Parliament and Parliamentarians in Japan
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2880356 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hans H Baerwald (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1964 |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 271 |
| Publication date | 1964-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Pacific Affairs (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0030-851X • E-ISSN: 1715-3379 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2754975 |
| OpenAlex | W2327719425 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
A CCORDING TO THE 1947 CONSTITUTION the Japanese Diet is the highest organ of state power. Yet most students of Japanese politics, indeed most of the Japanese people, do not believe this to be an accurate reflection of the power of the With this statement as an introduction, Diet members were asked by the writer to comment on their role in Japanese politics. Members of both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors were interviewed, and an effort was made to gather opinions from all points on the political spectrum. What follows is an amalgam of these views as well as certain impressions gained by the writer observing proceedings in the Diet.' Most frequently cited as the explanation for the Diet's weakness was the power of the bureaucracy. Many members of the Diet believe that they are prisoners of that vast organization upon which they must rely for information and over which they can exercise only lamentably limited control. This feeling of frustration is present even among the large group of Diet members who were themselves bureaucrats prior to their election.2 By the same token members of the bureaucracy, especially in the powerful Ministry of Finance, indicated that they have had to trim their sails in the face of growing expertise on the part of Diet members; indeed one member of this Ministry expressed the belief that there is altogether too much meddling by the Diet in the formulation of the Budget. Former Minister of Finance, Kiichi Aiichi (currently Minister of Education) also pointed out that in his view members of the Diet were spending too much time trying to match wits with the bureaucrats, thereby losing sight of their true function as legislators. A secondary theme that came up with considerable frequency was related to the origins of the Japanese Diet. In broad outline the argument runs as follows: The prewar Imperial Diet originally was patterned on the German
Parliament · Political science · Politics · Japanese History and Culture · Law
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 1969 - 1983 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |