[paper] Conquer the Culture of Co-Dependence Among Politicians, Bureaucrats and Businesses

Tokunosuke Hasegawa: professor, Meikai University

Born in 1936, he received his BA in Law from Touhoku University and worked in the Ministry of Construction and the Research Institute of Construction and Economy as executive director until assuming his current position in 1995. Hasegawa researched an international comparison of "mortgage financing crises in 1980s and 1990s" as a visiting scholar in the Department of Land Economy at University of Cambridge. His main publications include: "Tokyo no takuchi keisei-shi," "Fudousan kinnyuu-kiki saigo no shohousen" and many other books.

Diet member Muneo Suzuki's recent scandals have revealed faults in Japan's policy-making process and its administration's decision-making process. In postwar Japan, bureaucrats have accumulated all information so that it has been almost taken for granted that bureaucrats develop policies and politicians are to attend the Diet as their puppets.

Structurally, there is virtually no conflicting interest among politics, bureaucracy, and business in Japan. Although these three groups are independent of each other, those who share the same interests in the respective groups gather together to form a kind of guild to seek profit. Recently, in an attempt to rectify the situation, a few proposals have been presented such as prohibition of direct meetings between politicians and bureaucrats, and the establishment of alternatives to the bureaucracy; but it will be a long time before the problems are resolved.

These days, zokugiin (legislators who work for special interests or industries) have been regaining their influence over the decision-making process partly because high-ranking officials' terms of office have been declining rapidly. As a result, the three parties' roles have been changed, but the non-conflicting structure has not been affected at all. Zokugiin request the ministries to increase expenditures for public works in their constituencies in return for votes. Although both central and local governments have a set of rules to exclude any arbitrary influence over public works bidding, zokugiin somehow impose pressure on the administration so that the companies they favor receive the contract.

It is true that by nature the Foreign Ministry's affairs do not involve vested interests, but it is only too naive of them to say that they have nothing to do with such interests. This naivete is the very cause of those faults of which the zokugiin, and other politicians such as Suzuki who work for their constituency rather than the nation, could take advantage. "Muneo House" is a good example. Foreign Ministry officials are inexperienced in bidding and that must have made them sitting ducks for zokugiin like Suzuki. The ministry officials were Suzuki's mere puppets in the recent scandals. Professor Hasegawa is concerned that if the Suzuki scandals will not be thoroughly investigated, similar incidents will certainly occur in the future