.

One bright spot in table 15, so far as women are concerned, is that nearly half of women's successes are found in "law and the humanities," compared with only about a quarter of men's successes. This is good news for women, primarily because candidates in "law and the humanities" enjoy an edge in upward mobility. In terms of specific fields, as opposed to groups of fields, the top five for women in 1983 were pharmacy (13), law (11), education (6), sociology (6), and agricultural chemistry (6). These five fields together accounted for 57.5 percent of all successful women candidates. In 1984, three fields tied for the fifth position. The top fields were law (12), agricultural chemistry (11), pharmacy (9), chemistry (7), psychology (5), education (5), and sociology (5). These seven fields together accounted for 62.8 percent of all successful women candidates.^[63]

[63] These statistics were obtained from the National Personnel Authority during the author's visit to that agency in June 1985.

As noted, success in the higher civil-service examination does not automatically translate into an appointment to the higher civil service. Hence we need to know how many women actually are appointed to the higher civil service. Table 16 presents two kinds of data pertinent to the question. First, column B displays the number of new women appointees to Administrative Service I positions who have passed either the type-A or type-B higher civil-service examination. Second, column A displays the number of all higher-examination-qualified women civil servants who occupy Administrative Service I positions in the years indicated. Looking at column B first, we see that the number of new women appointees is quite small. Column D indicates, moreover, that their proportion is equally small. Only in 1985 and 1986 did women in the type-A category exceed 4 percent of the total new appointees. So far as the less prestigious type B is concerned, women's proportion surpassed the 10-percent mark three times, in 1976, 1982, and 1985. In fact, in all of the twelve years covered in the table, type-B women surpassed type-A women in proportional terms, though the record is mixed in terms of absolute numbers.

Turning to column A, we find that with the notable exception of 1977, the total number of higher-examination-certified women in Administrative Service I positions increased steadily until 1984. Although 1977 registered a 23-percent decline, the following year saw an 18-percent increase, and by 1979 the 1976 level was all but restored. In subsequent years we see a steady increase until 1985, when the number declined by 12 percent over the previous year. In proportional terms the picture has remained relatively stable: at no time did the combined totals of types A and B exceed 4 percent. When we focus on type A only, we find that women's share is below the 3-percent mark; even though a breakdown by types A and B is not available for the years 1975 through 1981, we can surmise that the same general pattern holds. It should be stressed that table 16 displays data for women in Administrative Service I positions only. If we were to examine all women who are in the higher civil service, the picture would improve somewhat. The number of women who are graduates of the type-A (or type-I) higher examination, for example, doubles, and their proportion increases by 1 to 2 percent.

If we focus on the administrative elite in the narrow sense, that is, those civil servants who have attained at least the position of section chief or its equivalent, we find that women are even more underrepresented than the preceding statistics suggest. In 1987, one could count

only twelve such women serving in the headquarters (honsho ) of the twelve main ministries. In fact, only six ministries had women in elite positions: Labor (4), Health and Welfare (3), MITI (2), Agriculture (1), Justice (1), and Education (1). By including those serving in the "field" (gaikyoku ), we could increase the total to seventeen and the number of ministries represented to seven (with the Finance Ministry being added). Inclusion of the other government agencies would add eight more: four from the National Personnel Authority and two each from the prime minister's office and the Economic Planning Agency. Actually, one of the two women in the prime minister's office had been temporarily detached from the Labor Ministry.^[64]

Of the twenty-five women, two were bureau chiefs, one was chief of a prefectural bureau, ten were section chiefs, three were chiefs of offices (shitsu cho ), two were counselors (sanjikan ), two others were directors of research institutes, and the rest held miscellaneous titles that were equivalent to section chiefs. Their age ranged from 41 to 59, the median age being 47. In terms of educational background, twelve were graduates of Todai, three were from International Christian University, and the remainder had gone to Tohoku, Keio, Waseda, Ochanomizu, and other universities. Two, both nurses, had not attended college. In terms of field of study, the largest number (five) had studied general education (kyoyo ). Law and the humanities tied for second place with four each. Economics and pharmacy followed with two each. The remaining women had majored in various fields ranging from mathematics to nursing.

The two highest-ranking women were employed in the Ministries of Labor and Health and Welfare, respectively. Sato Ginko, a 1958 graduate of Todai's general-education faculty, was chief of the Labor Ministry's Women's Bureau. Since 1947, when the bureau was first created, it has always been headed by a woman.^[65] The other senior woman, Nagao Ritsuko, was promoted to her position as chief of the Children's and Families' Bureau of the Health and Welfare Ministry in September 1987. She thus became not only the first woman bureau chief in her ministry but also the first woman to attain a bureau-chief rank

[64] These data are based on a review of all the higher civil servants listed in Seikai kancho jinji roku, 1988-nenban [Who's Who in Politics and Government, 1988 Edition] (Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Shinposha, 1987).

[65] Sano Mitsuko, Josei kanryo: Sono ishiki to kodo [Women Bureaucrats: Their Consciousness and Behavior] (Tokyo: Jihyosha 1983), p. 397.

outside the Labor Ministry. She is a 1958 graduate of Todai's literature faculty and a twenty-nine-year veteran in her ministry.^[66]

The third-highest-ranking woman in 1987 was Matsumoto Yasuko, chief of the Labor Ministry's Bureau of Labor Standards in Saga prefecture. A 1959 graduate of Waseda University (politics and economics), she had previously served as a section chief in her ministry and as chief of a women's-affairs office in the prime minister's office.^[67]

Another woman who merits brief mention is Sakamoto Harumi. A 1962 graduate of Todai's law faculty, she became, in the same year, the first woman ever hired by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) on its elite track. After compiling a distinguished record in MITI, she was appointed chief of the Sapporo Bureau of International Trade and Industry in June 1986 and subsequently drew much attention and praise for her handling of her new job. In June 1987, however, she abruptly resigned her position. Shortly thereafter she became an adviser to the Daiichi Kangyo Bank, Japan's largest bank.^[68]

Most of the women who opt for careers in the higher civil service do so in the belief that in so doing they are likely to encounter markedly less discrimination than they would in the private sector. For many women, there is no other viable choice. According to a 1976 Todai graduate who entered the Finance Ministry in the same year, even graduates of Todai's economics faculty are not in much demand in the private sector if they happen to be women; she chose public employment "by the process of elimination."^[69] In the case of Sakamoto Harumi, however, an explicit commitment of equal treatment was said to have been obtained prior to her entry into MITI.^[70]

Nearly all women, nonetheless, do run into difficulties. Some discover that they are expected by their male superiors to perform such traditionally feminine tasks as serving tea, cleaning up the office, and answering telephones for other people. One woman, Matsumoto

[66] Asahi shinbun , 26 Sept. 1987. For a profile of Nagao, see Sano, Josei kanryo , pp. 193-218.

[67] For a profile of Matsumoto, see Yoshihara Atsuko, Sukato o baita kokyu kanryo [Higher Civil Servants Who Wear Skirts] (Tokyo: K. K. Kanki Shuppan, 1986), pp. 107-33.

[68] Asahi shinbun , 19 June 1987; "Kasumigaseki konhidensharu," Bungei shunju , Feb. 1986, p. 192, and Oct. 1987, p. 180. For a profile of Sakamoto, see Sano, Josei kanryo , pp. 277-302 and Yoshihara, Sukato o haita kokyu kanryo , pp. 35-106.

[69] Sano, Josei kanryo , p. 122.

[70] Yoshihara, Sukato o haita kokyu kanryo , pp. 23 and 67. Sakamoto had another offer from a major private firm, which gave her some bargaining power.

Yasuko, upon being asked to do such chores at a prefectural office of the Labor Ministry in her second year, flatly refused to take turns as a telephone operator, even though she did serve tea. When her superior tried to persuade her in front of all other women civil servants, none of whom was on the career track, she countered by proposing that in return for women's serving tea, men should clean up the office. Her proposal was tacitly accepted.^[71] Her intransigence apparently did not hurt her career, for, as we have seen, she later served as a section chief and chief of a prefectural bureau.

A number of women also report incidents in which, when they answer telephones or greet visitors, the callers or visitors ask to talk with the "person in charge," refusing to believe that they are talking to such persons. The most difficult of all, however, is the challenge posed by children. Since most do not get home until 9 or 10 P.M. on most days and, during the budget-preparation period, the working hours are extended further, they need to find housekeepers and baby-sitters. Many end up enlisting the aid of their mothers.

