Intellectuals in the Decision Making Process

Herbert Passin

Introduction

English intellectuals, a prominent Japanese writer tells us, have close relations with the upper strata of government, Parliament, and the business world, but they are cut off from the masses.^[1] French intellectuals are cut off from the upper strata, but have very close relations with the masses. Japanese intellectuals, however, have the worst of both worlds: like the English they are cut off from the masses, and like the French they are cut off from the upper strata.

Leaving aside the correctness of the observation about the British^[2] and the French,^[3] is it in fact the case that Japanese intellectuals are isolated and without power? This paper will not try to give a definitive answer to this question but to explore some of the issues involved in approaching an answer. In the broadest sense, our problem is the relationship of intellectuals in Japan to the "establishment" (the power structure, the system). A brief accounting of the history of this relationship may, therefore, be useful.

[1] Kato^[*] Shuichi^[*] , Nihon no nai to gai [Japan: Inside and Outside] (Tokyo: Bungei Shunjusha, 1972), p. 153.

[2] "In Britain," writes English sociologist T. B. Bottomore, "intellectuals have not possessed such great social prestige as in France, nor have they been so prominent in political life." Elites and Society (Hardmondsworth: Penguin, 1964), p. 75.

[3] Mattei Dogan found that more than one-half of the elected members of the French Chamber of Deputies were intellectuals. "Political Ascent in a Class Society: French Deputies 1870–1958," in Dwaine Marvick, ed., Political Decision-Makers (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1961).

In Japan of the early and mid-Meiji period, the intellectuals constituted a small, cohesive group. This small group was very much part of the then-existing establishment.^[4] The diverse elements of which it was composed were initially held together by the bunmei kaika , the "civilization and enlightenment" ideology that formed the basis of the Meirokusha (or Meiji 6, that is, 1873 society). As a small group the intellectuals all knew one another, and their views weighed in heavily with the political elites. Whether in public office like Mori Arinori, or resolutely outside of it like Fukuzawa Yukichi, most of them were active participants in the public life of their times through writing, lecturing, reporting, teaching, advising, and operating modern institutions. Toward the end of the Meiji period, this unity of the intellectual classes began to break down. The increasing number of graduates produced by the new universities began to replace the Restoration generation.

With this new development, the intellectuals divided into three broad streams: a pro-establishment clerisy, respectable and supportive of the established institutions; an anti-establishment intelligentsia, dissatisfied with the new institutions and with their own place in society; and a nonpolitical stratum of professionals, technicians, and specialists concerned primarily with their own work and only secondarily with politics. As the sheer number of intellectuals grew, their relations with the other elites underwent important changes.

The stream of anti-establishment intellectuals, first adumbrated in the early-Meiji Jiyu^[*] Minken (Freedom and People's Rights) movement, broadened steadily, despite frequent setbacks. Their critical position with regard to the central institutions of the society led them into growing moral and political opposition—a position that crystallized around a variety of movements based on Christianity, socialism, pragmatism, liberalism and, after World War I, Marxism.

The opposition to the forms that the modern Japanese society was taking was based on a combination of motives. One was the traditional samurai contempt for trade, moneygrubbing, and the pursuit of private advantage. Since the samurai were highly overrepresented among the early Meiji intellectuals, their ethos permeated the intellectuals' outlook. To this aristocratic disdain for the vulgarity of a materialist, capitalist (later "mass") society were joined traditionalist and nationalist reactions against westernism (and after World War II against the United States), populism, working-class discontent, agrarian distress, and egalitarian impulses and concepts that rapidly diffused their way through Japanese thought and institutions.

The discontent following World War I, combined with another

[4] See Herbert Passin, "Modernization and the Japanese Intellectual: Some Comparative Observations," in Marius Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese Attitudes towards Modernization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).

quantum jump in the number of university students and the appeal of the Russian Revolution, strengthened the progressive, liberal, and radical forces and led to the well-known confrontations with authority of the late 1920s and particularly the 1930s. Despite severe repression and the frequent surface conformity, anti-establishment radicalism remained a strong latent force in literature, journalism, and the universities.

The end of World War II found the progressives—newly released from the restraints of the militarist period—stronger than ever. The atmosphere created by the American Occupation's democratization program was favorable to them. So was the emergence of other newly liberated elements such as the trade union movement, the radical political parties, liberalism, progressive thought, and women's emancipation. During the first few years of the Occupation, not only the established intellectuals but even liberals, progressives, and leftists were active in public life, particularly in the development of the reform programs.

But with the sharp polarization caused by the cold-war issues, the progressive forces moved sharply away from the establishment. By the end of the Occupation period it would be fair to say that the progressives had become the majority, if not of the intellectuals as a whole, then at least of the principal articulate intellectual elites. The tradition, which had already begun to show itself during the twenties and thirties, was now firmly entrenched. In general, the intellectuals, along with the labor unionists and the students, could be counted on in the "progressive camp." The progressive intellectuals have come to play a dominant role in most of the principal intellectual institutions, including the universities, the mass media, and publishing.

From the end of the Occupation to the mid-1960s, at the same time that the intellectual stratum as a whole was growing by leaps and bounds, the progressive, anti-establishment strain within it was growing even faster. But as Japan approached "maturity," the relatively advanced condition of the post-industrial society, new developments began to make themselves felt. On the one hand, a new polarization developed with the separation of student activism from the intellectual mainstream. The older intellectual generation, whether pro- or anti-establishment, appeared increasingly irrelevant to the new preoccupations. The younger intellectuals, drawn from the recent New-Left-dominated student movements, were more than ever alienated from the centers of power.

On the other hand, however, there was some diminution of the sharp polarization among the older intellectuals. As Japan's economy maintained its steady, high-speed growth, the stratum of scientists, researchers, technicians, specialists, and professionals was expanding and also becoming more involved in the operations and decision-making processes of economy and government. As measured by all the indicators—consultation, research, research funds, public attention, and publication—the demand for the services of intellectuals, which has always been higher

than is generally realized, appears to be going up. As Japan becomes increasingly a knowledge-based society, intellectuals become even more indispensable than before, and their position in relation to the other elites improves. The relative balance among the various intellectual sectors also changes. The literary, humanistic intellectuals have lost some of their prestige as those with scientific-technical expertise have come into increasing demand.

Who Are the Intellectuals?

As in other advanced industrial societies, the number of people engaged in intellectual work in Japan has increased enormously. In consequence, the intellectuals have become, like all large groups in modern society, differentiated, even stratified, and they form, for certain purposes, a political constituency of their own. The borderline dividing them from other groups becomes hard to draw, and their relations with other elites become complex.

For our purposes here, intellectuals will be taken as people who "devote themselves to cultivating and formulating knowledge."^[5] Normally they will be engaged in the professions—university teaching, scientific research, writing, journalism—that require them to spend most or a good portion of their time in creative intellectual work. We shall, however, also have in mind those whose primary work is elsewhere but who engage in intellectual work some of the time.

People primarily engaged in the occupations within which we would expect most intellectual work to fall constitute about 5 percent of the labor force in Japan. If we use the census category of "professional and technical" occupations as an indicator of the intellectual occupations, we find that in the twenty years between 1950 and 1970 they have increased four times as rapidly as the labor force as a whole (see Table 1).

If we look more closely at specific occupations of an intellectual character, the trend is even clearer (see Table 2). The number of university teachers increased about nine times faster than the labor force as a whole, scientific researchers about seven times faster, writers more than five times faster, and the legal profession more than three times faster. Using a somewhat different census classification, we find that in the five-year period between 1966 and 1970 alone, there has been a 34 percent increase in the number of scientific researchers. This is roughly four times the growth of the labor force in the same period (about 9 percent).

