Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 602, The Bureaucrats, Part 1.

When I was putting together episode 600, I got a couple of really interesting listener requests

that, as I sat and thought about it, I decided would make for a better full episode than just

a short section in the Q&A. So, here the first of them with credit to new patron Zeta.

What's the deal with Japan's bureaucracy? Why does it run the way that it does? And how did it

somewhat uniquely among a lot of Japanese political institutions survive the transition to the modern

Japanese state of today? I think this is a great question, despite the fact that as soon as I mentioned the phrase

Japanese bureaucracy, I am then legally obligated to make an America-centric comparison to our

own bureaucracy here in the glorious US of A, less competence, and more slowly having an existential breakdown as you wait in line at the DMV.

I am pretty sure that comparison is mandated in the post-war constitution right next to Article 9.

Now, I don't know how our friends and other parts of the world feel, but here in the USA, when someone says bureaucracy,

the image that is conjured up is not one of competence. And admittedly, that fact in and of itself

is very political. It is definitely true that there are incompetent bureaucrats in the U.S., as

there are everywhere, but the idea that government bureaucracy in and of itself

is inherently inefficient and bad is a political narrative. That rhetoric was consistently repeated

by, in particular, the Reagan-Air Republican Party in the 1980s as part of the deregulation

agenda that Reagan wanted to pursue.

My own personal and highly anecdotal experience has been varied.

In my experience, Seattle's city bureaucracy is kind of a mix.

Washington's state-level bureaucracy, honestly pretty good,

and the federal bureaucracy, slow but generally workable,

given how understaffed it can be.

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