Japan's Interventionist State by Aurelia George Mulgan

Author:Aurelia George Mulgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Industries, Technology & Engineering, Commercial Policy, Agriculture and State, Asia, General, Japan - Commercial Policy, Japan, Agriculture and State - Japan, Agriculture, Business & Economics, History
ISBN: 9780415346511
Google: xCf8_GZQWx4C
Amazon: 0415346517
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2004-01-01T18:30:00+00:00

6 Agricultural intervention and bureaucratic selt-interest

1 As Moore points out, bureaucratic institutions of agricultural protection in Japan (as elsewhere in East Asia) ‘institutionally or as an aggregate of individuals benefit from... [this] policy’. Mick Moore, ‘Economic Structure and the Politics of Sectoral Bias: East Asian and Other Cases’, in Ashutosh Varshney (ed.), Bejpond Urban Bias, Journal of Development Studies, Special Issue, 29, 4, July 1993, p. 107.

2 Matsuzaka discusses at some length the decline in the MAFF’s intra-bureaucratic power consequent upon the decline in agriculture beginning in the 1960s (measured in terms of agriculture’s position in the national economy), and the resulting ‘complex’ that MAFF bureaucrats acquired towards ministries such as MITI and MOF. He also argued that one of the reasons why the MAFF power base was sinking was because the influence of the agriculture and forestry Diet members was ebbing. Matsuzaka Shojiro, ‘Koritsuka Suru Norin Kanryo’ [‘The Increasingly Isolated Agriculture and Forestry Bureaucracy’], in NoseiJy^narisuto no Kai (ed.)，Norin Kanryo o KaibO Suru [Dissecting the Agriculture and Forestry Bureaucracy], Nihon Nogyo no Ugoki 11, Tokyo, Nihon Norin Keikaku Kyokai, January 1968, pp. 6-7,12.

3 Matsuzaka, ‘Koritsuka Suru Norin Kanryo’, p.11.

4 Chalmers Johnson, ‘MITI and Japanese International Economic Policy’, in Robert A. Scalapino (ed.), The Foreign Policy of Modern Japan, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1977, p. 258.

5 Yomiuri Shinbun,1 August 1986. Almost the entire complement of MPT personnel was postal workers employed by the Postal Services Agency (until corporatisation took effect on 1 April 2003). In 1986, agency personnel numbered 309,164 (out of the total of 311,839). Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, July 1986, pp. 12-13.

6 Almost 70 per cent of MOF personnel are staff of taxation bureaus (i.e. tax collectors). They numbered 52,916 out of the total of 75,726 in 1986. In this year, there were 22,810 officials attached to the main ministry. Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, July 1986, pp. 12-13.

7 Of this figure, 27,552 were attached to the Forestry Agency (26,219 of these were forestry workers employed in state-owned forests), and 16,105 were attached to the Food Agency. Jinjiin, Kanri Kyoku, Shokukaika, Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, [A Chart of

Administrative System Organisations], July 1986, pp. 12-13. Two decades earlier in 1967, MAFF personnel were one third as large again (108,000). Matsuzaka, ‘Koritsuka Suru Norin Kanryo，, p. 4.

8 Of these, 18,818 were attached to the Maritime Safety Agency. Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, July 1986, pp. 12-13.

9 Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, July 1986, pp. 12-13.

10 In 1996, Food Agency officials numbered 10,831 and Forestry Agency staff 10,031. Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, July 1996, pp. 11-12.

11 Gyosei Kikan Soshikizu, July 1996, pp. 11-12.

12 Including regional offices and its three agencies, MAFF staff numbered 33,040 in

2002. Hasegawa, ‘Nosuisho，, p. 36.

13 These figures are for 2002. See Hasegawa, ‘Nosuisho，, pp. 36-37.

14 Domon, Shinshokuryoho, p. 96.

15 Personal interview, MAFF official, Canberra, December 2002.

16 This reduced MAFF staff size from 42,000 to 33,000. Kawakita and Onoue, Norinsuisansho, p. 35. By 2003, MAFF staff numbers had inched downwards to 31,276. Personal communication with MAFF official, July 2004.

17 These are public interest corporations narrowly defined, that is, either shadan hojin or zaidan hojin organised under Article 34 of the Civil Code.

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