Very often, when people use the word "intellectual," they have the small intellectual elite in mind. Just as the business, political, or military elites constitute a very small part of their constituencies, so do the intellectual elites of theirs. But if we include not only the chiefs but the

[5] Robert Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1949). p. 162.

rank and file, as it were, the apprentice along with the master craftsmen, or to use Shil's terms,^[6] the reproductive and executive intellectual, as well

[6] Edward Shils, "Intellectuals, Tradition, and the Tradition of Intellectuals: SomePreliminary Considerations," Daedalus , Spring 1972; and The Intellectuals and the Powers and Other Essays (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), particularly chap. 7.

as the productive, we may very well be talking about millions of people.

Not only do they attract other people to their ideas, but their own votes alone are sufficiently numerous to be important. Politicians, however contemptuous they may be, cannot disregard them. There are over a million teachers alone. Even if we reserve the term "intellectuals" for teachers in higher education, there are still 160,000 of them.^[7] The university, with its 1.5 million students in addition to its 120,000 faculty, plus all the others involved in its administration and maintenance, has become a constituency of noticeable heft (See Table 3). This is especially clear when we realize that about 45 percent of this population is concentrated in and around Tokyo. Most of the 310,000 in the census category of "scientific researcher" (1971) are also located in the Tokyo area, and their weight can be added to this political force.

In thinking about the place of Japanese intellectuals, this concentration of national activities in Tokyo should be kept in mind. Tokyo, like London and Paris, is a true national capital—not only the political, but the industrial, financial, intellectual, academic, artistic, and taste center of the

[7] As of 1971, including both full- and part-time university, college, and higher technical school facilities.

country. In the United States (as in other decentralized systems such as Australia, Brazil, and Germany), there is no single capital: Washington is the political capital but the financial, artistic, publishing, and media center is in New York, the industrial center is in the Midwest, the movie center is in the Far West, and the university population is dispersed throughout the country. In Japan, with the exception of the small Osaka zaibatsu , virtually all elites are centered in Tokyo. This means that in a way that is not true in decentralized systems, the elites are constantly in contact with one another. Japanese intellectuals form a community: they know one another, associate with one another, read the same newspapers, books, and journals, and share a far wider range of common understandings than, for example, do Americans. They also rub elbows with top businessmen, politicians, journalists, actors, writers, and bureaucrats much more frequently than their American counterparts do. Tokyo metropolis constitutes about 12 percent of the total population of Japan, but it includes not only half of the university population, but the main newspaper, magazine, and publishing enterprises, most of the television and radio networks, and close to 100 percent of virtually all categories of intellectual, artistic, and cultural activity. This high degree of concentration strongly conditions the position of the intellectuals in the network of elites in Japan.

Decision-Making

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slave of some defunct economist. . . . I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated, compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. . . . Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
J. M. Keynes

Having identified in a broad sense who the intellectuals are, we have now to examine briefly what we mean by "influence" and "decision-making." For some people the word influence calls up the image of a decision-maker leaping to his feet at the intellectual's words and falling all over himself to put into effect the ideas proposed. "Even in a society which is officially an aristocracy," as Irving Kristol writes, "the ruling class never has that kind of instant power and instant authority."^[8]

Another frequently held model of influence is the intellectual advising the power holder (president, prime minister)—in the extreme case even dictating his policy, but in one way or another having a say in his decisions. Japanese intellectuals often refer enviously to Kissinger as an

[8] Irving Kristol, On the Democratic Idea in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).

example, even though Kissinger himself has argued the limitations of the relationship.^[9] In its malevolent form, the intellectual becomes a Rasputin or a Dr. Strangelove, the evil genius who exerts a malign influence over the ruler and corrupts the decisions of state. In the more benevolent version the intellectual is seen as the expert or philosopher contributing specialized knowledge or wisdom to the respectfully attentive secular powers. The extreme case is Plato's philosopher-king; although history provides many less than edifying examples of the intellectual-turned-ruler, the image continues to attract.

If this is our model of the influence of intellectuals, certainly there is little of it in recent Japan. Japan does not have a Kissinger; nor has it had, at least in the postwar period, a Rostow or Bundy. But the reason for this difference may tell us less about the relative influence of intellectuals in the two countries than about the relative weight of career bureaucrats. The Japanese Foreign Office has more weight within its governmental structure than the U.S. State Department, and its members have much more prestige than their counterparts in the U.S. Since the allocation of foreign-policy talent is somewhat different from that of the U.S., the relative weight of in-house experts and outside consultants is correspondingly different.

If we look on decision-making as a process, with the actual decision the product of a series of inputs by competitive forces, we then look not for some single decisive influence but rather for a structure of decision. When are the intellectuals themselves one of the political constituencies involved in a decision and when are they not? What is the relative weight of each of the actors in the decision? What are the points, or stages—innovation, judgment, planning, formulation—at which intellectuals make their inputs in the process?

Different kinds of decisions call for different actors, or participants, and each will make a different kind of input. The mix for decisions on military matters will be very different from that for transportation. In a major decision on, let us say, the introduction of a new weapons system, the decision-making mix will include not only the professional military but many other actors as well: the Defense Agency, the cabinet, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the Diet, high-ranking officers in the self-defense forces, the Finance Ministry, the munitions-related industry, and the business community. In addition, there would be important inputs from strategic specialists (both inside and outside the Defense Agency), some of them coming from the universities, research institutes, newspapers, and think tanks. The Defense Agency input itself is very likely to have been made up of the inputs of various factions within it: ground versus naval or air interests, line versus staff officers, military versus civilian elements. The

[9] Henry A. Kissinger, "The Policymaker and the Intellectual," The Reporter 20:5 (5 March 1959).

final outcome would also be affected by the opposition parties, the press, factions within the LDP, mass movements, student movements, and public opinion in the broad sense.

Whether any of this intellectual input is "decisive" would be hard to say, but in the modern bureaucratic decision-making process, it would be hard to say whether any single input is decisive. Nevertheless, intellectuals are likely to have been involved from the very first policy-planning stages. They will be among the specialist consultants from the universities, research institutes, or think tanks. Opposition, or anti-establishment, intellectuals would also have made their weight felt, if not through the decision-making apparatus itself, then through the opposition parties, the press, the civic organizations, and the mass movements.

In this total process, how can we isolate out the influence of intellectuals?

The Intellectuals and Politics

Although this paper is concerned mainly with the participation of the intellectual in the process of decision-making in the narrow sense, his participation in the broader political process is, if anything, even more important.

In certain areas intellectuals themselves are one of the main constituencies. Scientific development and education are obvious examples, and in these areas the influence of intellectuals is most effectively brought to bear through organized bodies. Some organizations purport to speak in the name of intellectuals as a whole—the Japan Science Council is the elected representative body of the natural and social sciences. Others represent particular constituencies (the teachers unions), or professions (the Japan Medical Association), or scholarly fields (the Japanese Political Science Society). Some are more political in character, like the Democratic Scientists Association. Although there are many professional organizations, so far, with the sole exception of the Japan Medical Association, they have been politically weak as pressure groups. Since the intellectuals seldom achieve consensus, even on the issues closest to their own interests, it is not surprising that they can only rarely put forth a unified view to compete with others on the field of political battle.