Women in the elite track try very hard not to deviate from the unwritten social norms of Japanese bureaucracy. These entail having drinks with colleagues and, especially, subordinates after work and playing mah-jongg, a favorite pastime of Japanese bureaucrats, with them.

In sum, although Japanese bureaucracy is no longer the bastion of male supremacy that it once was, it still has a long way to go before women achieve a semblance of equality or, at least, reasonably fair representation, in its high echelons. The handful of women who have either attained or are on their way toward attaining senior ranks appear to have educational and other credentials that either equal or surpass those of their male counterparts.

Recruitment Of Diplomats

Recruitment of foreign-affairs personnel merits brief discussion, because it is handled separately in Japan, as is true in most other countries. It was not until Japan regained its sovereignty in 1952 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs formally took over the responsibility of conducting examinations, of which there were two until 1962: the examination to select diplomats and consuls and the examination to

[71] Ibid., pp. 107-33.

select foreign-affairs clerks. The former was equivalent to the higher civil-service examination. From 1963 to 1976, there were three types of examinations: the higher-level examination to select foreign-affairs civil servants, the intermediate examination to select foreign-affairs civil servants, and the examination to select language trainees for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The last-named examination was also an intermediate one aimed at recruiting graduates of junior colleges. In 1977 the two intermediate examinations were consolidated into the examination to select specialist employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And in 1985 the higher-level examination was renamed the type-I examination to select foreign-affairs civil servants, in conjunction with the revision of the civil-service examinations in other fields.^[72]

Table 17 displays some data about the higher-level (or type-I) foreign-service examination. Although the data are incomplete, it is nonetheless striking that an extraordinary number of applicants fail either to show up for or complete the first stage of the examination. Their proportion is twice as high as that for the higher civil-service examination. This appears to be a function of the difficulty of the examination; many applicants are so intimidated by it that they either have second thoughts about taking the examination or give up after sampling the first few subjects.

What does the examination actually consist of? Open to Japanese citizens between the ages of twenty and twenty-eight regardless of their educational background, the examination has two stages. In the first stage, applicants are tested in (1) general education (ippan kyoyo ), (2) a foreign language, (3) constitutional law, (4) international law, (5) principles of economics, (6) diplomatic history, and (7) two elective subjects, to be chosen from administrative law, civil law, public finance, and economic policy. The general-education test consists of sixty multiple-choice questions, which must be answered in three hours. This is a key test, for all applicants who do not pass it are automatically disqualified no matter how well they may do in the other subjects. Aimed at testing the applicant's general knowledge and analytic ability, the questions in this test encompass the humanities and the social and natural sciences; they also include problems in mathematical reasoning and quantitative data analysis. In 1986, for example, the general-education test contained questions on Western philosophy, existential-

[72] Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1948-49 through 1952, 1963, and 1964; Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1978 and 1986.

ism, famous battles in world history, modern Korean history, Japanese poetry, world geography, logic, analysis of trade statistics, and interpretation of economic graphs.^[73]

For the foreign-language test, the applicant must choose one of the following: English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. He is then asked to translate texts in the language of his choice into Japanese and vice versa. The tests for the remaining subjects typically consist of two essay questions (or topics) that must be answered in two hours. To give some examples from the 1985 examination:

[International Law]

1. If the fundamental human rights of a private individual who resides in a foreign country are violated, what are the internationally recognized remedies at his disposal?

2. Discuss the immunities of consuls and other consular personnel from the judicial and police jurisdictions of their receiving state.

[Principles of Economics]

1. Discuss the role of public enterprises in a free-market economy from the standpoint of economic theory.

2. Discuss the theoretical advantages and disadvantages of the gold-standard system in comparison with the floating-exchange-rate system.

[Diplomatic History]

1. World War II and the relations among Japan, the United States, and the Soviet Union (1939-45).

2. The movement toward the integration of Europe in the wake of World War II (1945-58).^[74]

Those who pass the first stage of the examination must take the second round of tests, which comprise (1) a physical examination; (2) oral tests in constitutional law, international law, and principles of economics; (3) a foreign-language test (composition and conversation); (4) a comprehensive written test; and (5) a character test (jinbutsu shiken ). The comprehensive test (sogo shiken ) consists of writing an essay on a given topic, such as "Japan and the security and prosperity of Asia," "on security" (anzenhosho o ronzu ), and "Japan and Southeast Asia." The candidate is expected to demonstrate his mastery of essential information, analytic acumen, and ability to think independently. The

[73] Juken Shinpo Henshubu, Gaikokan shiken mondaishu [Collection of Questions in the Foreign-Service Examination] (Tokyo: Hogaku Shoin, 1987), pp. 9-28 and 61-62.

[74] Ibid., p. 327.

character test has two components: an interview and a group discussion. In the latter, eight to ten applicants are assembled in a room, given a problem (usually a diplomatic one), and asked first to state their individual views and then to engage in discussion among themselves. Successful candidates stress the importance of striking a balance between being able to articulate one's own views clearly and showing respect for the views of other participants.^[75]

To return to table 17, we see in column C that only about two dozen or so of the applicants pass the examination each year; hence the competition rate is quite high (see column E). What is more, unlike the situation in the higher civil-service examination, nearly all successful candidates are hired. In fact, all of the handful of the successful candidates who were not hired in the period covered by the table had voluntarily withdrawn from further consideration.

What of the university background of successful candidates? In the period from 1945 to 1955, 78.1 percent of the successful candidates (100 out of 128) came from Todai. The remainder came from Tokyo University of Foreign Languages (N = 6, 4.7 percent), Kyodai (N = 5, 3.9 percent), Tokyo College of Commerce [the predecessor of Hitotsubashi University] (N = 4, 3.1 percent), Harbin University (N = 4, 3.1 percent), and a handful of other institutions.^[76] If we look at a later period, 1965-74, we find a marked decline in the share of Todai graduates—49.4 percent (121 out of 245)—and an increase in the share of the other universities—Hitotsubashi: 15.5 percent (N = 38); Kyodai: 11.8 percent (N = 29); Keio: 8.2 percent (N = 20); and Tokyo University of Foreign Languages: 4.5 percent (N = 1).^[77]

In 1978, Todai maintained its top position with 44.4 percent (12), followed by Hitotsubashi, 14 percent (4). Kyodai tied for third place with Tokyo University of Foreign Languages with 11.1 percent each (3 each).^[78] In 1982 Todai remained at the top with 53.8 percent (14), and Hitotsubashi and Kyodai retained their traditional second and third spots, with 15.4 percent (4) and 11.5 percent (3), respectively.^[79] In 1986 Todai produced 71.4 percent (20) of the successes, and Waseda and

[75] Ibid., pp. 63, 75-90, 194-97.

[76] Nagano Nobutoshi, Nihon gaiko no subete [All About Japanese Diplomacy] (Tokyo: Gyosei Mondai Kenkyujo Shuppankyoku, 1986), p. 328.

[77] Nagano Nobutoshi, Gaimusho kenkyu [A Study of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs] (Tokyo: Saimaru Shuppankai, 1975), p. 42.

[78] Mainichi shinbun , 28 Oct. 1978.

[79] Ibid., 23 Oct. 1982.

Kyodai tied for second place with two successes each. Four other universities supplied one successful candidate each: Hitotsubashi, Keio, Aoyama Gakuin, and Harvard.^[80] In 1987 only four universities supplied all 26 successful candidates—Todai: 19 (73.1 percent); Kyodai: 3; Hitotsubashi: 3; and Waseda: 1. In 1988 the number of universities supplying successful candidates remained the same—Todai: 17 (68.0 percent); Hitotsubashi: 4; Kyodai: 2; and Keio: 2.^[81] In the eleven-year period 1978-88, Todai produced 60.3 percent (179) of all successful candidates, and Hitotsubashi produced 11.4 percent (34). Kyodai placed third with 9.4 percent (28) of the total successes.^[82]

In sum, not only is the phenomenon of Todai dominance replicated in the recruitment of diplomats, but its degree is somewhat accentuated. Hitotsubashi, previously known as Tokyo College of Commerce (1920-44) and Tokyo College of Industry (1944-49), is a prestigious national university with a tradition of excellence in business and economics.^[83] All in all, the pattern of dominance by national universities continues in the foreign-service field as well.

