The Japanese Bureaucracy
Japanese bureaucracy has a large power towards Japanese politics. In 1955, Liberal Democratic Party is established and controlled Japanese politics as the government ruling party until 1994. This year is when Social Democratic Party of Japan took a position as the government ruling party. Still the constitution of bureaucratic politics in Japan was not changed even though a different type of political party was leading the government. However, Liberal Democratic Party began to take a government ruling position again since 1996 when Hashimoto became a Prime Minister of Japan until the resignation during this summer due to incapable deal with Asian economic crisis.
In "In Defense of Japanese Bureaucracy", Peter F. Drucker argued that American policy towards Japan during Asian economic crisis are dubious even though intelligent people such as American policy makers, Japanese scholars are made with their knowledge that are related to the nature of Japanese government that is bureaucratic system. The reason is that American could not assume in a right way because American tried to defend Japanese bureaucratic system totally and this is very rare that Japan depends totally on bureaucratic system all over the world as a developed country. According to Drucker, still this is a universal custom in all developed countries including the United States.
The main questions about Japanese bureaucracy are why Japan is still continuing bureaucratic politics and how Japanese bureaucracy is working. Also, how Japanese bureaucracy is different from those in the West and how Japanese bureaucratic system reflects towards all over the world as one of major powers.
Japanese bureaucracy had less control of business and the economy than Europeans' counterparts in 1970s because between in the late 1960s to early 1970s, Japanese bureaucracy is failed to comply with high technology of information system. Japanese bureaucracy is failed again in the late 1980s due to the pop of "bubble" economy in Japan. The necessity to care about Japanese bureaucracy is that Japan is the second largest economic power all over the world and from this fact, the position of Japan is very important in world politics. Japan has a large influence towards world politics and economy.
On the contrary, Japanese bureaucracy is successful in economically due to using protectionism. For example, the United States took a position as liberalism that is also called free trade, but Japanese government created the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and let them to control most of the foreign trade among nations.
In the early 1800’s, Japan had blocked off all trade from other countries. Foreign whaling ships could not even reload or repair their ships in Japan territory. This offended many other countries. In 1852, Matthew Perry was sent to Japan to negotiate open trade. Japan felt threatened by the United States, and gave in to their demands. Japan was frightened by their stipulations, and immediately began to reform. They developed a new education system that was similar to America and Europe’s. They also developed a Western style judiciary system.
Initially Japan’s objective for industrializing was to avoid being overtaken by Western superpowers, however during the process of industrializing the Japanese government realized that industrialization is key in order to remain a dominant force in the market during this new contemporary era. Thus the Japanese began to promote industrialization in order for national prestige, power, and wealth just as Germany did. In the end both countries were successful from modernizing and industrializing. Thus promoting the increase of power and wealth for members of the higher classes. While having generally negative effects on the members of lower classes.
In 1900 Britain was in many respects the world’s leading nation, enjoying a large share of world trade, a dominant position in the international money market, and possessing a far flung empire supported by the world’s most powerful navy. Japan was a complete contrast, sharing with Britain only the fact that it too was a nation of Islands lying off the shore of a major continent. Until the 1860s it had possessed a social and economic structure more akin to that of feudal, rather than twentieth century, Europe. By the 1990s, the positions were almost reversed. This paper sets out to examine the contrasting democratic political systems of the two nations and to explore the social and democratic consequences of the changes that have occurred.
Max Weber, German sociologist, social theorist, and economist, explicated the theory of bureaucracy in which he details the monocratic bureaucracy “as an ideal form that maximized rationality” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p. 48). He provided his most complete exposition of theory in his 1922 tome Economy and Society (Casey, 2004). This classic form of bureaucracy is characterized by the following (a) well-defined official functions; (b) specialization of function; (c) clearly defined hierarchy of offices; (d) rules governing performance, which require training to administer; (e) impersonal treatment of clients, in that all are treated equally; (f) merit as the basis of promotion or appointment; (g) compensation based on rank; (h) separation of personal and company assets and interests; (i) discipline and control of daily work; (j) files and record keeping for decisions, acts, and rules (Bolman & Deal, 2008; O’Connor, 2011). There are numerous shorthand versions of Weber’s theory including Harmon and Mayer (1986) in Organization Theory for Public Administration and Heady (2001) in Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective (O’Connor, 2011).
After World War 1 Japan had a hard time adjusting to the new world. “While its economy was still primarily agricultural, rapid population growth (to over 80 million) had diminished the amount of land suitable for farming. Many people lived in small houses, lacking running water. In a nation about the size of California, only one of every six acres was farmland. This put great pressure on Japanese government to find more space and land for its people.” (America Enters World War II page 12). Japan attempted to change its agricultural-based economic system to an industrial based system. “But the international system of trade barriers and tariffs, established by the United States and other industrial powers to protect domestic manufacturing, hindered Japan’s industrial expansion.” (America Enters World War II page 13). Many of the materials Japan needed were found in neighboring countries that were controlled by European powers. Japan began to question it’s right to Asian markets and raw materials. “J...