In the more general political process, it is no less true of Japan than of the United States that "intellectuals, more than most other groups, have the power to create, dignify, inflate, criticize, moderate or puncture" the "galloping abstractions" of public life.^[10] Their influence is transmitted through their teaching, their books and articles, which form the basic parameters of public discussion, and the mass media. Through these

[10] Charles Frankel, "The Scribblers and International Relations," Foreign Affairs , October 1965.

means they have an influence, and often a decisive one, on public opinion and therefore on one of the key factors in the background of decision-making.

In many countries the intellectuals are isolated from the mass media. In Japan this is not the case. Although professing dismay about the vulgarity of the media, intellectuals play a very active part in them. The level of journalism, particularly of the national dailies, which occupy the bulk of the market, is very high, and there is also a vigorous intellectual journalism in weeklies, monthlies, and the pages and columns of the great dailies.

Japanese journalism has two traditions that are important in connection with the political role of intellectuals. First, it is strongly oppositional. Since its inception in the Meiji period, it has been, except in the period of militarist control in the 1930s, almost always on the opposition side. Although the national press professes a strict neutrality with regard to parties, its general thrust has been against the party in power. This, along with the fact that the majority of journalists tend to be progressive, has created a hospitable environment for independent and anti-establishment intellectuals.

Second, it is a very individualized journalism with a European-style feuilletoniste tradition. The newspapers carry many signed articles and frequently invite outside contributors. Leading Japanese intellectuals, in consequence, have newspaper outlets that are normally not available to Americans, other than celebrities. It is common, in a way that is not the case in the United States, for intellectuals, scholars, and writers to be called upon for comment on the news, analytic articles, roundtable discussions, and general social commentary. This kind of journalism not only gives intellectuals an outlet for their views, but also a high degree of public visibility (the leading press is national and runs to millions in circulation) and a significant addition to income.

The weekly and monthly journals consist virtually entirely of signed contributions rather than of unsigned staff articles. At least fifty of them provide outlets for intellectuals to express their views and opportunities for them to earn extra income. Although the intellectual journals (sogo-zasshi^[*] ) do not match the huge popular weeklies in circulation, they are by no means "little mags"; they reach national audiences, and they play an important role in maintaining a high degree of unity and communication among intellectuals.

To this high demand from the print media has been added the virtually insatiable demand of radio and television. Here too intellectuals are active on the artistic as well as the intellectual side. They appear frequently as commentators, news analysts, panelists, and lecturers. The relations between practicing intellectuals and the intellectualized staffs of the broadcasting media is much closer than in many other countries. Here again the broad access that intellectuals have to television and radio gives

them an important outlet, enhances their influence by turning them into celebrities, and makes them more viable by adding to their income. The demand from all of these sources is sufficient to support a large corps of free-lance critics (hyoronka^[*] ).

During the postwar period intellectuals have provided important leadership for or identified themselves closely with all the major mass movements, particularly those involving protest against authority. Writers Hirotsu Kazuo and Uno Koji^[*] played a decisive role in the development of the Matsukawa movement which finally led, after twenty-one years, not only to full exoneration and payment of damages to the defendants, but also to major impact on the judicial system, investigation and trial procedures, and the American Occupation's criminal-code reforms.^[11] Although "union support and mass letter-writing campaigns helped create the impression of popular backing for the movement," writes Chalmers Johnson about the Matsukawa case, "it was the involvement of famous Tokyo intellectuals that made the headlines and filled the columns of commentators."^[12]

For further examples of the influence of intellectuals one has only to think of the close relationship of the Peace Problems Symposium (Heiwa Mondai Danwakai) in the 1960 movement against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.^[13] Or one can think of Ota^[*] Minoru in the post-1960 antitreaty movement, or Nakajima Kenzo^[*] in the movement for the normalization of relations with China.

Intellectuals are often influential even without the backing of a specific mass movement. The shift of national priorities from the "growth first" to the "balanced growth" policy, which gives greater emphasis to welfare and environmental protection, has been decisively affected by their views. There are, to be sure, many other factors that go into that shift, but the influence of the intellectuals in pushing it against the reluctance of business and government is clear.

Another way of assessing the weight of intellectuals in decision-making is to look at the social demand for their services. While intellectuals, especially the academic intellectuals, like to complain about how ignored they are, there are many who would argue that they are, if anything, too much involved with the powers. Are they, in fact, as powerless as some would like to make out or, on the contrary, too much "the handmaidens of whatever political, military, paramilitary, and economic elite happens to be financing their operations," to borrow a phrase from Roszak's charges about American intellectuals?^[14]

[11] Chalmers Johnson, Conspiracy at Matsukawa (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972), particularly chap. 5, "The Two Zolas."

[12] Ibid., p. 237.

[13] See George R. Packard III, Protest in Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 26–31.

[14] Theodore Roszak, ed., The Dissenting Academy (New York: Pantheon, 1968).

Let us take the example of the academic intellectuals. If we look at the total round of their activities, we find that although most of their time is spent in teaching-related activities—that is, teaching, preparing courses, grading papers, conducting examinations, seeing students, and sitting on university committees—a significant amount is also spent in outside work. This outside work, called arubaito (from the German arbeit ), is very important.

There are two sides to the professor's outside work. On the one hand, he needs extra income because his salary is low. The outside work helps him make ends meet. On the other hand, outside work is also a measure of social demand. Both of these aspects undoubtedly enter the balance sheet.

International comparisons of wages are notoriously difficult methodological exercises. We cannot, therefore, be dogmatic about whether Japanese academics' salaries are low or high on any absolute scale, and whether their share, compared with that of other components of the labor force, is appropriate or not. What can be said is that although they are lower in money amount (as measured by international exchange rates) than American or Western European academic salaries, within Japan they are on the same level as the civil service. This means they are not as good as equivalent positions (and equal years of service) in large-scale private industry, but that they are better than smaller companies and elementary and secondary schools. Although there are differences between public and private universities and great variations among the private universities, academic salaries in Japan range between (at 1973 exchange rates) $7,000 per annum for a full professor just starting and $14,000 for a senior professor with upwards of thirty-years seniority. They can also be expected to go up about 10 percent a year.

But for the great majority of professors, particularly in the better universities of the Tokyo area, salary is only one portion of total income; and in the case of the popular, well-known professors who are in constant demand, a very small portion indeed. Figures are hard to come by, but a good estimate is that for the well-known professors of leading Tokyo universities, the stars or celebrities of the academic profession, university salary often represents no more than one-third of total income. Table 4 gives the results from a 1965 survey on the sources of income for national university faculty members. Table 5 reports the results from a 1967 sample survey of public as well as private universities.

If we compare the Japanese and the American university professor, we can say that the American university salary is higher than the Japanese. Outside work is important for academic income in both countries, but there are three important differences. First, the Japanese professor receives a smaller proportion of his total income from his salary. If we assume that American professors derive 90 percent or more of their total income from salary (there are, of course, many exceptions), on the whole Japanese

professors would receive more on the order of 70–80 percent in this form. Second, the Japanese academic's salary buys him a somewhat less satisfactory standard of living than the American's. Third, the mix of elements that makes up his outside income is somewhat different. Outside income for the American professor usually comes from research, teaching, lecturing, and consulting. In Japan, a much larger proportion would come from writing (both for the mass media and in the form of books) and from panel discussions in the public media, and significantly less from research.