How have women fared in this exclusive domain? Until the mid-1970s, only two women had passed the higher-level foreign-service examination, but beginning in the latter half of the 1970s, there were one or two women in each year's career-track entering class in the Foreign Ministry. In the nine-year period 1978-87, a total of sixteen women passed the higher-level foreign-service examination. The grand total of all women who have passed the examination in the postwar period (1949-88), however, is a mere twenty. In 1980 and 1986, there were three women among the successful candidates in the examination. In 1983, however, there were none. In 1987 one of the twenty-six successful candidates was a woman. The twenty-five successful candidates in 1988 also included a woman. Of the sixteen women who passed the examination in the 1978-87 period, five were graduates of Todai and two others had done graduate work there. Five were graduates of Hitotsubashi. The remaining four had studied abroad—two at Colum-

[80] Nihon keizai shinbun , 6 Oct. 1986 (evening ed.).

[81] Ibid., 15 Sept. 1987; Asahi shinbun , 7 Sept. 1988 (evening ed.).

[82] Nagano Nobutoshi, "Za Kasumigaseki (9): Gaimusho: Nihon gaiko o ugokasu pawa" [Kasumigaseki Series (9): The Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Power That Moves Japanese Diplomacy], Kankai (Mar. 1986): 39; Yomiuri shinbun , 7 Oct. 1985 (evening ed.); Nihon keizai shinbun , 6 Oct. 1986 (evening ed.), 15 Sept. 1987, and Asahi shinbun , 7 Sept. 1988 (evening ed.).

[83] Sogo Gakusei Mondai Kenkyujo, ed., Nihon daigaku taikan [An Overview of Japanese Universities] (Tokyo: Nihon Gakujutsu Tsushinsha, 1973), p. 117.

bia University, one at Harvard University, and one at Oxford University in England.^[84]

In the entire postwar period, no woman in the career foreign service has ever achieved ambassadorial rank; the highest rank attained by a woman was that of minister. Although two women have served as ambassadors, neither was a career diplomat.^[85] Given the need for extended service abroad at periodic intervals, careers in the foreign service would be even more difficult to combine with the burdens of a family life than those in the civil service in general. Hence the long-term prognosis for women in the foreign service does not appear to be good.

International Comparisons

How does Japan's record in the recruitment of its higher civil servants compare with those of other industrialized democracies, specifically, the United States, Great Britain, France, and West Germany? Each country has a different procedure for recruiting its higher civil servants.

Although the picture in the United States is somewhat complicated by the existence of multiple channels of recruitment, including political appointment, the inauguration in 1977 of the Presidential Management Intern Program (PMIP) has spawned a method that comes closest to those employed by the other industrialized democracies in selecting their respective elite-track civil servants.

Presidential Management Interns (PMI) are selected through a four-stage process. In the first stage, deans and directors of graduate programs in "general management with a public focus" nominate a limited number of their top students. Next, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the successor to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, "reviews each nominated application to determine if the nominee meets the basic eligibility requirements." Then follows the regional screening process, during which eligible nominees participate in "group and individual problem-solving exercises, through which they will be evaluated on their leadership, oral communication and interpersonal

[84] Nagano, "Za Kasumigaseki (9): Gaimusho," p. 99; Nihon keizai shinbun , 6 Oct. 1986 (evening ed.); Yomiuri shinbun , 15 Sept. 1987. The Harvard graduate was pursuing her second bachelor's degree at Todai's Law Faculty when she passed the examination in October 1986.

[85] Shukan Yomiuri , 19 June 1985, p. 165; Asahi shinbun , 13 Nov. 1985 and 2 Feb. 1986; Nagano Nobutoshi, "Kankai jinmyaku chiri—chuo shochohen: Gaimusho no maki" [Who's Who in Government: Central Ministries and Agencies: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs], Kankai , Apr. 1987, pp. 40-54.

skills, and their organizing, planning, problem-solving and decision-making abilities." In addition, nominees must complete a writing sample. They are divided into panels of not more than eight students, each of which is rated by a panel of two to four public managers. These panels are convened at approximately thirty-five sites across the country. In the final stage of the competition, all nominees who have received qualifying ratings in the third stage have their writing sample and credentials evaluated by the OPM, and about 250 finalists are selected for the PMIP each year.^[86]

The responsibility of obtaining an actual appointment falls on the shoulders of the finalists. Although all of them find jobs, competition for certain agencies and locations is intense. PMIs start at the grade-9 level and can expect to be promoted to grade 11 after completing one year. After completion of the two-year program, the interns are eligible to advance to grade 12 with career or career-conditional status.^[87]

In Great Britain, until the late 1960s, induction into the administrative class was required of aspiring higher civil servants, and this was done by two different methods of competitive examination. Following the publication of the report of the Fulton committee in 1968, however, the administrative class was abolished. Under the new system, higher civil servants are recruited as administrative trainees (AT). Applicants must undergo a three-stage screening process. First, they must take the qualifying test, which "consists of a series of written papers. Typically, a candidate must: reduce an article of 1,500 words to a summary of 300 to 350; give advice on an imaginary government problem . . .; analyse some tables of social statistics; and answer tests on verbal intelligence, comprehension and data sufficiency."^[88]

About three-quarters of the candidates are eliminated in this initial stage. Those who survive then face two and a half days of grueling examination by the Civil Service Selection Board, popularly known as the Cizbee. Candidates are divided into groups of five or six candidates, each of which is evaluated by a panel of three judges—"a chairman, who is usually a retired permanent secretary; a psychologist; and an observer, who is a youngish civil servant who passed Cizbee a few years ago." The tasks the candidates are required to perform include writing

[86] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, The Presidential Management Intern Program, 1980-1981 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1981), pp. 10-11.

[87] Ibid., pp. 12 and 2.

[88] Peter Kellner and Lord Crowther-Hunt, The Civil Servants; An Inquiry into Britain's Ruling Class (London: MacDonald Futura Publishers, 1980), p. 120.

essays and position papers, participating in group discussion, engaging in "committee exercises," undergoing personal interviews, and taking intelligence and general-knowledge tests. Approximately half of the candidates pass the Cizbee, and then must go to "a short formal interview with the Final Selection Board (FSB). Almost 80 percent of the candidates who reach the FSB are offered jobs as ATs or equivalent posts in the Diplomatic Service or in the Inland Revenue Service.^[89] Between 250 and 300 ATs are appointed each year, of whom a substantial number (about 100) are "internal candidates," that is, incumbent civil servants in executive-level positions who want to speed up their promotion process.^[90]

The gateway to the French higher civil service is admission to the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA). There are two types of entrance examination to ENA, one for external candidates and another for internal candidates. External candidates must be twenty-five years of age or less and graduates of a university or a grande école . Internal candidates (those who are already in the civil service) must be aged 30 or less, graduates of a university or a grande école , and have at least five years of experience in a public-sector job. Between 20 and 30 percent of the successful candidates come from the internal competition. In addition, one or two students are admitted without examination from the Ecole Polytechnique.^[91] From 1982 to 1985, ten places were set aside for "union leaders and local elected officials, such as small-town mayors, who took different—and, some said, easier—examinations from those required of other applicants." This method of admission, called the "third way," was abolished in 1986.^[92]

There are two main stages in the entrance examination to ENA. In the first stage, candidates must take a series of written examinations, each lasting from three to five hours. Depending on whether one

[89] Ibid., pp. 124-36.

[90] Oki Yu, "Igirisu seifu shokuin no nin'yo seido" [The Appointment System of Government Employees in England], II, Jinji-in geppo 292(June 1975): 29; Tashiro, "Nihon gyoseikan kenkyu, VII," p. 77. In the British civil service the term "executive" does not carry the same exalted connotation as it does in other countries. Executive positions refer to middle-level positions occupied primarily by nonuniversity graduates.

[91] Nomura Nario, "Furansu kanri no nin'yo seido" [The Appointment System of French Officials], II, Jinji-in geppo 220(June 1969): 14 and 24; Henry Parris, "Twenty Years of l'Ecole Nationale d'Administration," Public Administration (London) 43 (Winter 1965): 395-411. The proportion of external candidates has steadily declined over the years. It was 52 percent at its peak (1953). The age limit of external candidates is not strictly enforced.

