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]