Constitutional State and Public Administration

This chapter examines the impact of the constitutional reforms of the 1990s on the Japanese administrative state. We describe the development of the Japanese administrative state in terms of the roles and functions of the executive branch and the administrative resources to fulfil them. Considering the total number of administrative affairs under the jurisdiction of the Cabinet Office and ministries, the roles and functions of the Japanese executive branch are quite extensive. However, there are fewer financial and human resources available to fulfil these roles and functions than in other industrialised countries. We then demonstrate the characteristics of the Japanese executive government as a parliamentary cabinet system. The prime minister’s leadership was strengthened by the electoral and cabinet system reforms in the 1990s. Although these reforms did not involve constitutional amendments, they are comparable to constitutional reforms in a substantial sense. Finally, we investigated the impact of the strengthened leadership of the prime minister on the Japanese administrative state with its extensive jurisdiction and few administrative resources. We concluded that even the prime minister’s enhanced leadership through the abovementioned reforms could not significantly change the Japanese administrative state.