[92] New York Times , 24 Aug. 1986.

chooses law or economics as the field of specialization, the subjects of the examination may vary. Applicants in law, for example, are tested in public law; analysis of legal material; social problems involving the application of law, social policy, or international problems; and economics. They must also take an essay test in a subject chosen from business law, economic geography, modern history, linguistics, sociology, psychology, mathematics, statistics, and other fields. There is then a common five-hour-long essay test for both law and economics candidates covering contemporary political, economic, social, or international problems. Only those who pass the written examinations are allowed to proceed to the second stage, which consists primarily of oral examinations. In addition to the subjects covered in the first stage, they include foreign-language examinations. In addition, there is a physical-fitness test consisting of a short-distance dash, a long jump, a discus throw, chin-ups, and swimming. Although 160 candidates succeeded in clearing all these hurdles and were admitted to the prestigious ENA in 1985, the number was scheduled to be reduced by 50 percent by 1987.^[93]

In West Germany, aspirants for a career in the higher civil service must undergo even more stringent processes of selection and training. First, they must pass a state examination that is equivalent to a university graduation examination. Those who pass may then begin two and a half years of preparatory service in a government agency. During this period the trainees do not receive a salary but modest stipends for living expenses. Upon completion of such service, they are allowed to take the second state examination. Successful candidates are certified as full-fledged jurists (Volljurist ) and earn the title of assessor. An "Assessor can apply to a public authority of his choice for an administrative post in the higher grade." If accepted, he becomes a trainee. Only after a probationary period, which may last three years, will he be appointed as a permanent official.^[94] In other words, a university graduate must pass two separate state examinations and two

[93] Nomura, "Furansu kanri no nin'yo seido," II, p. 19; Suzuki Kazuo, "ENA (Furansu Kokuritsu Gyosei Gakuin) no kyoiku seido" [The Educational System of ENA (the French National School of Administration)], II, Jinji-in geppo 321(Nov. 1977): 23-24; Asahi shinbun , Aug. 1986; New York Times , 24 Aug. 1986.

[94] Nevil Johnson, State and Government in the Federal Republic of Germany: The Executive at Work (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1983), p. 183; Sumitomo Tadashi, "Nishi Doitsu ni okeru kanri nin'yo seido" [The Appointment System of Officials in West Germany], Jinji-in geppo 131(Jan. 1962): 7.

probationary periods spanning five and a half years to gain entry into the higher civil service on a permanent basis.^[95]

What these methods of recruiting higher civil servants have in common are their selectivity and reliance on extended training periods. In both absolute and relative terms, the number of people selected is substantially fewer in these countries than is the case in Japan. As we shall see later, moreover, the length and content of training received by graduates of the type-I (or type-A) higher civil-service examination cannot even begin to compare with those of their counterparts in the Western democracies. In one sense, the Japanese system appears to be more open than those of America and Western Europe. For there is no formal educational requirement in Japan. The practical significance of this formal flexibility evaporates quickly, however, when the actual track record is examined.

Moreover, the rigor with which the track system is adhered to in Japan has no parallel elsewhere. Internal candidates in both Britain and France, are allowed to compete with external candidates for admission to the elite corps. In France, in particular, between a quarter and a third of successful candidates in the entrance examination to ENA are internal candidates. As for the United States, the apparent rigidity of the PMIP's admission requirements is diluted by a number of considerations. First, there is an abundance of opportunities, in terms of the sheer number of programs and their flexibility, for obtaining the necessary credentials even for incumbent government officials. Second, the manner in which the selection process operates is calculated to ensure equality of opportunity to a very high degree. Third, there is a great deal of mobility, both vertical and lateral, in the American federal bureaucracy. On the other hand, West Germany seems to come close to matching Japan's rigid stratification, for it provides relatively little opportunity for those who have not undergone the arduous process of state examinations and probationary periods to attain the upper rungs of its bureaucratic ladder. However, the rigidity of the West German

[95] For descriptions of the West German system, see, in addition to the work cited above, David Southern, "Germany" in F. F. Ridley, ed., Government and Administration in Western Europe (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979), pp. 137-43; Klaus von Beyme, The Political System of the Federal Republic of Germany (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), pp. 149-54; Hans Joachim yon Oertzen, "Republic Personnel Management in the Federal Republic of Germany," International Review of Administrative Sciences 49, no. 2 (1983): 210-17; Sumitomo Tadashi, "Nishi Doitsu renpo kanri no nin'yo seido" [The Appointment System of West German Federal Officials], 2 parts, Jinji-in geppo 215(Jan. 1969): 6-9, and 217(Mar. 1969): 12-15.

system is tempered by an extensive use of political appointment in the top echelons of its bureaucracy.^[96]

What of the phenomenon of domination by elite universities? Both Britain and France manifest a similar phenomenon. From 1948 to 1963, Oxford and Cambridge Universities provided 81 percent of successful candidates in methods I and II competition for direct entrants to the administrative class. But unlike the situation in Japan, the two top universities split the successes fairly evenly, Cambridge trailing behind Oxford by the ratio of four to six.^[97] After the reforms of the late 1960s, the Oxbridge dominance seemed to slacken slightly. In the mid-1970s, about 65 percent of external candidates for administrative trainees who passed the Final Selection Board came from the two universities. Oxbridge's share decreased in the late 1970s to slightly over 50 percent.^[98]

With regard to France, between 70 and 90 percent of successful external candidates in the entrance examination to ENA are products of Instituts d'Etudes Politiques (IEP), of which the institute situated in Paris supplies over 90 percent. When successful internal candidates are added, the share of the IEPs drops to about 60 percent. The IEPs, which are state institutions, in effect serve as preparatory schools for ENA entrance examinations; as such they attract students and graduates of both universities and grandes écoles .^[99]

Turning to the United States, we find nothing that can match the elitism of Japan, Britain, and France. A 1959 survey found that of the 7,640 career civil servants holding the rank of GS 14 or higher, no more than 3 percent came from any single university. In fact, it was not an Ivy League university but George Washington University and the City College of New York that shared the top positions, with 3 percent each. The top ten universities together supplied only 21 percent of the career civilian executives, and the top thirty universities brought the proportion to a mere 42 percent. Only in the Foreign Service did Ivy League universities appear at the top. But Harvard, Yale, and Princeton together were the source of only 14 percent of senior Foreign Service

[96] Southern, "Germany," p. 142.

[97] Geoffrey K. Fry, Statesmen in Disguise: The Changing Role of the Administrative Class of the British Home Civil Service, 1853-1966 (London: Macmillan, 1969), p. 435. The statistics were calculated from table 5.

[98] Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, The Civil Servants , pp. 120-23 and 137.

[99] Suzuki, "ENA no kyoiku seido," III, Jinji-in geppo 322(Dec. 1977): 19; Ezra N. Suleiman, Politics, Power, and Bureaucracy in France: The Administrative Elite (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 54; New York Times , 24 Aug. 1986.

officers.^[100] The PMIP became even more egalitarian: 250 finalists chosen in 1978 were spread among 127 different graduate schools, and the same pattern was repeated in subsequent years.^[101] In West Germany the problem does not arise at all, because students are allowed to take courses in any of the state universities and many of them attend several universities during their academic careers. There is no one university that is dominant in terms of reputation.^[102]

Is the predominance of law graduates replicated outside of Japan? Here West Germany resembles Japan closely, which is not surprising in view of the German influence on the prewar Japanese bureaucracy. Although hard data are not available, the legalistic bias in German administration is well known. In the words of Herbert Jacob: "German administration . . . went much further in its obeisance to legal formulas than most administrative organizations, for its officials were specifically trained in the law . . . . The university training received by German administrators concentrated heavily in law."^[103] Speaking of the postwar period, Lewis J. Edinger writes that "a civil servant, who wants to rise above a medium-grade position, no matter what his task will be, must usually have a degree in law."^[104] Finally, Nevil Johnson estimated in 1983 that about two-thirds of West German higher civil servants might be lawyers.^[105]

It is worth noting that, as is true in Japan, a law degree in and of itself has no professional significance in West Germany. In order to enter the legal profession, the candidate must undergo the same procedure as the candidate for the higher civil service: two state examinations and two prolonged periods of postgraduate training. What sets West German law graduates apart from their Japanese counterparts, however, is that the former must, in effect, qualify for a professional career in law before they can become full-fledged members

[100] Lloyd W. Warner et al., The American Federal Executive (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 372, table 5lB.

