Shinzo Abe's First 100 Days: Heizo Takenaka

The Political Administration Should be Comprised of Only Those Who Demonstrate Their Abilities.

Another area in the evaluation of Shinzo Abe’s administration I would like to draw attention to is its policy-making process. I think it’s important to evaluate the extent of support given by those surrounding Prime Minister Abe.
As far as the Prime Minister’s aides are concerned, some say that by law these positions do not officially exist and so the system will not function. Although that is one side of the truth, if you look at the United States then you find, that there are no provisions for those positions in the law there either. In the United States they are also called assistants. Americans aren’t hobbled when a legal precedent doesn’t exist. A risk needs to be taken and the role of the aids needs to be made more prominent. Becoming an aid should also be made a more competitive process. They should compete, and only those who produce results should stay. Those who don’t should be replaced. In other words, more than structure competence and competition are more important.
The reason the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (CEFP) became the control tower during the Koizumi administration was because they set their agenda, decided on their basic stance, debated the organizational design, and finally sent it to be approved by the Prime Minister. It became the control tower because all those stages were processed there. It wouldn’t have become the control tower if it hadn’t carried out all those processes. The CEFP hadn’t initially been delegated such a role, but were able to assume such a role because they took the initiative.
Even before the Koizumi Cabinet there was a CEFP, but it never functioned in such a capacity. The organization surrounding the Prime Minister exists in America as well – the roles of the CEA (President’s Council of Economic Advisors) or the CEA Chairman vastly varies according to the President or the administration at the time. When I asked Michael Boskin, the former CEA chairman, what his job entailed, he replied that his role was completely different according to the relationship between the CEA chairman and the President and the administration at the time. As I expected, that is really what it boils down to. The system will take form from the personalities and capabilities of its leaders and the members and within this environment there should be healthy competition.
If the Prime Minister’s present aides were to stick their necks out and take a risk, I have faith in their abilities. There are obviously some legal limitations. For example, even if they were to try to make a statement at a press conference, the opposition parties would challenge their statements and argue for them to state their opinions in front of the National Diet instead. Because of such tactics used by the opposition parties to prevent aides from accomplishing anything, it hasn’t been possible to make statements at a press conference till now. However, one doesn’t have to listen to them. I think it is fine to stay politically active in the public sphere.
A large number of committees have been created within the current administration. The organization of the government has become incredibly vast, and if it increases through further superfluous committees this will only make things more unwieldy. Without first setting a clear agenda of issues you wish to address, you will always find yourself trying to escape the aforementioned problem.
In truth, we are feeling reverberations of issues remaining from the last year of Koizumi’s administration. The agenda isn’t clearly defined because it wasn’t sufficiently discussed at the CEFP meeting that took place the year before. That is why the Abe Administration didn’t have a clearly defined agenda at the time of transition and also why efforts should have been quickly made to draw up an agenda.
During the Koizumi administration, issues were first discussed in the CEFP, which resulted in a quickly produced agenda as the stoutly framed policies were written. First public projects were decreased, and a large scale agenda to manage both financial restructuring and economic growth was pushed forth. After that, a tax reform agenda was proposed, the Trinity agenda was put forth, and the reform of the postal system agenda was proposed. Agendas were being proposed without interruption.
When I wrote my book ,‘The Realities of Structural Reform’ (Kouzo Kaikaku no Shinjitsu), the thing that shocked me the most from reading my journal was the sheer number of ongoing projects we had simultaneously going on. For that reason reading my journal was very difficult. At a time when financial revitalization was undergoing such turmoil, it’s hard to believe we tackled this Trinity agenda. However, during the last year of the administration, when the management of the CEFP was entrusted to the bureaucracy, no agendas were produced.

Therefore “early small successes” are necessary. First quickly draw up an achievable agenda and then you should go about accomplishing it. “Open and Innovation” is fine, and no one will argue with that. “Assertive diplomacy” is also good, and no one has any qualms with that either. However, debate that reaches beyond these issues is also necessary.

Translator: LAURA KUMATAKA

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