6.4 reed political corruption in japan

Political corruption in Japan

Steven R. Reed With Ieiri Tomonori, Okumura Mutsuko, Rokkaku Koji, Tabata Shuichi, Tabira Kenji, and Takeuchi Masao

Japan is a confusing country of contrasting and shifting images. Ask any expert whether Japan is modern or traditional, peace-loving or warlike, or any other pair of opposites, and not only is he likely to present an image contradicting that of many other experts, but the currently dominating image is likely to be quite different from that of only ten or twenty years ago. The image of corruption in Japan follows this confusing pattern as well.

Some portray Japan as

cult topic for comparative politics. Most obviously, it is impossible to collect accurate data on illegal activities. What we know about corruption tends to come from scandals. A scandal allows us to peek beneath the surface of politics through a particular incident that has for some reason become public, but there is no reason to think that the data provided by scandals is unbiased or representative. Moreover, comparative politics has yet to reach a consensus

on the definition of corruprun by an efficient, elite and essentially incorruptible bureaucracy, the Germany of the East. Others paint a picture of a government and society riddled with personal connections, factions and corruption, the Italy of the East. The German image dominated in the 1960s during the era of high economic

Steven R. Reed is Professor of Modern Government at the Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University, 742-1 Higashinakano, Hachioji City, Tokyo 192-03, Japan. His current research focuses on Japanese elections and electoral systems. His recent publications include Making Common Sense of Japan (1993) and Japan Election Data: The House of Representatives, 1947-1990 (1992).

tion, though I will follow the Gibbons' (1993) lead in labelling as corrupt any behaviour that, if it were to become public knowledge, would lead to a scandal. This definition is attitudinal and implies that an act might be corrupt in some times and places but not cor-

growth but recent revelations and events make the Italian comparison seem much more appropriate. Of course, these images are more likely to reflect recent media coverage than the results of careful academic studies, so the images may not accurately reflect the reality of corruption in Japan, Germany or Italy. The purpose of this article is to present some information on political corruption in Japan in a preliminary attempt to describe the type and extent of such corruption in a comparative perspective.

The attempt will be preliminary for two reasons. First, corruption is an extremely diffi-

rupt in others. Comparative studies of corruption are often stymied by cultural variation: scandalous behaviour in one country

might be considered normal in another. The second reason why this can be no more

than a preliminary study is that the literature on Japanese political corruption is, as yet, limited. We have many excellent journalistic and historical accounts but most focus, quite understandably, on criticism of the situation in Japan and recommendations for reform. While these are laudable purposes, comparisons that are designed to find lessons that might help the cause of political reform in Japan seldom result

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Copyright© 2001. All Rights Reserved.

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TABLE 1. US and Japanese attitudes towards corruption

US Japan

What is the biggest ethical problem in politics?

Money 54% 62% Lying 33% 35%

Alcohol 7% 0% Sex 4% 0%

Does money unduly influence elections?

Yes 84% 82%

Do companies that contribute to campaigns have undue influence?

Yes 81% 86%

Source: Asahi Shinbun, 11 May 1989

in balanced descriptions of political corruption. Since one cannot learn lessons from those worse off than oneself, comparisons are chosen that put Japan in a particularly bad light. In fact, corruption studies in all countries tend to find that 'our' country is a particularly bad example. I strongly suspect that Japanese scholars are particularly prone to compare themselves to an imaginary 'western' standard that is not met by any actual western nation.

As scholars we are caught in the dilemma that, without criticism, things will not get better, but criticism alone will not produce the scientific and comparative analyses necessary for understanding the fundamental causes of corruption. This article will take a comparative viewpoint and attempt to be as scientific and objective as possible.

Corruption and culture in Japan

The definition of scandalous and corrupt behaviour varies according to time and place. Corruption has a cultural component and one might well expect Japanese attitudes towards corruption to differ from 'western' attitudes. The available data suggest, however, that a broad consensus exists among the industrial democracies, whether eastern or western, on what constitutes corruption.

The results of an Asahi newspaper poll conducted in both the USA and Japan are presented in Table l. The similarities are strik-

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Steven R. Reed

ing. The only significant difference is that some Americans are concerned about politicians' drinking and sexual conduct, leaving somewhat fewer worried about money. The greater number of Japanese worried about money in politics may be due to the timing of the poll, in the midst of reporting on the Recruit scandal. The greater number of Americans worried about sex and alcohol should probably be attributed to the influence of Puritanism. In contrast to Britain and the United States, Japan and France have few sex scandals, but the Japanese attitudes towards money in politics and the propensity of politicians to lie are broadly similar to those found in the 'West'.