[101] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, The Presidential Management Intern Program: Anniversary Report, 1978-1980 (Washington: Government Printing Office), pp. 3 and 21-23.

[102] Tashiro Ku, "Nihon gyoseikan kenkyu, IV: Gyoseikan no kyaria keisei katei, 2," Kankai , Jan. 1982, p. 92.

[103] Herbert Jacob, German Administration Since Bismarck: Central Authority Versus Autonomy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 203.

[104] Lewis J. Edinger, Politics in Germany: Attitudes and Processes (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. 46.

[105] Johnson, State and Government in the Federal Republic of Germany , p. 183. Another scholar writes that depending on how one defines a "lawyer," the proportion can range from 46 to 85 percent. See Southern, "Germany," p. 139.

of the higher civil service. Interestingly, there is even a German phrase that is comparable to hoka banno , namely, Juristenmonopol (monopoly by lawyers). The Japanese attempt to alleviate the problem has also been duplicated in West Germany; there are laws and regulations that are designed to place those who have majored in economics, finance, and sociology on a par with law graduates in their competition for the higher civil service.^[106]

As already noted, candidates for admission to the French ENA must choose between two fields: law and economics. About 70 percent of them opt for law.^[107] In the United States, where a law degree is all but synonymous with a license to practice law, it is not a significant factor in the higher civil service. The study by Warner and his associates cited earlier found that less than 8 percent of the senior career civil servants had law degrees. Overall, only 12 percent of all federal executives, both civilian and military, in the sample (1,582 out of 12,929) had law degrees. So far as the sources of the law degrees were concerned, only three law schools had produced more than 5 percent: George Washington (18.6 percent), Georgetown (6.9 percent), and Harvard (6.6 percent). The fact that two of these law schools are situated in Washington, D.C., suggests that many Federal executives may have earned their law degrees after entering the government service.^[108]

The PMIP, the most recent vehicle of elite recruitment in the U.S. federal government, is aimed explicitly at attracting candidates with graduate training in management. Sixty-eight percent of the 250 interns selected in 1978, for example, had graduate degrees in public administration. The remainder were spread among business administration (8 percent), urban studies (6 percent), international studies (3.2 percent), public policy (2.8 percent), planning/resource management (2.8 percent), and other related fields (such as general management, criminal justice, social work, and political science).^[109]

The British administrative class was traditionally dominated by those who had majored in history and classics. Fifty-eight percent of direct entrants to the class in the 1948-56 period (methods I and II combined) and 51 percent of them in the 1957-63 period had taken their degrees in these two subjects. The proportion of those who had taken their degrees

[106] Sumitomo, "Nishi Doitsu renpo kanri no nin'yo seido," I, p. 9.

[107] Nomura, "Furansu kanri no nin'yo seido," II, p. 25.

[108] Warner et al. The American Federal Executive , p. 369, table 48B.

[109] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, The Presidential Management Intern Program: Anniversary Report, p. 3.

in law during the two periods were 3 and 5 percent, respectively.^[110] The post-Fulton reforms have not produced any substantial change; although the proportion of graduates in history and classics has declined, the majority of successful candidates for administrative-trainee positions have nonetheless continued to be "arts" (that is, humanities) graduates.^[111]

The underrepresentation of women in the higher echelons of government bureaucracy is a universal phenomenon. In none of the Western industrialized democracies have women achieved parity with men in the higher civil service. However, the degree to which women are under-represented varies widely. In general, women have been making notable progress in the United States. Warner and his colleagues found in their 1959 survey that only 145 of the 10,851 civilian federal executives who responded to their questionnaires were women, "about one in seventy-five of the civilian federal executives."^[112] Two decades later the first class of the PMIs contained 116 women, accounting for 46 percent of the total. Twenty-one percent of them were nonwhites.^[113]

In France, the proportion of women among those who are admitted to the ENA has steadily increased. It was about 13 percent in the late 1970s and 25 percent in the mid-1980s.^[114] In Britain, women first gained entry into the administrative class during World War I on a temporary basis and then became eligible to compete for AC positions in the mid-1920s. From 1925 to 1945, however, the proportion of women among successful candidates for the administrative class remained at or below 7 percent. During the postwar period, the proportion increased to about 10 percent, a situation that has remained unchanged in the post-Fulton era.^[115]

With respect to the other aspects of recruitment, there are certain parallels and contrasts between Japan and the other countries. The 20-percent no-show rate in Japan's higher civil-service examinations,

[110] Fry, Statesmen in Disguise , p. 436. Percentages were calculated from table 6.

[111] Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, The Civil Servants , pp. 120-23; Oki Yu, "Igirisu seifu shokuin no nin'yo seido," I, p. 18.

[112] Warner et al., The American Federal Executive , p. 177.

[113] U.S. Office of Personnel Management, The Presidential Management Intern Program: Anniversary Report , p. 3.

[114] Suzuki, "ENA no kyoku seido," I, p. 25; New York Times , 24 Aug. 1986.

[115] Kelsall, Higher Civil Servants in Britain , pp. 169-77; Kellner and Crowther-Hunt, The Civil Servants , p. 12. Regarding West Germany, the proportion of women in the federal civil service as a whole is said to be about 21 percent. However, their percentage in the higher civil service is unknown. Oertzen, "Public Personnel Management in the Federal Republic of Germany," p. 212.

for example, is replicated in England and France. The effective rate of competition also appears to be equally high in all three countries, although the Japanese rate, particularly in recent years, remains unsurpassed. When it comes to the rate of appointment, however, the picture changes markedly. In general, the rate is much higher in the other countries than it is in Japan. Nearly all successful candidates receive civil-service appointments in the Western democracies, whereas only half of them do so in Japan.

In sum, international comparisons suggest that most of the phenomena that characterize Japanese patterns of recruiting higher civil servants are not confined to that country. Nonetheless, the variations among the five countries in terms of the salience, pervasiveness, and intensity of some of the phenomena should not be overlooked. In general, the Japanese system emerges as somewhat more closed and less egalitarian than its Western counterparts. Before we can make an overall comparative assessment, however, we need to examine the other dimensions of the Japanese higher civil service.

Chapter Five
Promotion

The process by which a bureaucracy promotes its members to higher positions has tremendous practical implications. If we accept the notion that, in general, the higher one's position in the bureaucratic pyramid, the greater one's influence and impact, then it becomes plain that the promotion process determines who shall exert power and influence in the bureaucracy. The character and caliber of the bureaucracy's outputs, be they goods, services, decisions, or policies, will hinge, to an important extent, on who is promoted to the higher positions and how.

No less important are the effects of the promotion process and outcomes on the morale of bureaucrats. Unless it is handled with strict impartiality, without fear or favor, on the basis of generally accepted and objectively verifiable criteria, the promotion process has the potential of demoralizing a large proportion of bureaucrats. The structural imperative of bureaucratic organization makes it inevitable that the number of people who can be promoted decreases steadily as they climb the ladder. In other words, the number of potential beneficiaries of the promotion process will vary inversely with the proximity of each echelon to the summit. Can the process be managed in such a way as to placate those who are left behind? How can one ensure that only the most qualified will reach each higher stage in the climb?

Fig. 2
Two Models of Promotion

In general, two polar models of promotion in a government bureaucracy can be postulated. The distinguishing attributes of the two models are displayed in figure 2. In the first model, which we shall call the open competitive model, all members of the bureaucracy, in theory, embark on their careers with equal chances of being promoted. The particular manner in which one has entered the organization has no bearing on one's prospect of upward mobility. Nor does the level of entrance examination one has taken predetermine the course, speed, and limits of one's promotion in future years. Such openness and flexibility also imply permeability. The organization permits and even encourages a steady inflow of fresh talent at all levels. It follows logically from the foregoing that the principal criterion of promotion shall be merit rather than seniority. This, of course, does not mean that length of service will not matter; rather it means that top priority will be given to demonstrated merit. Given the difficulty of measuring merit, however, length of

service will play a major role insofar as the promotion of those with more or less equal track records is concerned.

