Are Japanese Bureaucrats Staff-Maximisers?’¹

1 I am grateful to James Iain Gow, Bernard Bernier, Yoshiaki Yoshida and Andre Blais for their helpful advice.

Abstract

This paper tests the hypothesis that bureaucrats are staff-maximisers. This assumption has become commonplace among theorists and political decision-makers, but empirical demonstrations of it have been rare.The hypothesis is examined by studying the staffing policy of the Japanese government In Japan, the number of government employees per capita is the lowest among developed countries, and has been decreasing for more than three decades, even though studies have shown the Japanese bureaucrats are generally more powerful than their Western counterparts. It therefore seems to present a case of bureaucrats willing to cut their own staff numbers. However, the paper shows that Japanese bureaucrats do invariably seek as many staff as possible, and expend considerable resources, using formal and informal channels, to achieve this goal. Importantly though, this analysis points out that Japanese bureaucrats are largely unsuccessful staff-maximisers, and this indicates that those who maintain that Japan is run by its bureaucrats are wrong; if they were really in charge, their numbers would certainly not have declined.

• Japan
• civil service
• administrative reform
• decision-making
• rational choice

Notes

1 I am grateful to James Iain Gow, Bernard Bernier, Yoshiaki Yoshida and Andre Blais for their helpful advice.