Modern Bureaucracy in the United States serves to administer, gather information, conduct investigations, regulate, and license. Once set up, a bureaucracy is inherently conservative. The reason the bureaucracy was initiated may not continue to exist as a need in the future. The need or reason may change with a change in the times and the culture needs. A bureaucracy tends to make decisions that protect it and further it’s own existence, possibly apart from the wishes of the populace. It may not consistently reflect what might be optimal in terms of the needs and wants of the people. Local governments employ most of the United States civil servants. The 14 cabinet departments in the U.S. are run day-to-day by career civil servants, which have a great deal of discretionary authority.
Now anger was steaming in Japan and they were devising a plan that would cripple America forcing them to get involved in foreign affairs. Yomamoto the military leader for Japan, devised a plan in 1940 to devastate America by taking out Pearl Harbor. The last straw for Japan was when FDR cut off all supplies to Japan this is when Japan devised their plans to take out the U.S. Navy. In 1939 Roosevelt ended the 1911 commercial treaty. In 1940 he signed the export control act that stopped all goods from going to Japan. In July of 1941 Roosevelt froze all of the assets of Japan in the United States. All of these crucial moves made by the United States should have prepared them to expect an attack by the Japanese.
In the late nineteenth century, Japan’s economy began to grow and industrialize. Because of the scarcity of natural resources in Japan, they relied on imported materials from other countries. In September 1940, the United States placed an embargo on Japan by outlawing exports of steel, iron, and aviation fuel, because Japan took over north...
They both provide representative perspectives to the study of bureaucracy. The Case for Bureaucracy, pays more attention to the good parts of bureaucracy. The data and statistics are included in this book to support bureaucracy. Beating the System, focuses on teaching audiences the methods of fighting back the abusive bureaucratic system. True stories and experiences of citizens make this book readable for majority audiences, not only those with academic backgrounds. Understanding different perspectives will be of benefit for the comprehension of the whole picture of bureaucracy. Regardless their flaws in their methodologies and approaches, they provide diverse perspectives on bureaucracy which are worth
This essay will discuss the mainstream and critical perspectives of bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy. It will begin by examining the characteristics of bureaucracy and then compare the mainstream and the critical views. Post-bureaucracy will then be discussed using the same structure.
Though the bureaucracy began simply, with George Washington’s creation of the Department of Foreign Affairs, over the last 226 years, its size and power have increased exponentially. From homeland security to the delivery of mail, this “fourth branch of government” possesses a wide scope of responsibilities. However, the necessity for such a structure often comes into question. According to Max Weber, who believed that “the bureaucracy was likely to acquire an ‘overpowering’ power position, the bureaucracy is an “inevitable consequence” of modern day life (“The Rise of the Bureaucratic State”, Wilson). A specialized bureaucracy provides valuable expertise, an asset which the Founders did not take for granted, as they had suffered a committee
So, if Japan does not “belong” to Asia, does it belong to some other amorphous collection of nations, namely Europe or the West? Certainly in the modern post-WWII era Japan has seen phenomenal economic growth, even to the point of threatening the US as the primary global economic power during the height of the “bubble economy.” Some credit this success to the changes implemented during the US occupation. Undoubtedly without US assistan...
Bureaucracy are defined as a system of government which most of the important decisions are made by the state officials than be elected representatives. Bureaucracy is also an organization made up of many departments and divisions that are administrated by lots of people. They are non-elected government officials and a non-administrative
Bureaucracy is an organizational design based on the concept of standardization. “It is characterized by highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialization, very formalized rules and regulations, tasks that are grouped into functional departments, centralized authority, narrow spans of control, and decision making that follows the chain of command” (Judge & Robbins, 2007, p.
Post bureaucracy does constitute and advance on bureaucratic organization because it is the answer to the flaws of the bureaucratic system. Post-bureaucracy was aimed to fix the issues with the bureaucratic system. An important feature of post bureaucracy is Trust because it has a lot of advantages. Though it can be costly for the business. Trust refers to a lack of discipline as employees are motivated to do well for the organization. By implying rules it could prove negative for the organizations relationship with its employees and customers. Trust in post bureaucracy is designed so that stakeholders of the organization feel as if they are a vital part and essential to that organizations function. Trust is used to the ensure happiness of all the people related to the organization. A successful occurrence of this is at Homebase where the managers allow staff to issue discounts to customers when appropriate. This trust could easily be betrayed and could be misused and cause Homebase a lot of financial loss if the staff used this to their own advantage. A decline that has been largely attributed to piracy is websites that have illegal movie downloading which lead to a decrease in sales mention veronica mars movie. It is evident from these figures that the ability to download copyrighted material is being abused, and the confidence of organizations has been broken. This conveys that the trust aspect of post bureaucracy is inconsistent.