In the second model, which we shall label the closed multitrack model, the single most important factor that impinges on the promotion process is the mode of initial entry. Depending on the type and level of examination and evaluation one has undergone, one enters a distinctly demarcated track—an elite track that leads to the top, an intermediate track that allows one to advance only to a position of moderate authority, or a lower track that all but bars promotion to a managerial position. Such a multitrack system is maintained with a high degree of rigidity; very few persons are allowed to enter any of the tracks at points other than the starting line, and even fewer are permitted to cross the demarcation lines of each track at midpoint. Lateral entry into intermediate and higher levels of the hierarchy from the outside is virtually unheard of. Then, too, although merit does play an important role in promotion within each track, length of service is far more controlling here than is the case in the other model. With very few exceptions, members of each entering class within each track tend to ascend the ladder in lockstep up to a certain point.

It should be stressed that these two models neither conform precisely to the ongoing reality nor exhaust all the possibilities. In practice, some systems may represent modified versions of one or the other. Nonetheless, the United States comes closest to approximating the open competitive model, whereas Japan exemplifies the closed multitrack model better than any other country. The West German system resembles, although it does not duplicate, the Japanese system. The situation in Britain and France can perhaps be characterized as a mixture of both models; we may call it the open multitrack model. The chief distinguishing mark of this model is that those who have entered a lower track or an intermediate one are allowed to cross over to the elite track in the midstream provided that they can clear certain hurdles. Thus both the British and French systems set aside a large proportion of places in their administrative trainee program and in the Ecole Nation-ale d'Administration, respectively, for internal candidates that is, those who are already in the civil service.

In the remainder of this chapter, we shall probe the chief aspects of the promotion process in the Japanese civil service. The bulk of our discussion will be based on a combination of descriptive statistics and impressionistic evidence.

Salient Aspects Of The Promotion Process

The Multitrack System

We have already seen that the Japanese civil service employs a closed multitrack system. There are four readily identifiable tracks based on the level and type of the entrance examination taken by the civil servant. Track 1, which can be equated with the elite track, is open to those who have passed the type-A higher civil examination (type I since 1985) or its equivalent. Track 2 is open to those who have passed the type-B higher civil-service examination (abolished in 1985) or its equivalent; we shall label it the quasi-elite track. Those who have passed the intermediate civil-service examination (type II since 1985) are launched on track 3, which can lead to middle-level positions in the Japanese bureaucracy. Track 4 is reserved for those who have passed the lower civil-service examination (type III since 1985); these are the men and women who will perform the routine tasks of the Japanese government at lower levels.

As noted in the preceding chapter, however, the most meaningful distinction may be found between the elite track on one hand and all the others on the other. Although civil servants on the quasi-elite track are regarded as part of kyaria (career civil servants), along with those on the elite track, their status is not equal. The vast majority of the civil servants who are known as nonkyaria (noncareer) actually remain in the civil service longer than the elite bureaucrats.

It should also be recalled that it is by no means impossible for nonkyaria civil servants to rise to the level of section chief and even beyond. In fact, most ministries seem to have a few section-chief positions reserved for their exceptionally capable nonkyaria employees.^[1]

Table 18 presents some data on the relative size of each track. Note that the data pertain only to administrative service I positions. Inasmuch as the breakdown between types A and B of the higher civil-service examination is available for new appointees only, the table is based on the latter. As we can see, both the number and proportion of track 1

[1] For profiles of nonkyaria civil servants who have attained the position of section chief or higher in selected ministries and agencies, see the series on "Nonkyaria no sekai" [The World of Noncareer (Civil Servants)], Kankai , Apr. 1983-Feb. 1984.

(higher A) appointees have remained rather small. On the average, only about one in twenty new appointees in any given year is launched on the elite track. The smallest category, both in absolute and relative terms, however, is track 2 (higher B). Whereas the type-A (or type I) higher examination, the gateway to track 1, encompasses the whole gamut of specialties, numbering twenty-eight, the type-B higher examination, until it was abolished in 1985, covered only four fields of specialization: law, economics, civil engineering, and library science. The last-named field was available only in the type-B examination.^[2] Track 3 (intermedi-

[2] Jinji-in, Komuin hakusho , 1985, p. 23.

ate) has steadily increased in size over the years, accounting, as of 1986, for I out of 6.3 new civil servants in administrative-service I positions. Not surprisingly, the largest category is track 4 (lower), which has absorbed about 60 percent of the new civil servants throughout the period.

The category of "evaluation" needs to be discussed briefly. Strictly speaking, this is not a separate track, for it encompasses civil servants who are equivalent in status to those in all four tracks. In 1985, for example, the National Personnel Authority certified 88 new appointees who had not taken any examination as "equivalent" to type-I graduates and 10 others as "equivalent" to type-II graduates. The former consisted of 47 doctorate holders, 17 holders of master's degrees, and 24 physicians, and all of the latter were holders of master's degrees.^[3]

On the other hand, a small number of the civil servants who are hired through "evaluation" do take examinations that are described as "equivalent to the regular [civil service] examinations." In 1985 a total of 304 candidates took such examinations at the type-I level in such fields as shipbuilding, nuclear engineering, biology, forestry, textiles (sen'igaku ), design (ishogaku ), archaeology, and history of architecture. Twenty-nine of the candidates passed their respective examinations and were hired by eleven different agencies and ministries. In 1985 also, 77 out of 613 applicants were hired as intermediate-level civil servants in the same manner.^[4] Although all of these civil servants are legally entitled to the same treatment as graduates of the civil-service examinations at their "equivalent" levels, it is doubtful that the legal stipulations are faithfully implemented. With rare exceptions, only those who pass the type-I civil-service examination have the privilege of launching their careers on the elite track.^[5]

[3] Ibid., 1987, p. 45. It should be noted that, strictly speaking, physicians in Japan do not hold doctorates; their medical degree is officially called "Bachelor of Medicine" (igakushi ). Some physicians, however, earn postgraduate degrees—e.g., Doctor of Science in Medicine (igaku hakase ).

[4] Ibid., pp. 42-44.

[5] For a story of one such exception, see "Kanryo shusshin seijika genzan: Fujin no chi'i kojo kakeru" [Interview with Bureaucrats-Turned-Politicians: Gambling on the Improvement of the Position of Women], Kankai , Nov. 1985, pp. 88-96. The subject of this interview article is Kubota Manae, a Socialist member of the House of Councillors. She was hired by the Ministry of Labor in 1951, a year after her graduation from Keio University's Law Faculty. Although she had not taken any civil-service examination, she was treated as an elite-track civil servant; she retired as a division chief in 1982 and was elected to the upper house of the Diet in the following year. However, she lost her bid for reelection in 1986. See Asahi shinbun , 8 July 1986. In her interview with the Kankai magazine, she attributed her successful career in the bureaucracy to "luck."

Salience Of Seniority

Another striking characteristic of the promotion process in Japanese bureaucracy is the role played by the year of entry of civil servants (nenji ). Typically, recruitment occurs once a year, hence those who enter in the same year on the same track in effect become members of the same class. In a few instances, however, recruitment has occurred twice a year, thus giving birth to two separate classes in the same year. In all cases, however, the year of entry is believed to be all but controlling insofar as advancement on the career ladder is concerned. That is to say, members of the same nenji in a given ministry are promoted to the next higher level at roughly the same time until they reach that of assistant section chief (kacho hosa ).^[6]

From then on, further advancement is contingent upon a combination of factors, of which seniority is but one. Those who are left behind usually resign. Finally, when one of the lucky survivors who have climbed nearly to the top reaches the peak of his civil-service career, namely, the position of administrative vice-minister (jimu jikan ), all of his remaining colleagues in the same entering class resign. In so doing, not only do they spare both themselves and the new vice-minister the awkwardness of substituting hierarchical relationships for erstwhile ties of equality, but they also clear the path for the advancement of their kohai (juniors or members of the succeeding entering classes).