Though not directly related to political corruption, some information about the attitudes of Japanese businessmen concerning unfair business practices comes from a survey of students taking MBA executive courses in Japan, the United States and Germany. These business students were asked about the 'fairness' practices often considered 'unwestern' and peculiarly Japanese. Again the most notable result was the similarity among businessmen in all three nations. The differences that were found were not large and the East-West pattern of Japan differing from Germany and the United States was no more common than any other pattern (Endo, 1992).

Finally, a preliminary analysis of the response of the Japanese electorate to corruption charges found more similarities than differences between the United States and Japan (Reed, 1994). For example, American voters re-elect 75 per cent of their scandal-tainted incumbents while the Japanese voters re-elect 60 per cent of theirs.

The attitude of Japanese citizens towards political corruption is similar to that of citizens in other industrial democracies. Nevertheless, there are at least two aspects of Japanese culture that facilitate corruption: the frequent occasions for gift-giving and the prevalence of personal networks.

Japanese customs involve a large number of gift-giving occasions. The Japanese are as capable of distinguishing appropriate gifts from inappropriate ones as anyone else, and probably draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate at roughly similar positions, but the frequency of gift-giving occasions makes it easy to



pass clearly inappropriate bribes from businessman to politician or from politician to voter.

Besides the several national holidays and many personal events (marriages, funerals, etc.) that involve gift-giving, it is often appropriate to give token gifts when meeting someone on business. Mementos are often given to participants in events. If you attend a store opening, you will usually find a little something extra in your shopping bag when you get home. If you attend a Sumo match, you will receive a bag of souvenirs. Thus, if you attend a meeting of a political 'study group' hosted by a political candidate and his supporters, you will probably receive a bag of mementos and campaign literature. Though most of this gift-giving is perfectly appropriate, it is easy to put an envelope full of cash in with the souvenirs, mementos and tokens. Japanese attitudes toward corruption may not differ much from 'western' attitudes, but Japanese customs provide ample cover for bribery. There is little need to pass bribes 'under the table'.

Societies are networks almost by definition, but there are several senses in which Japan is more of a network society than most. 'Oldboy networks' based on a shared university experience, most notably among the graduates of Tokyo University, penetrate most elite organizations in Japan. More important for the study of corruption is the power derived from having a network that crosses organizational boundaries between governing and opposition political parties, between politicians and bureaucrats, and between government and business. Negotiations across such boundaries are normally handled by individuals who can use their personal relationships to smooth over ideological differences or conflicts of interest. Friendship allows the go-between to bring the parties together, often over dinner and drinks, to work out their problems 'man-to-man'. (Japanese society in general, and the political world in particular, remains male-dominated, despite some recent gains by women.) For example, newspapermen sometimes have a surprising amount of influence precisely because they associate with so many different types of people.

The use of go-betweens may be perfectly legitimate but may also involve illegitimate monetary exchanges through such ruses as deliberately losing money in a game of mah-jongg.

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More ominous is the role of kuromaku. In kabuki theatre, kuromaku dressed in black move about the stage shifting props and keeping the play rolling ahead. The audience can see them but are supposed to ignore their existence. Political kuromaku are often shady characters with links to both organized crime and rightwing groups. They were most active in the early post-war period, but one, Kodama Yoshio, known hopefully as 'the last of the kuromaku', played a significant role in the Lockheed scandal in the mid-1970s.

Two aspects of the network society deserve to be noted in connection with corruption: the relationships between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and opposition politicians, and dangou, a Japanese way of fixing bids for public works contracts.

The Japanese Diet is 'viscous': it is hard to get bills through and easy for even small groups to disrupt the process. The LDP, though holding a majority of the seats from 1955 to 1993, often needed to negotiate deals with one or more of the opposition parties in order to keep the Diet functioning smoothly. Some deals were legitimate: the opposition would be given ample opportunity to present their message to the public if afterwards they would allow the bill to pass. Some deals even involved significant policy concessions. Other times money was required to grease the wheels of the law-making machine. In any case, a go-between often proved necessary and relationships with opposition Dietmen became a power resource for LDP politicians.

