The politics of oligarchy : institutional choice in imperial Japan

241 Pages·1998·7.093 MB·English

by  J Mark Ramseyer, Frances McCall Rosenbluth

In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the
twentieth, Japan underwent two major shifts in political control. In the
1910s, the power of the oligarchy was eclipsed by that of a larger group of
professional politicians. In the 1930s, the locus of power shifted again,
this time to a set of independent military leaders.
In The Politics of Oligarchy, J. Mark Ramseyer and Frances M. Rosen-
bluth examine a key question of modern Japanese politics: Why were the
Meiji oligarchs unable to design institutions capable of protecting their
power? Using an analytical framework for oligarchic governments not
specific to Japan, the authors ask why the oligarchs chose the political
institutions they did, and what consequences those choices engendered
for Japan’s political competition, economic development, and diplomatic
relations. Ramseyer and Rosenbluth argue that understanding these shifts
in power may clarify the general dynamics of oligarchic government, as
well as theoretical aspects of the relationship between institutional struc­
ture and regime change.
After reviewing scores of original documents and secondary literature,
Ramseyer and Rosenbluth conclude that the oligarchs were much like the
rest of the human race - prone to self-interest and contentiousness. By
failing to cooperate, the oligarchs were unable to protect and enlarge
their political rents. Indeed, as they sought political support outside the
oligarchy, paradoxically they weakened themselves by enlarging the seg­
ment of the population that was sufficiently organized to lobby for politi­
cal power. Untimately, it was the oligarchs’ very inability to agree among
themselves on how to rule that prompted them to release the military
from civilian control — a decision that was to have disastrous conse­
quences both for Japan and for the rest of the world.
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THE PO LITICS OF OLIGARCHY
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POLITICAL ECONOMY OF INSTITUTIONS AND DECISIONS
Editors
James E. Alt, Harvard University
Douglass C. North, Washington University in St. Louis
Other books in the series
James E. Alt and Kenneth Shepsle, eds., Perspectives on Positive
Political Economy
Alberto Alesina and Howard Rosenthal, Partisan Politics, Divided
Government, and the Economy
Jeffery S. Banks and Eric A. Hanushek, Modern Political Economy:
Old Topics, New Directions
Yoram Barzel, Economic Analysis of Property Rights
Robert Bates, Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political
Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya
Peter F. Cowhey and Mathew D. McCubbins, eds., Structure and
Policy in Japan and the United States
Gary W. Cox, The Efficient Secret: The Cabinet and the Development
of Political Parties in Victorian England
Jean Ensminger, Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation
of an African Society
Murray J. Horn, The Political Economy of Public Administration
Jack Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict
Michael Laver and Kenneth Shepsle, eds., Cabinet Ministers and
Parliamentary Government
Leif Lewin, Ideology and Strategy: A Century of Swedish
Politics (English edition)
Gary Libecap, Contracting for Property Rights
Mathew D. McCubbins and Terry Sullivan, eds., Congress:
Structure and Policy
Gary J. Miller, Managerial Dilemmas: The Political Economy
of Hierarchy
Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic
Performance
Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of
Institutions for Collective Action
Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, The Emits of Revolution: Property Rights,
Litigation, and French Agriculture
Charles Stewart III, Budget Reform Politics: The Design of the
Appropriations Process in the House of Representatives, 1865—1921
John Waterbury, Exposed to Innumerable Delusions
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THE POLITICS OF
OLIGARCHY
Institutional choice in Imperial Japan
J. MARK RAMSEYER
The University of Chicago
FRANCES M. ROSENBLUTH
Yale University
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521473972
© Cambridge University Press 1998
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1995
First paperback edition 1998
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-521-47397-2 hardback
ISBN 978-0-521-63649-0 paperback
Transferred to digital printing 2007
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For James Rosenbluth and Norma Wyse
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Contents
List of tables and figure page xii
Series editors’ preface XV
Acknowledgments xvii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Background i
The puzzle i
This project 4
The argument 6
The internal logic to oligarchies 6
Bureaucrats, judges, and the military 9
Regulatory consequences 11
The project 14
CHAPTER 2
THE COLLAPSE OF OLIGARCHY:
FAILED ATTEMPTS AT CARTEL-MAINTENANCE
Introduction 15
The cast of characters 16
Introduction 16
The historical context 18
The oligarchs 18
The first attempts at institutional design 19
Resistance to central control 20
The first institutions 21
The demise of oligarchy 25
Conclusion 28
vii
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Contents
CHAPTER 3
CONCESSION OR FACADE:
THE MEIJI CONSTITUTION
Introduction 29
The road to the Constitution 30
The Diet under the Constitution 33
Rule-making under the Constitution 34
Explaining power-sharing 37
Conclusion 39
CHAPTER 4
ELECTORAL RULES AND PARTY COMPETITION:
THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL SURVIVAL
Introduction 41
The initial rules 42
The first Elections Act 42
Multi-member districts and the SNTV 44
A return to single-member districts 46
The road to universal suffrage 47
Back to multi-member districts 49
The political logic of multi-member districts 51
Elections under SNTV, MMD rules 53
Conclusion 54
CHAPTER 5
THE BUREAUCRACY: WHO RULED WHOM?
Introduction 56
Politicians and bureaucrats: A principal-agent analysis 57
Bureaucrats and politicians in pre-war Japan 60
The bureaucracy: Whose servant? 61
The empirical record on bureaucratic advancement 62
Evidence from bureaucratic rosters 63
Self-reported evidence 70
Conclusion 73
CHAPTER 6
THE COURTS: WHO MONITORED WHOM?
Introduction 74
The institutional structure 75
The pre-constitutional equilibrium 75
The constitutional equilibrium 75
viii
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