The general pattern sketched above, however, needs to be qualified. First, because not all positions at the same level arc equal in importance, differentiation is bound to occur from the early stage. As we shall see shortly, service in certain key positions early in one's career enhances the probability of one's outdistancing the other members of one's cohort in the race toward the coveted title of administrative vice-minister. Second, the unwritten rule that one shall resign when one's classmate reaches the final destination is far from sacrosanct. In the 1945-83 period, the rule was violated at least once in all the twelve ministries. In the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, deviations from the rule occurred seven times, and both the Finance and Foreign Ministries witnessed five exceptions to the rule. In many cases, however, classmates of the newly promoted administrative vice-minister who did not

[6] Tashiro Ku, "Nihon gyoseikan kenkyu, VIII: Gyoseikan no shoshin kanri, i" [A Study of Japanese Public Administrators, Part VIII: Management of Their Promotion, 1], Kankai , May 1982, p. 73.

resign were either assigned to or had already been occupying positions as chiefs of "external bureaus" (gaikyoku chokan ). That is to say, they were outside the regular chain of command of the ministries concerned and hence were not subject to direct supervision by the administrative vice-minister. In the case of the Foreign Ministry, this took the form of service as an ambassador abroad. In fact, it is a well-established pattern in the Japanese diplomatic service for an outgoing vice-minister to be appointed to a major ambassadorial post. This ensures that several senior ambassadors at any given time shall serve under their kohai .^[7]

In the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, the top two civil-service positions the administrative vice-minister and the vice-minister for international affairs (tsusho sangyo shingikan )—are usually occupied by members of the same class, and both resign simultaneously.^[8] In the Ministry of Justice, the administrative vice-ministership is not the terminal career position but a stepping stone to other, more prestigious positions. Although the ministry hires graduates of both the higher civil-service examination and the judicial examination, it is the latter who control the levers of power. Differentiated by the year of graduation from the Judicial Training Institute, nearly all of them are public prosecutors. Known as ateken , their supremacy in the Justice Ministry is sometimes described as "prosecutor's imperialism" (kenji teikoku shugi ). The highest position attainable by them is that of prosecutor general (kenji socho ), and the administrative vice-minister is several rungs below that position. Given all this, the appointment of a

[7] For data on the administrative vice-ministers of the twelve ministries and other agencies during the postwar period, see the series on "Jimu jikan kenkyu" [A Study of Administrative Vice-Ministers], Kankai , Jan. 1982-June 1983. For additional data on the Foreign Ministry, see Nagano, Gaimusho kenkyu , pp. 92-96, Nagano, Nihon gaiko no subete , pp. 297-300, and Nagano, "Kankai jinmyaku chiri: Gaimusho no maki," pp. 40-54. A particularly notable example of deviation from the general rule is the case of Sunobe Ryozo, who succeeded his kohai (a member of the 1941 entering class) as administrative vice-minister in the Foreign Ministry. A member of the 1940 class, Sunobe had previously served as ambassador to the Republic of Korea; his tenure as vice-minister lasted from July 1981 to January 1983.

[8] Nawa Taro, "Jimu jikan kenkyu: Tsusansho" [A Study of Administrative Vice-Ministers: The Ministry of International Trade and Industry], Kankai , Mar. 1982, p. 130. In 1987 the two top positions were occupied by members of the 1955 class: Fukukawa Shinji (AVM) and Kurota Makoto (vice-minister for international affairs). Both were born in 1932 and graduated from Todai's Law Faculty in 1955. Showa 62-nenban Tsusho Sangyosho meikan [Directory of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, 1987 Edition] (Tokyo: Jihyosha, 1987), pp. 3-4; Seikai kancho jinji roku 1987-nenban , p. 452.

new administrative vice-minister does not precipitate a wave of resignations by his classmates.^[9]

The "Elite Course"

As noted, the basic pattern of progression for elite-track civil servants remains the same until they reach the level of assistant section chief, that is, for the first ten years or so. Most ministries try to give their future leaders on-the-job training through the policy of rotation. In the Ministry of Finance, for example, the first six or seven years are set aside for such training (minarai kikan ). Although experience varies from individual to individual, most first-year trainees are assigned to a particular section where they are initiated into the mores of the "Okura [Finance Ministry] family."^[10] They are expected to run errands for superiors and perform all sorts of routine, even menial, tasks.

During the second year, the trainees are likely to be assigned to one of the local tax offices to learn about the practical side of internal revenue and finance as "inspectors" (chosakan ). Third-year trainees turn their attention to more theoretical matters, devoting their full time to study either in Japan or abroad. Next, they are exposed to substantive work of the ministry in Tokyo, eventually being promoted to subsection chiefs (kakaricho ). In the fifth or sixth year comes the capstone of the trainee's career—appointment as chief of a local tax office (zeimushocho ). Besides entailing a fair amount of prestige and power, this provides the trainees with the first real opportunity to test their mettle. How they handle themselves in this leadership position will be closely monitored by their superiors in Tokyo.^[11]

[9] Seto Shuzo, "Jimu jikan kenkyu: Homusho" [A Study of Administrative Vice-Ministers: the Ministry of Justice], Kankai , Nov. 1982, pp. 66-75; Ikeda Toyoharu, "Kankai jinmyaku chiri: Homusho Kensatsucho no maki" [Who's Who in Government: The Ministry of Justice and the Public Prosecutor's Office], ibid., Mar. 1981, pp. 30-41. In 1986, whereas a 1951 graduate of the Judicial Training Institute (JTI) served as the administrative vice-minister of the Justice Ministry, a 1947 JTI graduate occupied the post of prosecutor general. Three other persons in the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office and all the chief prosecutors in the eight Higher Prosecutor's Offices had more seniority than the vice-minister. The preceding information was culled from Seikai kancho jinji roku 1987-nenban , pp. 311-22.

[10] Sakakibara, Nihon o enshutsu suru shin kanryo-zo , pp. 39-41. This book is based on Sakakibara's participant observations. I shall present more details on the on-the-job training of Finance Ministry bureaucrats in the next chapter.

[11] Takamoto Mitsuo, Okura kanryo no keifu [The Genealogy of Finance Ministry Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: Nihon Shoseki Kabushiki Kaisha, 1979), pp. 49-51. Fragmentary evidence suggests that appointment as local tax chief can occur as early as the trainee's fifth year and as late as his seventh year. Some trainees are not given this opportunity at all, whereas others are given the privilege twice in a row. See Showa 62-nenban Okurasho meikan [Directory of the Finance Ministry, 1987 Edition] (Tokyo: Jihyosha, 1986).

The second hurdle awaits the bureaucrat at the level of assistant section chief (kacho hosa ). Some bureaucrats are elevated to this level immediately upon completion of their training period. Others must undergo a few more years of apprenticeship. An assistant section chief must display competence in a wide range of activities: research, negotiation, and drafting bills and policy proposals. Those who receive high marks during their days as assistant section chiefs are given choice assignments when they are sent either abroad or to the field in the next round. Such "desirable" locations as embassies and consulates in industrialized democracies in America and Western Europe as well as major cities in Japan are said to be reserved for them.^[12]

The bureaucrat encounters the third hurdle when he reaches the level of section chief after about ten years of service as assistant section chief or its equivalent in a number of different sections and units. In addition to demonstrating skills in research, negotiation, and legislative drafts-manship, as mentioned earlier, a section chief is called upon to engage in coordination, provide leadership, deal with personnel matters, and be knowledgeable about a wide range of matters. The manner in which one meets such a multiplicity of challenges will help determine one's chances of advancement in subsequent years. The verdict will come when a handful of classmates are picked as chiefs of the three core sections in the minister's secretariat (kanbo sanka )—the secretarial section, the documents section, and the research and planning section—and as chiefs of the principal section in each bureau, usually called the general affairs section (somuka ). For those who are passed over, the prospect of promotion to the position of bureau chief in the ministry proper becomes rather dim, which in turn implies that they may no longer be in the race to become administrative vice-minister.^[13]

A review of the career patterns of fifty persons who have served as administrative vice-ministers in ten ministries reveals that forty-one (82 percent) had previously served as chief of either core sections in the secretariat or the principal section of a bureau. The pivotal role of kanbo sections is suggested by the fact that thirty-two persons (62 percent) had served as their chiefs. Of these, twenty-two had eventually become chiefs of the secretariat (kanbocho ). Twelve others in the sample had

[12] Takamoto, Okura kanryo no keifu , pp. 52-54.

