“How Japan May Restructure Its Prefecture System on a Federalist “State” Model and Address Its Exploding National Debt, Economic Woes and Aging Population”
James Miller
Mansfield Fellow 2004-2006
History and culture make some words difficult to translate, but some words like “federalism” have a way of traversing cultures with changing economic and cultural trends. A new bill presented to the Japanese diet this month is poised to inject a fresh notion of “federalism” into Japan’s government reform debate. Federalism is a defining feature of U.S. constitutional government as well as keystone politically for Republican economic policy initiatives as well as a many Democratic social agendas. Likewise in Japan, the word “doushusei” is poised to pull together numerous structural reforms under a single philosophical swath. To what degree Japanese lawmakers and bureaucrats may adopt a federalist system is unclear as the diet enters its last month of deliberation on pending bills. Nevertheless, successful “doshusei” reforms offer Japan the chance to invigorate its government and economy, and at the same time provide a model for sound political reform for other Asian political economies.
While views on the appropriate balance of centralized versus regional autonomy can vary widely with the political issue even in the U.S., the history of Japanese political history from the 1868 Meiji Restoration shows regional autonomy have taken a back seat to centralized control and leadership in Japanese policy debates for a very long time. The “doshusei” reform represents a dramatic revival of regionally focused thinking last whispered forty years ago and politically dormant since the beginning of modern Japanese government. After this long tupor, the U.S. has much experience to share with Japan.
In 1868, the Meiji restoration ended a 250-year detente between the feudal “Shogun” central government and regional “Han” warlord powers. The sophisticated economic and political system of the Tokugawa Shogunate gave way to the highly centralized Meiji government that was solely focused on modernizing Japan through aggressive government-lead industrial development. This political transition was the subject of the 2003 popular film “The Last Samurai.” While scholars can disagree on the history of the movie and the role of central bureaucracies in Japan’s 150 year economic success story, Japan remains the second largest national economy in the world. Nevertheless, ballooning government debt, and a sluggish economy bogged down by layers of central and regional bureaucracy are a serious concern for policymakers. The “doushusei” reform offers numerous reasons for optimism.
Proponents herald many benefits of the “doushusei” reform approach. For the conservative American reader many are obvious. Attendance to public The most compelling being the reduction of the ballooning Japanese Central Government debt and increased oversight over central bureaucracies boondoggle public-works projects.
[small government," means less personnel, budget and deficit.
area of power shifted is very limited,
there seems to be a big difference between federalism in the U.S. and
do-shu-sei in Japan
autonomy
independent, not only financially but also in terms of policy]
The bill currently before the diet proposes to move regulatory authority from the central ministries to regional autonomies realizing cost savings in the form of government streamlining and more rigid oversight. Initially the bill focuses these reform efforts in Hokkaido, Japan’s largest prefecture. The bill identifies the [cite the powers]. The scope of power to be divested to Hokkaido represents a modest first-step. Nevertheless, even these powers represent a significant achievement by lawmakers to move closely guarded regulatory authority from institutions with hundreds of years of history and regulatory culture.
The second focus of the bill is the reorganization of the Japanese prefecture system conglomerating the geographically small prefectural regions into larger, arguably more efficient, regional autonomies. Many of the functions of central bureaucracies focus on economic development of regional areas and represent a significant portion of the national government expenditures. In addition to the central ministries, multiple layers of regional governments spread across Japan’s small prefectures and municipal localities are also a significant financial burden and often criticized for being functionally redundant both in their regions as well as with the central bureaucracies. Reorganizing prefectures into larger blocks would reduce overall costs and improve the specialization and sophistication of the regional governments. More efficient and effective reorganized prefectures would be capable of assuming many tasks of the central government—a contentious point with central bureaucrats who view independent regional policy making as largely infeasible. Proponents argue that these newly reorganized regional entities will be in a better position to plan and implement necessary government projects. A hidden value to the reform may be that only regional entities will be positioned politically to make the difficult decisions to reevaluate and “cut” various public works—widely viewed as crucial to correcting Japan’s out of control public spending.
The bill’s ambitious vision is thus to create new regional governments that are capable of self-governing of significant regional issues while at the same time investing them the necessary legal authority to actually conduct their affairs. A brief discussion of the state of regional economic development and U.S. and Japanese constitutional law makes it clear why both features are necessary.
Firstly, the “Dou” in “doushusei” takes its name for the Japanese word for “state” and reorganization of Japan’s prefectures roughly into U.S. state authorities is the most dramatic goal of the bill in light of Japan’s constitutional structure. Unlike the U.S. constitution the Japanese constitution does not establish a federalist system with a national federal authority and state powers each with sovereign powers. Instead Article 92 of the Japanese constitution establishes that the organization and management of “regional public bodies” shall be established by the “regional autonomy law” in accordance with the principles of regional autonomy. In short, regional autonomy is defined in and governed by entities created by national law passed by the Japanese Diet. Through legislative changes to the “regional autonomy law” and other legislation, the Japanese Diet can (through the political process) define what a “state” is and what its rights and responsibilities are. The bill before the Diet outlines the shape and color of what Japanese “regional public bodies” may look like remodeled on a U.S. Federalist State model.
In contrast to the Japanese system, U.S. federal and state governments first find their definition in the U.S. constitution. While the Federal government has the power to “preempt” State authority within the scope of its constitutional authority, legal thought and a significant amount of litigation in both state and federal courts is occupied with defining the constitutionally required balance of these separate soverigns’ powers. Even the “federalization” of U.S. Law, the increasing preemption of state law in non-traditional areas, viewed with caution by U.S. conservatives, ironically reflects a balance between federal and regional autonomy. For example in the area of federal regulation, deregulatory policies preempt state laws to ensure businesses are free from a patchwork of diverse state laws and enjoy the benefits of deregulation. Irconically, these federal deregulatory policies place much of the state regulated activity under the purvue of States’ private civil law, e.g. the law of contract, tort, other state law.
Federalism principles contribute to another American phenonomen the Japanese government hopes to recreate—robust and independent regional economies. The geographically diverse nature of U.S. economy is viewed with envy by many Japanese policy makers. Unlike Japan where the majority of all economic activity is concentrated in one of three geographic areas, U.S. economic activity is widely dispersed. High quality new graduates in Japan face tough choices when it comes to employment. Top grads can find a plethora of jobs in the government or business sector in Tokyo or take a chance on going to a regional area where the most prestigious and compensated work is in the prefectural bureaucracy or the educational system. Divesting central authority and strengthening regional autonomy will allow high-quality talent otherwise stuck in Tokyo to return their home-towns to work and raise their children, sometimes more than doubling their quality of life with affordable housing, good schools, and locally grown food.
The synergy brought about by the influx of policy-making and regional planning activity, specialized professional talent can infuse the regional economy with financial and legal experts that have been viewed as grossly needed and in short-supply if available at all. Policy makers are well aware that this nimble and regionally focused policy making is crucial for Japan to respond to economic challenges of the increasingly global marketplace, and the dire social problems of an aging society and declining population base. The “doushusei” bill before the Diet is a clear area where U.S. can provide valuable insights to Japanese policy makers clearly grasping at how central and regional governments can govern in the best interest of the nation.