Dangou were at the centre of the Zenekon scandal. Price-fixing cartels are common in construction industries around the world and similar collusive arrangements are common in other industries in Japan. Until 1982, the practice in the Japanese construction industry was to have about ten designated bidders. In that year a bid-rigging scandal forced the government to double the number of designated firms, effectively destroying the ability of the industry to regulate itself. Into this gap stepped Kanemaru Shin, who restored effective collusion and charged a price for his services (Woodall, 1993). Collusion is the product of economic incentives found everywhere and general theory predicts a great deal about when and where it will occur. However, Japanese businessmen, bureaucrats


398 Steven R. Reed

Kakuei Tanaka, as newly installed Prime Minister of Japan, casting his vote in a ballot box. Pana/Rapho

and economists are less committed to economic competition and much more open to economic co-operation than analogous groups in the United States. This is a clear cultural difference but Western Europe may well be closer to Japan than the United States.

Japan is, in many important senses, a network society and the power of personal networks added to the traditional role of 'go-betweens' facilitates corruption. On the other hand, we must also remember that Japan is equally an examination-oriented bureaucratized society. Entry into elite universities and bureaucratic promotions are among the many important goods distributed almost exclusively through examinations. Although one can find exceptions in which personal connections or financial contributions make a difference, it seems clear that, if one can pass the examination, one needs neither connections nor money. Similarly, many goods that would be extremely helpful sources of patronage (entry into public housing is a

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good example) are allocated by lottery or some other impersonal mechanism.

It would be a mistake to ignore either the personal network or the impersonal bureaucratic aspects of Japanese society. Unfortunately, most scholars tend to analyse one aspect or the other and we have little information that would allow us to assess the balance between these two realities.

How much political corruption in Japan?

Any attempt at accurately assessing the total amount of corruption in a country is doomed to futility but several pieces of information lead us to the conclusion that Japan has a serious corruption problem, second perhaps only to Italy in the industrialized world.

First, in addition to a continuing series of minor and local scandals, Japan has experienced



a series of major scandals throughout the postwar period: the Showa Denko scandal became a major issue in the 1949 election; the shipbuilding scandal was an issue in the 1955 election; the 1967 election was affected by a series of scandals that the media labelled the 'Black Mist'; the Lockheed scandal affected both the 1976 and the 1983 elections, the latter because a guilty verdict had been passed on former Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei; the Recruit scandal affected both the House of Councillors election of 1989 and the general election of 1990; and the Sagawa Kyubin, Kyowa, and Zenekon scandals affected the 1993 general election. In each of these elections, the parties implicated in the scandals lost significant numbers of both votes and seats. The 1955 and 1993 elections both played a role in changing the Japanese party system, with the birth and death of LOP one-party dominance respectively. In no other country have scandals played as prominent a role in elections.

Secondly, the people implicated in corruption scandals have also been prominent. Table 2 lists Japan's post-war prime ministers and their involvement in scandals. Of the twentyone men who have held the post, six have been directly involved in one of the major post-war scandals and half have been implicated in a scandal in one form or another. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Sato Eisaku, Tanaka Kakuei and Fukuda Takeo all were directly connected with corruption scandals before being selected as prime minister. A bribery conviction (successfully appealed against) did not damage Tanaka's political career, nor did issuing an arrest warrant necessitating official political intervention by Prime Minister Yoshida to prevent the actual arrest of Sato, harm his career. Ikeda was also under investigation at that time, though Prime Minister Yoshida's political intervention kept Ikeda's involvement from becoming as widely known, so he may also be included among the four prime ministers selected despite a history of corruption scandals. The fourth is Fukuda who was tried and acquitted in the Showa Denko scandal for actions taken while he was in the Ministry of Finance. He admitted he had taken the money but said he did not know it was a bribe.

There is currently a tendency to associate dirty politics with party politicians and clean

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TABLE 2. Post-war Japanese Prime Ministers and corruption