[13] Ibid., pp. 54-63. All eight persons who held the position of bureau chief (including chief of the minister's secretariat) in the Finance Ministry in late 1986 had served as chiefs of either "core" sections in the minister's secretariat or principal sections in bureaus. All but one had also served as assistant chiefs of such sections. Showa 62-nenban Okurasho meikan , pp. 11, 40, 55, 61, 68, 81, 87, and 97.

also served as kanbocho , bringing the total number of former administrative vice-ministers with kanbocho experience to thirty-four (68 percent). All told, only six had not served in any of three key posts—kanbo section chief, chief of the principal section of a bureau, and kanbocho .^[14]

It should be stressed that the relative position of the secretariat in the internal structural hierarchy of a ministry or an agency is not uniformly high. It is only in those ministries and agencies that have adopted the system of a "grand secretariat" (dai kanbocho sei ) that its chief outranks the chiefs of all bureaus (kyokucho ). Examples include the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Transport, and Construction. As will be explained shortly, however, the Ministry of Construction has a dual hierarchy, one pertaining to administrative officials (jimukan ) and another to specialists (gikan ), hence the chief of its secretariat does not necessarily outrank chiefs of technical bureaus. In other ministries the secretariat is on a par with a middle-level bureau. In a few ministries, notably the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the secretariat is at the bottom of the pecking order.^[15]

Regardless of its position in the hierarchy, however, the work of the secretariat is intrinsically important. The well-known phenomenon of "sectionalism" tends to foster rivalry among bureaus within most ministries, as is suggested by such phrases as "there are bureaus but no ministry" (Kyoku atte sho nashi )^[16] and "the bureaus that resemble 'independent kingdoms'" ("dokuritsu okoku" no yo na kakukyoku ).^[17] This underscores the importance of coordination; the parochial interests and perceptions of the various bureaus must be adjusted and harmonized to further the goals of the ministry as a whole. Externally, the task of representing the ministry vis-à-vis politicians, the Diet, and interest groups must also be performed by a unit with a broad, ministry-wide perspective.

[14] These statistics were culled from the biographical sketches of fifty former administrative vice-ministers in Watanabe Yasuo, "Komuin no kyaria" [The Career Patterns of Civil Servants] in Tsuji Kiyoaki, ed., Gyoseigaku koza, dai 4-kan: Gyosei to soshiki [Lectures on Public Administration, vol. 4: Public Administration and Organization] (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1976), pp. 193-98.

[15] Kyoikusha, Kanryo [Bureaucrats] (Tokyo: Kyoikusha, 1980), p. 76. An assessment of the relative rank of the secretariat can be obtained by reviewing the year of entry of incumbent officials as well as the career patterns of administrative vice-ministers. See the long-running series on "Kankai jinmyaku chiri" [Who's Who in Government] in Kankai , Jan. 1981-, as well as the series on administrative vice-ministers cited earlier.

[16] Ishii Masashi, "Kankai jinmyaku chiri: Okurasho no maki" [Who's Who in Government: The Ministry of Finance], Kankai , Oct. 1981, p. 45.

[17] Hashimoto Goro, "Kankai jinmyaku chiri: Koseisho no maki" [Who's Who in Government: The Ministry of Health and Welfare], Kankai , Dec. 1981, p. 39.

These pivotal roles are performed by the secretariat. Consequently, chiefs of its key sections dealing with general affairs, personnel, and budget need to be exceptionally well-qualified. Their duties expose them to the whole gamut of problems and issues confronting their ministry, challenging them to exercise and develop skills in compromise, negotiation, and a judicious balancing of diverse interests. In a word, a stint as a core section chief in the secretariat both broadens and tests the civil servant. Those who emerge from such experience with their reputation either intact or enhanced are marked for still weightier challenges thereafter.^[18]

In short, the preceding discussion suggests that the promotion patterns of Japanese higher civil servants are affected by a number of factors: (1) nenji , or the year of entry; (2) the preentry record, notably grades received during university days and in the higher civil-service examination; and (3) the postentry record. The latter two are related, for an initial assignment to a core unit hinges to a large extent on the preentry record; such an assignment in turn affords the civil servant opportunities and challenges that are a cut above those provided by routine assignments. Creditable or outstanding performance in preferred posts has a snowball effect, allowing the civil servant progressively to build up his credentials. Being assigned to an important project also enables the civil servant to come into contact with senior persons in strategic places; getting to know them and, better yet, making favorable impressions on them will be definite assets in his future advancement.^[19]

Jimukei Vs. Gijutsukei

Elite-track bureaucrats can be broadly divided into two groups: jimukei (administrative group) and gijutsukei (technical group). Those belonging to the former are known as jimukan (administrative officials), and

[18] It is extremely rare for a civil servant without previous experience as a section chief to be appointed as chief of one of the key sections in the secretariat. A random review of the career patterns of those who have served as chiefs of core sections in the secretariats of the various ministries suggests that they typically have behind them six to nine years of experience as "ordinary section chiefs" (hira kacho) . See Nihon kankai meikan [Who's Who in Japanese Government], vol. 33 (Tokyo: Nihon Kankai Johosha, 1981), and Seikai kancho jinji roku 1988-nenban .

[19] On the importance of being given challenging assignments, consult Ono Mitsuru, "Jimu jikan kenkyu: Kensetsusho" [A Study of Administrative Vice-ministers: The Ministry of Construction], Kankai , Dec. 1982, pp. 81-82. Criteria of good performance vary from ministry to ministry. In MITI they are said to include (1) ability to generate new policy proposals, (2) skill in translating the above into the language of legislation or regulations, (3) ability to do the necessary nemawashi ["root-binding" or preparatory work], (4) leadership ability, and (5) ability to promote intraministerial harmony. Nawa, "Jimu jikan kenkyu: Tsusansho," p. 132.

those affiliated with the latter as gikan (technical officials). Although this dichotomy is largely a function of one's academic background, strictly speaking, it is the field of specialization chosen in the higher civil-service examination that places an official in one of the two groups.

Those who choose—that is, are tested in—public administration, law, economics, psychology, education, and sociology are generally headed for careers as jimukan , and those who opt for any of the remaining fields are expected to become gikan . There being no formal educational requirements in the civil-service examinations, in terms of either the level of educational attainments or fields of study, it is theoretically possible for a candidate with technical background, such as agriculture, engineering, or the natural sciences, to choose public administration, law, or economics as his field of specialization. Given the highly competitive nature of the higher civil-service examination, however, such a candidate would need an extraordinary amount of preparation in order to succeed.

If we examine the distribution of higher civil servants at the entry level by their fields of specialization, we find that gikan outnumber jimukan by considerable margins. Whereas the proportion of jimukan has remained relatively stable at or near the 40-percent mark, there has been some notable change in the internal composition of gikan . The proportion of engineers and natural scientists declined from 50 percent in 1962 to 31 percent in 1980, but that of specialists in agriculture doubled during the same period, from 14 to 28 percent.^[20] That such change occurred at a time when the relative importance of agriculture in the Japanese economy was steadily declining may seem odd. On the other hand, the number of people involved is quite small. More important, if agriculture has declined in importance as measured by its share of gross domestic product and by the proportion of people engaged in it, its political significance, albeit on the wane, has by no means diminished.^[21]

[20] For relevant statistics, see "Showa 41-nendo kokka komuin saiyo jokyu (koshu, otsushu) shiken gokakusha no saiyo jokyo" [The Situation Regarding the Hiring of Those Who Passed the National Higher Civil Service Examination (Types A and B) in 1966], Jinji-in geppo , 196 (June 1967): 10-16; Jinji-in, Nenji hokokusho , 1971-1986 (Tokyo, 1972-87).

[21] The contribution of agriculture, forestry, and fishing to Japan's gross domestic product declined from 6 percent in 1970 to 3.2 percent in 1985. More dramatic is the decline in the proportion of the total labor force engaged in agriculture and forestry from 24.3 percent in 1965 to 9.6 percent in 1980. Prime Minister's Office, Statistics Bureau, Statistical Handbook of Japan, 1981 (Tokyo: Prime Minister's Office, Statistics Bureau, 1981), pp. 27 and 105; Management and Coordination Agency, Statistics Bureau, Statistical Handbook of Japan, 1987 (Tokyo: Japan Statistical Association, 1987), p. 26. The agricultural lobby demonstrated its political clout in 1986 when it successfully blocked the government's attempt to reduce the official purchase price of rice by 3.8 percent. In 1987, however, the government succeeded for the first time since 1956 in adopting a plan to reduce the official purchase price of rice by 5.95 percent. Asahi shinbun , 6 Aug. 1986; 2 and 4 July 1987.