A checklist of outside work opportunities for Japanese professors would look somewhat as follows:

1. Writing articles—in the mass media, general journals, specialized journals.

2. Writing books—textbooks, general books, scholarly books.

3. Lectures, panel discussions, public speeches.

4. Teaching elsewhere—in other universities, governmental training programs,^[15] private business training institutions.^[16]

5. Research grants.

6. Contract research—with government, private business, research organizations, public associations.

7. Consulting (for the same as 6 above).

8. Government advisory commissions.

9. Editing.

10. Private practice (lawyers, doctors).

11. Private business (architects, engineers, etc.).

Obviously, opportunities for outside work vary by field of specialization. Doctors, dentists, and lawyers can have private practices. Chemists, engineers, and architects often have corporate as well as governmental consulting outlets. They will also have access to considerable research funds. Among social scientists, economists are in the greatest demand, rather like engineers. However, there is increasing demand for sociologists and political scientists as well. More practically oriented fields, such as business administration, labor-management relations, and urban planning increasingly call upon social scientists. For the humanist scholar, there may be fewer outlets in government and corporate consulting (although these are not entirely absent), but a larger world of cultural and intellectual activity is open to him: the mass media, cultural journals, editing, public speaking, and civic associations.

Intellectuals and Government

Despite the prevalent view that intellectuals have little or no influence on government, a close examination of the actual decision-making process shows a number of areas of impact, or at least potential impact.

In a broad sense, there are three general postures from which the intellectual can exert influence on government: (1) as an insider, a civil servant holding a nodal position in the internal decision-making process (including high-ranking administrators, scholars in government institutions, policy planners, and even middle-ranking bureaucrats); (2) as a consultant called in to provide advice, information, critical review, or new ideas; and (3) as an independent, very likely an opponent, exerting his

[15] The government runs at least forty schools or training institutes. Most of them are at the university or postuniversity level and are called daigakko^[*] or kenshusho^[*] . Examples are the Defense Academy, National Police Academy, National Defense College, Foreign Service Training Institute, and Social Insurance Training College. In most of these there are arubaito opportunities for academics.

[16] Aside from technical and vocational schools, there are something on the order of one hundred higher schools in private industry at the college level, of which the Tokyo Denryoku Gakuen (Tokyo Electric Power Academy) is a good example.

influence through the mechanisms available in a democratic polity—the mass media, civic movements, and political parties.

Whatever one's position in regard to the establishment, all three modalities are available, if in differing degrees, to intellectuals. While pro-establishment and neutral intellectuals are not likely to take to the streets, nor anti-establishment figures to take positions of official responsibility, such developments are by no means unknown. In general, however, there are likely to be more pro-establishment and neutral intellectuals among the insiders and consultants, and anti-establishment intellectuals are likely to figure more heavily in the third group.

Insiders

Insiders are often spoken of as goyogakusha^[*] , the term for the scholars during the Tokugawa period who provided their services for pay to the Shogunal or domainal governments. The term is, of course, a pejorative one, implying that to work for the "powers" is to prostitute oneself. Pro-establishment intellectuals, or indeed any intellectual who happens to be in agreement with the government position, may find himself tarred with this brush. The term goyoteki-shingikai^[*] , for example, is commonly applied to official advisory commissions that appear to go along with what the government wants.

However we judge the moral and political issues involved, it is clear that there are large numbers of people we would classify as intellectuals who work directly for government. They may be found first of all among the corps of highly qualified upper civil servants. Japan's higher civil service, along with the French, certainly ranks as one of the most competent, dedicated, and powerful in the world. The stringent competitive requirements assure that many of them will be intellectuals, some actually scholarly in their inclinations. They will also be highly responsive to the academic community, often maintaining close personal associations. Many of them are known as intellectuals to wider publics through their writings, and others have an accepted standing in their own professions, such as economics, social policy planning, engineering, or area study. In addition to purely administrative line functions, policy-planning positions fill a good part of their careers.

Intellectuals are also widely employed in government for their specialized knowledge. The exact numbers are hard to estimate, but some indications can be found. There are, for example, about ninety national government research institutes employing about twenty-five thousand research scientists.^[17] (The total number of employees is much higher.) The

[17] Some of these have regional branches as, for example, the Ministry of Agriculture's Regional Fishery Research Laboratories. In addition to the national government, local government entities maintain 551 research institutions (data as of 1 April 1971).

incidence of intellectuals, scholars, and specialists varies by government department. Some, such as the Economic Planning Agency, will have proportionately more than, say, the Ministry of Posts. But even the Ministry of Posts has its intellectuals, at least in its higher administrative ranks, its Electrical Wave Research Institute, the Communications College, and its specialized technical departments. Most of the intellectuals here are, of course, engineers, natural scientists, and technicians—scientific-technical rather than humanistic intellectuals. The largest number of intellectuals will be found in the Prime Minister's Office, the Economic Planning Agency, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). In general, the more "technocratic" the field, the greater their weight. Important inputs come mainly in engineering and economics, or in areas that involve both such as regional planning, developmental economics, urban problems, and systems analysis.

What impact do they have on government policy? The answer would have to be that in virtually all policy matters within their area of concern, their input of information and their formulation of the issues is very important, but that their direct influence varies in accordance with the particular constellation of forces involved. On purely technical issues, with relatively small political content, their influence can be important. The views of structural engineers, for example, carry great weight in the actual outcome of decisions on bridge-building, although the question of location is often a very political issue. In general, the Japanese government is very respectful of technical expertise. Even on economic issues, which lie near the border of the scientific-technical and the humanistic, the work of the Economic Research Institute (Keizai kenkyusho^[*] ) of the Economic Planning Agency is very influential, even if it is not the only voice involved in decisions.

Some government research institutes carry little weight in their own area of decision. This may be for many reasons: that their sphere is too peripheral to the major priority areas, that powerful pressure groups are involved, that they are incompetent, or that they are badly positioned in the bureaucratic structure. Some semigovernmental research institutes, which depend primarily on government support, for example, are regarded as little more than a place to pasture retired bureaucrats.

It is often argued that the government scholars are not true intellectuals, that they do not decide problems on their own but simply apply their skills within the framework of problems set for them by the government. Such a view is far too simplistic. Much of the work of government research institutes is scarcely different from that done in institutes located in the universities. The sociologists, mathematicians, social psychologists, and demographers of the Welfare Ministry's Population Problems Research Institute, or the scholars in the Institute of Mathematical Statistics located

in the Ministry of Education do much the same kind of scholarly work as those in nongovernment institutions. Since they have budgets, equipment, staff, continuity, and an audience, they are often better off and can do more self-initiated research than outside organizations. To be sure, some of the institutes do a good part of their own research in response to direct government requests or to their perception of national problems. But applied or policy research need be no less scientific than basic research. Much of the work of nongovernmental institutes, in the universities or elsewhere, is also applied research—often contracted for—whereas the work of, say, the governmental Institute of Mathematical Statistics is much more far-ranging and independent than that of many academic survey institutions.

Nor would it be correct to think that government institutions have no freedom at all to initiate research even in basic fields. Some of them, such as the National Institute of Genetics or the National Cancer Institute, are involved primarily in basic research, and it would be more correct to see them as national scientific facilities supported by the government, just as much a part of their field as a university institute. They are also quite capable of producing analyses that are critical of government policy or recommendations that are at variance with current policy. The real problem is more often that decision-makers pay no attention to the work of the government institutes, and not that the institutes have no freedom.

Although the impact of the government scholars and research institutions varies, the influence of the bureaucrat-intellectuals cannot be doubted. They are found among the senior permanent civil servants, whose tenure outlasts the government in power and is more secure. The ministers and the parliamentary vice-ministers (seimu jikan ) come and go, but the jimu jikan (administrative vice-minister) goes on forever.

