THE GOVERNMENT OF MODERN JAPAN: THE JAPANESE BUREAUCRACY Tradition of Bureaucratic Power |
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Gerald L. Curtis :: In the pre-war political system, when all power theoretically resided with the emperor, those who carried out the policies of the emperor, namely the bureaucrats, were considered to be more prestigious than, for example, the members of the parliament, who were representing the interests of those who elected them, but in a sense were further away from the emperor than were the bureaucrats. This led to the popularity of an expression in pre-war Japan called kanson minpi. Kan is bureaucrat, and son is respect, and min is the people, and pi, or hi, is to despise. So translated into English it becomes: “Bureaucrats exalted; people despised.” And this tradition of the haughty bureaucrat who is closer to the center of power and legitimacy, closer to the emperor, remained in the post-war system as a kind of bureaucratic culture, where even though the formal powers of the bureaucracy were now subordinate to those of the elected members of the parliament, the tradition of kanson minpi, the tradition of bureaucratic power, remained an important factor in Japanese life. |
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