The Intellectual as Adviser

The work of modern governments has become very complicated and, with the increasing welfare obligations that they have accepted, an enormous range of expertise is required. Not all of this can, or should, be provided from within the government itself. Government finds itself constantly in need of fresh inputs from the outside, which may be for many different reasons—ranging from the need for information, evaluation, or reactions, to a desire for validation or for legitimation to particular constituencies. It is not at all uncommon for top bureaucrats and even ministers to call upon academic authorities for their views. "Osetsu o haicho^[*] shimasu " (Let me hear your distinguished views) can often be heard in bureaucratic chambers.

The principal way that nongovernment intellectuals make an input into the decision-making process is through serving as consultants of one kind or another. The system of advisory councils, of which the shingikai

(advisory commission) is a typical example, started in 1947, under the influence of the American Occupation's desire to build more citizen-participative institutions in what it perceived as a nonresponsive bureaucracy.^[18] Many different types have developed, some permanent and established by law, others ad hoc, some investigative (chosakai^[*] ), and some deliberative in character. Although the principle has been more often honored in the breach than in the observance, the advisory commission is expected to include in its membership representatives of all the important constituencies involved in the particular issue, plus relevant experts, as well as representatives of the public interest. All major constituencies, such as business, agriculture, labor, and women, are represented on the councils, although in varying degrees, but intellectuals (mainly academics) rank second only to businessmen in numbers. Therefore, literally thousands of intellectuals sit on hundreds of government commissions that have variable but on the whole important influence on public policy decisions. Almost all government commissions will have some scholars, whether for their expertise or purely for public name value and window dressing.

Every government ministry, with the exception of foreign affairs, makes use of the advisory commissions. Altogether, there are about 240 (as of August 1972), with an average membership of 30, ranging between 5 and 180.^[19] They vary in importance, impact, size, internal composition, and degree of representativeness, depending on their subject matter, the department concerned, and the timeliness of their central mission.

They also vary in the extent to which they provide a source of significant outside income to the committee members. Most committees pay purely nominal consulting fees, so that participation is considered a financial loss by many intellectuals. A famous writer was recently reported to have resigned from the Central Education Council when he learned how small the consulting fee was; he could make much more efficient use of his time, he said, by appearing on well-paying television or on panel discussions about educational problems. In a few cases, however, the consulting fee may become significant enough to raise questions about people being "bought." The Public Service System Council, which deals with very sensitive issues and very sensitive constituencies, has representatives from labor and management, and pays its members monthly fees.

As expected, the councils vary widely in their impact. One of the major functions of the advisory commissions is to adjust the conflicting demands of the major constituencies involved in a particular issue. The Rice Price Council, for example, has representatives of the farmers, consumers, workers, businessmen, and the general public. When it agrees on a plan,

[18] For an excellent summary in English, see Yung Ho Park, "The Government Advisory System in Japan," Journal of Comparative Administration 3.4 (February 1972).

[19] These represent the advisory commissions established by law. If we take into account the various study groups and commissions established by ministerial ordinance or even more informally, there will be several hundred more. See ibid., p. 437.

the Council's recommendations carry great weight and are hard for the government to reject. The advisory commission's input may be decisive under other circumstances as well: as final arbiter when the major elements cannot reach agreement, or as a pressure group pushing its own recommendations. In other cases its position may be an important, even if not always decisive, input into the departmental deliberations. Often the advisory commission's position, through publication or reporting in the mass media, plays an important role in establishing the frame of reference for debate and in forming the public opinion that influences the government or Diet decision. This is seen clearly in the role of the Central Education Council, or the People's Livelihood Council of the Economic Planning Agency.

Characteristically, the advisory commission will be one of the decisive elements at certain stages of the process.^[20] The Boston Consulting Group analysis of the development of Japan's computer industry gives us a valuable picture of how the advisory commission articulates with other elements in an ongoing process.^[21] The government's computer development program started in 1953, but the first real fruits came only in the late 1960s. The process therefore required a sustained effort of about fifteen years. In 1954, after a false start by the Ministry of Education, which, through Tokyo University scientists, had actually developed a vacuumtube computer, the Science and Technology Agency (then within MITI) began the development of a computer logic using transistors as one of its many internal research activities. In 1955, MITI organized a research committee on the computer whose composition "was typically Japanese, representing all constituencies with substantial interest: MITI officials, prospective manufacturers, Japan Telegraph and Telephone managers, and university research scientists were members."^[22] In accordance with the Electronics Industry Development Provisional Act, passed by the Diet in 1957, MITI established an advisory commission—the Electronics Industry Deliberation Council (in 1971 renamed the Electronic and Machinery Industries Deliberation Council). It consists of "approximately 40 members including vice-ministers of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Finance, presidents of major electronics hardware manufacturers, the managing director of the industry's trade association, the president of the industry's computer renting company, and distinguished scholars."^[23] Although "effectively, the Coun-

[20] In its first years, the Central Education Council's reports, for example, were "almost totally devoid of real influence on the formulation of policy," but its 465-page 1971 report was "touted as the prelude to Japan's third educational revolution." T. J. Pempel, "The Bureaucratization of Policymaking in Postwar Japan," unpublished, 1972, pp. 12–13.

[21] In Eugene J. Kaplan, Japan: The Government-Business Relationship—A Guide for the American Businessman (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of International Commerce, February 1972).

[22] Ibid., p. 80.

[23] Ibid., p. 81.

cil is dominated by its secretariat,"^[24] its 1966 report was "the most important document in the industry's history."^[25] Thus, the advisory commission was only one of the factors making its impact over the fifteen-year period—along with the industry, the bureaucracy, the business community, and the Diet—but at certain stages its actions were of decisive importance.

In addition to the more or less permanent advisory commissions, the government frequently appoints expert or public commissions of various kinds to make inquiries or recommendations concerning specific problems. These are as variable as the permanent advisory commissions in their impact.

Many people find the structure and powers of these commissions unsatisfactory. One of the most important criticisms is that the government defines the issues for them and the first drafts embodying the commission's deliberations are usually written by the bureaucrats. The commission members simply read over the prepared report, express agreement or disagreement, and propose changes. The bureaucrats then pull these together and issue the final report, which therefore tends to be fairly close to the government's preferred position, or at least not too critical of it.

Another criticism is that the government assures a favorable outcome, or reduces the prospects of an unfavorable outcome, by carefully selecting the members. The first panel of the commission appointed to investigate the famous mercury-poisoning case (involving the question of the Showa^[*] Denko^[*] Company's responsibility) was criticized for returning a report favorable to the government position. The commissions are often criticized as mere window dressing, lending respectability to a predetermined government position, and in the worst case as pure whitewashing. Anti-establishment intellectuals, as well as labor people and the supporters of the opposition parties, are therefore very wary about some of the advisory commissions. Taking part, they fear, means being co-opted or accepting the underlying premises of the establishment. Many intellectuals also refuse out of fear of being branded a tool of the government by the constituencies they are concerned with. Faculty members of some national universities, for example, were hesitant about sitting on several Ministry of Education commissions because of the opposition of radical student organizations.

Nevertheless, in spite of their many weaknesses and defects, "their deliberations and reports," as Park says, "often constitute an important preliminary in the totality of Japanese policy-making; and there are numerous instances of commissions having authorized persuasive reports which culminated in administrative policies or legislation."^[26]

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid., p. 91.

[26] Park, "Government Advisory System," p. 457.

Government-Supported Research

Another way that intellectuals, particularly academic intellectuals, make some input into consideration of public-policy issues is through research commissioned or supported by the government. Although the volume of Japanese governmental support for outside research is not as great as the American, the outlay for research and development in all fields is rising rapidly. As illustrated in Table 6, for example, in 1970 Japan spent ¥217.4 billion (¥152 billion from the government; the rest from private sources) for the support of university research in science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine.^[27] The corresponding American figure is $2.6 billion. On a per capita GNP basis, however, this figure is much better than it appears: it is certainly better than in many European countries, including the United Kingdom; it is 22.5 percent higher than the preceding year in Japan; and it is on a more steeply rising curve than the American figure.

Although Japan was rather a slow starter in research and development, the investment from both public and private sources has been rising

[27] About $604 million at the 360–1 exchange rate, which prevailed in 1970.

sharply. In 1970, total research expenditures reached ¥1,195.3 billion^[28] —one-quarter from government and three-quarters from private sources (see Table 6). The governmental budget for the promotion of science and technology in 1971, which came to ¥305.5 billion, was 15 percent higher than in 1969 and 4.9 times higher than in 1961. National budgets for all varieties of research show a sharp unward trend. University research expenditures rose over 80 percent between 1967 and 1971. Support for relatively high priority research areas shows steep rises in the past few years: atomic power research, up 57 percent from 1969 to 1970; space research, up 158 percent from 1967 to 1970; and oceanography, up almost 50 percent in one year. Government subsidies and contract research funds for scientific and technological research went up 27 percent in the two years between 1969 and 1971.

Although the funds available for social scientific research are much less generous than for pure sciences and technology (18 percent of all researchers, but only 8 percent of total research expenditures in 1971), they have also been going up proportionately in both commissioned research as well as grants and subsidies. Virtually all government departments give such support, although they vary considerably according to their particular area of operation. The greatest support for social scientific research comes from the Ministry of Education, the Economic Planning Agency, and the Prime Minister's Office.

Government research funds are available to scholars in several forms. A number of government agencies offer pure research grants. The ministries also have research funds available in one form or another through the research institutes attached to them or through their administrative branches. General support grants may be made to scholars on application for any worthwhile project; or the ministry may invite application only in specified fields. Apart from outright grants, ministries may also give selective support for fields in which they have a particular interest and invite scholars to conduct research that has some relation to their own areas of program responsibility.

Think Tanks

Since the 1960s there has been a remarkable new development on Japan's intellectual scene—the think tank. Although some institutes have been in existence since the 1950s, their real development has come since the Nomura Research Institute was launched in 1965. Since then—partly under the influence of such American models as Rand, the Stanford

[28] At the predevaluation exchange rates, $3.2 billion. In 1971, the figure went up to ¥1,355.5 billion, a 14 percent increase in yen amount. Calculated at the then exchange rate of 308-1, it is equivalent to $4.4 billion, a 40 percent increase in dollar amount.

Research Institute, and Battelle—about forty-five think tanks have been established or planned.^[29] Some institutes work for a single client; the Mitsubishi Sogo^[*] Kenkyujo^[*] works for the Mitsubishi group of companies. The Nomura Research Institute, on the other hand, although it does much work on behalf of its parent Nomura Securities Company, also conducts research on broader questions, including molecular biology. The institutes characteristically bring together an interdisciplinary mix of specialists centering on the interface of economics and technology: economists, engineers, designers, planners, survey specialists, and statisticians. Each institute creates its own distinctive mix.

In addition to the government-oriented institutes, the business community has supported the establishment of a policy sciences institute, and each major business group either has established or is in the process of establishing one: the Mitsubishi Sogo Kenkyujo (Mitsubishi General Research Institute), the Mitsui Knowledge Industry (MKI), the Toyota Keizai Kenkyujo (Toyota Economics Research Institute), the Midori-kai (The Green Association, of the Sanwa group), and the Sumitomo Joho^[*] Sangyo^[*] Kaisha (Sumitomo Information Industry Company). Typical general think tanks are the Nippon Sogo Kenkyusho^[*] (Japan General Research Institute), the Shakai Kogaku^[*] Kenkyusho (Social Engineering Research Institute), and the Mirai Kogaku Kenkyusho (Future Engineering Research Institute).

The announcement the day after Tanaka Kakuei's election as prime minister—that a think tank would be organized to put into action his pre-election plan for the "Reconstruction of the Japanese Archipelago"—indicates how entrenched the think tank concept has become. The chairman of the LDP's Policy Affairs Council announced in July 1972 that "he was looking for qualified persons . . . 10 to 15 eminent academicians and a few capable party members . . . to start off its work on how to resolve problems of congested cities, environmental pollution, housing shortage and insufficient welfare."^[30] In July 1973, the government announced that it was in the process of establishing a giant think tank funded at the ¥100 billion level.^[31]

Although these institutes are new, it looks as though they may become an increasingly important channel for sophisticated research input into the government and corporate decision-making process. They also provide an arena in which many scholars and specialists can deal with public-policy issues and make a contribution of high potential impact. Their very existence further enlarges the sphere of consulting and free-lance intellec-

[29] Tallied from tables in Tsusansho^[*] daijin kanbo^[*] johoka^[*] taisakushitsu, ed., Nihon no shinku-tanku—sono kadai to bijon [Japan's think tank: Its problems and vision] (Tokyo: Dayamondo-sha, 1971), pp. 330–336.

[30] Japan Times , 9 July 1972.

[31] To be under the Economic Planning Agency.

tual work in Japan. The consulting fees, research funds, and various forms of compensation available through the think tanks and other research institutes are not insignificant for the changing economics of Japanese academic life.

Local Government

Political power in Japan tends to be concentrated in the central government; local autonomy, despite the efforts of the American Occupation, is still weak. Since so much power is concentrated in the capital, the opportunities for consulting work or for influencing the centers of decision-making are to be found almost exclusively in Tokyo, around the central government, corporate headquarters, and the mass media, rather than in the provinces.

Nevertheless, local government entities provide some channels for intellectuals to take part in public activities. Tokyo's Governor Minobe, himself a former professor of economics, has many academicians who serve as consultants and researchers in his various programs. Tokyo metropolis's Tokyo Tosei Chosakai^[*] involves many academic experts in its work of monitoring environmental pollution and social indicators and proposing solutions for Tokyo's manifold urban ills. The Chosakai is the most active agency engaged in the recently popular "civil minimum" research. The importance of academic opinion, in Tokyo, if not in all of Japan's great cities, may be seen in the fact that even the conservative candidate who ran against Minobe in the April 1971 elections, Hatano Akira, had his platform—the "Hatano Vision for Tokyo"—drawn up by academics who supported his candidacy.

Even in the remote provinces, some participation of intellectuals in policy deliberations will be found. In general, however, intellectuals, including social scientists and humanists, find themselves closer to policy making in areas where "progressives" are in office. As of summer 1973, there were 6 prefectures with progressive governors,^[32] and 6 out of 8 cities with populations over one million had progressive mayors.^[33] In all, there are progressive mayors in 134—or 22.3 percent—of Japan's 579 cities.

In the remote provinces, local intellectuals and academics often find an honored place. They write columns and learned commentaries in the local journals, and they are listened to on the lecture circuits. They are called upon for advice, for entertainment, or for gracing an occasion. Their

[32] Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Saitama, Okayama, and Okinawa. Four others—Akita, Yamanashi, Gifu, and Akita—have nonparty governors elected with the support of both the government party and the opposition Japanese Socialist Party (JSP).

[33] Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Yokohama, and Kobe. The only two with conservative mayors are Sapporo and Kita-Kyushu.

opportunities may be fewer than in the metropolis, but so are their competitors.

Intellectuals and the Politicians

Intellectuals rarely enter professional politics and still more rarely conquer responsible office. But they staff political bureaus, write party pamphlets and speeches, act as secretaries and advisers, make the individual politician's newspaper reputation which, though it is not everything, few men can afford to neglect. In doing these things they to some extent impress their mentality on almost everything that is being done.
Schumpeter

The political opinions and the behavior of intellectuals are seldom to be taken seriously.
W. H. Auden

Despite their passionate preoccupation with politics as ideology, philosophy, value integration, and morality play, most intellectuals' interest in routine electoral politics is somewhat less than enthusiastic. Few have run for public office, particularly administrative offices such as governorships or mayoralties. A Minobe, a former professor of economics and a celebrity, elected governor of Tokyo by huge electoral majorities, is the exception. Perhaps, he is the forerunner of a new type of intellectual politician.

In the representative bodies, however, particularly at the national level, candidates who can be broadly characterized as intellectuals have fared better than might be expected. Approximately 20 percent of the members of the House of Representatives have intellectual origins (see Tables 7 and

8) as against 10.4 percent from business^[34] and 18.9 percent of bureaucratic origin.^[35] The Japanese Communist Party (JCP) has the largest proportion of Diet members of intellectual origins (53.8 percent), more than half of whom are lawyers. The JSP is particularly strong among teachers, and the LDP has the largest number of legislators from the mass media.

In the upper house (Councillors) about 28 percent of the members are intellectuals by origin (see Tables 9 and 10). The proportion is higher on the opposition side than on the government side. Educationists constitute the largest single group, most of them with the JSP, because of JSP dominance in the Japan Teachers Union. These figures stand in contrast to about 8.9 percent of councillor members from business and 24.3 percent (overwhelmingly LDP members) of bureaucratic origin.^[36]

Since the mid-1960s, a number of tarento (talents)—movie stars, television personalities, and popular writers—of whom novelist Ishihara Shintaro^[*] is a well-known example, have made a modest appearance on the political scene (see Table 11).^[37] Since their strength, based on media

[34] Businessmen, owners, and executives (my own calculations). The largest group in most of the parties appears to have come up through political channles—through the party machinery, local assemblies, and (in the JSP) the trade unions.

[35] Those who had most of their prepolitician career in government service.

[36] My own rough calculations from Miyakawa Takayoshi, ed., Konpyuta^[*] ga henshu -shita^[*] seiji handobukku [Computer-edited political handbook] (Tokyo: Seiji Koho^[*] Senta, April 1973), pp. 92–138 Political workers represent about 17.4 percent, the majority of which (25 out of 43) are JSP members.

[37] Ishihara, an Akutagawa Award winner, was elected to the upper house in 1968 with the largest number of votes in the national constituency—over three million. Before his six-yearterm was completed, he resigned to run for the lower house from Tokyo's Second District on December 10, 1972. The District elects five members, and Ishihara won in first place by a large margin.

popularity, is diffused throughout the country rather than concentrated in one single district, all twelve ran in the national constituency elections of the House of Councillors, which is a kind of national popularity contest, rather than in the more narrowly political House of Representatives competition. In the 1971 elections, tarento candidates won the top three places in the national constituency, the only ones to win with more than a million votes. They are all in their first term (which lasts for six years), and they have not yet established a particularly distinguished record. Whether they will last remains an open question. Nevertheless, their popularity is an asset that political parties, both government and opposition, do not lightly disregard.

Even though the extraparliamentary politics of demonstrations, mass movements, civic organizations, petition campaigns, and agitation is more their metier, many intellectuals still find themselves drawn to party politics in the narrow sense. Except in the case of the left-wing parties, they do not expect this activity to be at the Jimmy Higgins level; the nonstaff intellectuals serve as advisers, theorists, analysts, and planners for various parties and factions.

Ultimately all political decisions must come through the Diet's voting procedure or through a single mind, whether that of the prime minister or of whichever decision-maker is involved. Each decision-maker differs in how he reaches his decisions, whom he listens to, what he reads, the forces that influence him. The fact that until now most of Japan's leading political figures have come from a small number of elite educational

institutions has given them in some respects a common culture. Although they differ in their particular views, they often share, even with extreme opponents, elements of a common outlook, a kind of common responsiveness.

The Showa^[*] Kenkyukai^[*]

One prototype of the relations of the intellectual to the powers was the Showa^[*] Kenkyukai^[*] (Showa Era Study Group). Konoye Fumimaro's brain trust, brought together in 1933 by Goto^[*] Ryunosuke^[*] .^[38] Goto gathered together some of Japan's leading antifascist philosophers, thinkers, historians, sociologists, political scientists, economists, and natural scientists to bring the best available intelligence in the country to bear on the problems confronting Konoye, the liberal hope against the militarists.^[39]

Established specifically as an organization of intellectuals, bureaucrats and politicians were excluded from the Showa Kenkyukai from the outset. Many of the members had been regarded Marxists and leftists. By the time the group was dissolved in 1940 it had involved, at its height, some three hundred intellectuals every year in its work. During its seven years of existence, the Showa Kenkyukai carried on a vigorous panoply of activities—studying national problems in detail, preparing position papers for Konoye, and endeavoring to expand the participation of intellectuals in the determination of public policy. In 1936, it spun off a Shina mondai kenkyukai (China Problems Study Group), and in 1938 it formed a Bunka kenkyukai (Cultural Study Group) to deal with the cultural aspects of Japanese-Chinese relations. In July 1938, it also established the Showa Dojinkai^[*] (Showa Comrades' Association), which brought together middle-level bureaucrats, business leaders, and politicians to spread the ideas it was developing. In November of that year it established a school, the Showajuku^[*] or Showa Academy, to train successors in its methods. In November 1940, under the pressure of the wartime mobilization regime that saw the eclipse of Konoye, it dissolved itself.

It will also be recalled that from the China Incident on through the Pacific War, establishment institutions such as the Southern Manchurian Railway and the Cabinet Planning Board involved intellectuals, even leftists and progressives, in their work. To some extent this reflected a respect for academic expertise, but it was also a device to provide refuge for liberal intellectuals. By and large, with the exception of Communists and a few others, Japanese intellectuals offered little resistance to the war.

[38] See Baba Shuichi^[*] , "1930-nendai ni okeru Nihon chishikijin no doko^[*] [Trends among Japanese intellectuals in the 1930s]," Tokyo^[*] daigaku kyoyogakubu^[*] , Shakaikagaku kiyo^[*] , vol. 19, 30 June 1970.

[39] The group included Miki Kiyoshi, Funayama Shinichi, Sasa Hiro^[*] , Shimizu Ikutaro^[*] , Kasai Junichi, Nakajima Kenzo^[*] , Nakayama Ichiro^[*] , Yabe Teiji, Ryu^[*] Shintaro^[*] , Kata Tetsuji, and Royama^[*] Masao.

Although some went into isolation or silenced their voices and pens, most offered at least passive and some active support for the war effort.^[40]

After the War

Although the Japanese military did not like the intellectuals very much, the American Occupation did. Intellectuals were brought into various aspects of the Occupation's work at an early point, providing American officers—who knew little about the society they were commissioned to reform—with expert information. Intellectuals also helped in the formulation of major Occupation programs. During the early postwar years, the Occupation looked on the liberal academic intellectuals as friendly allies. For some of the liberal reforms, the intellectuals, not the "masses," were the main constituency, especially if there was no particular mass base as, for example, in the reform of the criminal code. Intellectuals played a major role at many stages in the formulation of the new constitution, the reforms of the civil code, the educational reforms, the land reform, the civil liberty laws, and many others.

Since the end of the war there has been nothing to compare with Goto's^[*] intensive mobilization of liberal intellectuals to work with Konoye. Ikeda Hayato probably came closest, bringing a small, informal group of journalists, academics, and businessmen in to look at broad questions of policy for him. Since Ikeda had a strong background in economics, he drew a great deal on professional economists for advice. They undoubtedly exerted a significant influence on the development of the economic programs for which he is well known, particularly the income-doubling plan.

Sato^[*] Eisaku, on the other hand, appears to have had no regular mechanism, formal or informal, for seeking outside advice. Nevertheless, he did make a practice of personally meeting many specialists, including foreigners, and seeking firsthand information from them. In economic and foreign policy questions, he listened to a few experts, sometimes at the breakfast meetings for which Japanese politicians are famous. It has been suggested that he was more responsive to favorable advice and information than to criticism. But he was most likely to seek expert advice through the formally constituted groups established by the prime minister's secretariat or by the LDP. One outstanding example was the Okinawa Kondankai (Okinawa Discussion Group), under the chairmanship of Obama Nobumoto, former president of Waseda University. This group, which carried on research, inquiries, public discussions, conferences, and both formal

[40] There is by now a considerable literature on this subject, particularly with regard to writers. Among recent pieces, see Kikuchi Masanori, "Chishikijin to senso^[*] sekinin kaihi no ronri" [Intellectuals and the logic of evasion of responsibility during the war] Ushio , August 1973.

and informal soundings of influential American views, undoubtedly influenced the government's stance on the nonnuclear issue during the negotiations with the U.S. on the Okinawa problem in 1969.

It is perhaps too early to assess Tanaka Kakuei's style of relations with intellectuals. Since he is the first postwar prime minister who did not graduate from one of the elite universities—in fact, he is not a university graduate, and he has a business rather than a bureaucratic background—he did not come to office with a natural inclination toward associations of this kind. It is not clear whether he had a regular group of consultants, but he drew the information that he needed mainly from the network of middle-level bureaucrats that he created during his incumbencies as minister of MITI and of Finance. His well-known "Plan for the Reconstruction of the Japanese Archipelago" was widely considered to have been written up by younger bureaucrats in MITI.^[41]

Most of the leading conservative politicians, at least those with prime-ministerial ambitions, have their own advisers and at times even something on the order of a brain trust. Leading candidates usually have some kind of formally established support organization that holds regular meetings and study groups; in some cases there is also a regular journal or other publications. In these groups, intellectuals often play an important role.

Although the various politicians may have their own brain-trust entourage, the parties tend to operate mainly with their own in-house personnel. The LDP, for example, has a number of study groups (chosakai^[*] ) that work on policy. Essentially an arena for the party to hammer out a position, the study groups usually consist of politicians and party staffers, and conduct their own studies without outside help or consultation. The party committees on the U.S.–Japan Mutual Security Treaty and on Normalization of Relations with China have played an important role over recent years. But intellectuals are not very involved in these committees.

The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) has the support of the Democratic Socialist Study Group, an association of intellectuals modeling themselves on the relationship of the Fabian Society in England to the Labor party.^[42] Although they provide support and undoubtedly influence the general intellectual atmosphere within which the party functions, they probably do not have much direct influence on the party's legislative program.

The Shakaishugi Kyokai^[*] (Socialist Association) plays a somewhat

[41] Translated into English as Building a new Japan—A Plan for Remodeling the Japanese Archipelago (Tokyo: Simul Press, 1973). A popular joke at the time was that, when the Prime Minister heard that his book had become a best-seller, he said, "I guess if it's so popular, I'll have to buy a copy and read it too."

[42] They publish a monthly journal, Kaikakusha .

similar role for the JSP.^[43] But since the JSP leaders consider themselves to be intellectuals and theoreticians, intellectual organizations function essentially as just another pressure group on the left rather than as an advisory body.

The Komeito^[*] engages in a wide range of study activities, but these primarily involve party members. Nevertheless, the Komeito is somewhat respectful of the views of intellectuals and its parent, Soka^[*] Gakkai, supports a major intellectual journal, Ushio. Ushio is a high quality journal that draws contributions from a wide range of the political spectrum. The party also invites intellectuals and specialists to take part in its frequent study groups. However, the formal deliberative bodies of the party are made up of party members who range widely in their information and idea inputs.

Conclusion

Let us now look once again at our original question: is it in fact the case that Japanese intellectuals are isolated and without power?

First, as we have seen, they are a major political constituency in terms of numbers, wealth, institutions, and power. Second, they are one of, if not the most important of the opinion leaders in Japan. Public opinion, the perceived interests of different elements of the population, the activities of organized movements and parties, and ideological attitudes are all very important in the competition of political forces, and in all these areas the intellectuals play an important role.

Third, their writings often influence the very formulation of the policy decisions at issue, even if their particular position does not happen to win out. When a distinguished professor of Tokyo University's Faculty of Law writes a book or an article, or makes a statement on some public issue, the decision-makers may not leap to obey him, but they are not entirely unresponsive; his work often strikes an echo. Most of the key civil servants, and even many of the leading politicians and businessmen may have been his students or his classmates. In any event, he will be a respected sensei (teacher) whose works they will have studied and who has had a role in shaping their thought. They will therefore reverberate to his views, his language of thought, his posing of the issues, even if they do not agree with his specific political position.

A 1971–1972 survey of leadership opinion, for example, showed that 36 percent of the responses to the question, "Who should be mainly involved in the establishment of national goals?" referred to intellectuals in one form or another (mass communications, think tanks, intellectuals and men of culture, religious organizations, and academia) as against 27 percent that referred to the established political institutions (Diet, cabinet, LDP,

[43] Their journal is called Shakaishugi .

and local government), and 13 percent that referred to anti-establishment organizations (opposition parties, the student movement, and labor unions).^[44]

Nor is this respect for intellectuals confined to the elites. The Japanese masses might not rise to Victor Hugo's call as the French masses presumably do:

Peuples! Écoutez le Poète!
Écoutez le reveur sacré!

But Japanese intellectuals have always had great moral authority. The gakusha (scholars), the sensei (teachers), the bunkajin (men of culture), the chishikijin (men of knowledge) are listened to. Their presence graces the occasion and validates the cause.

Intellectuals have been active politically, and they have often been extremely effective through the organizations and movements in which they have participated. No one can doubt their influence on national politics and even on particular decisions, even if they have not always won all of their demands. The 1960 anti-Security Treaty demonstrations did not, in the end, bring about the abrogation of the treaty, but the Kishi government was brought down and Japanese politics was never quite the same afterwards.

Fourth, intellectuals are extensively involved in all phases of the public decision-making process from the original conception through the planning, information input, development, and final decision stages. This participation is increasing, although the process is uneven. Literary-humanistic intellectuals are probably losing ground while the technical-scientific intellectuals are gaining.

Every policy area evokes a different mix of constituencies and creates its own structure of decision. In some, the intellectuals are important; in others, they are not. But whatever the particular situation or outcome they must be ranked among the decision-makers along with the bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, journalists, and leaders of civic organizations. In short, they are not as influential as they think they should be, but they are more influential than they think they are.

[44] Tanaka Yasumasa, Koyama Kenichi, and Yasuda Jumei^[*] , "Nihon no kokka mokuhyo^[*] ni kansuru chosa—kiso^[*] shukei^[*] hokoku^[*] " [Research on Japan's national goals—report of preliminary compilation], mimeo (Tokyo: Kokka Mokuhyo^[*] Kenkyu^[*] Project Team, June 1973), table I:1, p. 19. This is a survey of leadership opinion on national goals in which the respondents were drawn from the following areas: politics, government, business, academia, mass media, literature, labor unions, and women's activities. (All the calculations in this paragraph are my own.)