Yoshida Shigeru April 1946, No known November scandals but 1948 pardoned Sato

Eisaku

Katayama Tetsu May 1947 No known scandals

Ashida Hitoshi January 1948 Arrested in Showa Denko scandal

Hatoyama lchiro December No known 1954 scandals

Ishibashi Tanzan December No known 1956 scandals

Kishi Nobusuke February 1957 Implicated in Black Mist

Ikeda Hayato June 1960 Implicated in shipbuilding

Sato Eisaku October 1964 Arrest warrant issued in shipbuilding

Tanaka Kakuei September Successfully 1972 appealed

conviction in bribery case; convicted in Lockheed scandal

Miki Takeo November No known 1974 scandals

Fukuda Takeo December Arrested in 1976 Showa Denko

scandal Ohira Masayoshi November No known

1978 scandals

Suzuki Zenko July 1980 Minor involvement in Kyowa scandal

Nakasone Y asuhiro November Rumoured 1982 involvement in

Lockheed and Recruit scandals

Takeshita Noboru October 1986 Involved in Recruit scandal

Uno Sosuke June 1989 A minor 'woman' scandal

Kaifu Toshiki October 1989 No known scandals

Miyazawa Kiichi October 1991 Minor involvement in Recruit scandal

Hosokawa Morihiro August 1993 Minor problem over loans from Sagawa Kyubin

Hata Tsutomu April 1994 No known scandals

Murayama Tomoichi June 1994 No known scandals


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politics with ex-bureaucrat politicians. The administrations of Ikeda and Sato, both exbureaucrats, were quiet times politically and major scandals re-emerged with the administration of party politician Tanaka and his proteges. One can hardly ignore Tanaka's role but neither should one forget that five of the seven ex-bureaucrat prime ministers were implicated in corruption and four were directly involved in major scandals.

Finally, Japan has recently experienced a wave of scandals involving massive amounts of money and large numbers of politicians. The crisis began in 1988 with the recruit scandal. Recruit involved record amounts of money and record numbers of politicians, though few politicians broke any laws. The Recruit scandal was one factor in the historic defeat of the LDP in the 1989 House of Councillors election. The Socialist Party outpolled the LDP for the first (and last) time. LDP losses were even more impressive in local elections. Recruit also had an effect, though reduced, on the 1990 general election. Two prime ministers were forced to resign over each of these electoral defeats, the first being Takeshita Noboru, successor to Tanaka Kakuei. The voters' anger had begun to fade when a new round of scandals was exposed. During the investigation of the Sagawa Kyubin scandal in 1991, incredible amounts of money were found in the possession of Kanemaru Shin, the manager of the Takeshita faction. Systematic kickbacks on public construction projects were exposed involving essentially the whole industry and led to the Zenekon scandal. Some obscure connections between politics and organized crime were also revealed.

A combination of on-going trials and new revelations served to keep corruption on the public agenda and fuelled the already growing disaffection with politics. Several new parties, two formed from LDP defectors, competed in the general election of July 1993. The combination of the defections and the popularity of the new parties produced an electoral earthquake which, while not of the magnitude of the 1994 Italian or 1993 Canadian elections, was strong enough to end the era of LDP one-party dominance. The non-LDP Hosokawa coalition government enacted a major political reform which, among other things, changed the electoral system. The new system, like much of

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Steven R. Reed

the history that produced it, looks remarkably similar to that recently adopted in Italy.

Though much work remains to be done, it seems clear that the Japanese political corruption crisis of the 1990s is not as serious as the Italian crisis. Japan cannot match Italy on the percentage of the political class involved, the degree of involvement of organized crime, the amount of violence experienced, nor even the degree to which the post-war political system has been rejected by the public. In fact, the total number of bribery trials and investigations has not increased significantly, though the investigations have moved up the scale, with more mayors and governors being charged. On the other hand, no other industrial democracy looks more like Italy than Japan.

A note on the investigation of corruption in Japan

Japanese courts do not have subpoena powers. They cannot demand specific pieces of information. Instead, general search warrants are issued. Policemen, sometimes in their hundreds, suddenly appear at the door and collect all potentially relevant materials before anything can be burned or hidden. Cartons of documents are carted out of homes and offices to be examined in detail back at police headquarters. This style of investigation means that the police must be very certain that they will find something before requesting an arrest warrant. It would be a horrible embarrassment if a horde of police were to collect thousands of documents and find nothing incriminating. On the other hand, when a warrant is issued, the police get a great deal more information than is needed for prosecuting the original case. The most common mode of discovering political corruption is the serendipitous discovery of records of bribery in the files of a suspect in some other type of investigation. This style also helps explain the pattern of long periods with few corruption cases followed by the discovery of scandals involving large numbers of politicians: one successful investigation can spread rapidly. I am also under the impression that Japanese companies tend to keep better records of their criminal activity because they can be assured that it can be kept secret under normal circumstances.


Political corruption in Japan 401

Aftermath of the earthquake in Kobe, which revealed a number of breaches of building regulations, giving rise to questions of corruption by the constructors. Hires Chip/Gamma

The changing patterns of corruption in post-war Japan

Styles and perhaps amounts of corruption have changed over time. We can distinguish four periods: the early post-war period, the LOP one-party dominant era of the 1960s, the Tanaka era of the 1970s and 1980s, and the current crisis period starting in 1989.

The two major scandals of the 1940s and 1950s, Showa Denko and shipbuilding, both involved programmes in which the government directly allocated production quotas among companies. When the government has that much influence over which companies will profit and grow, bribery is a good investment. Japanese companies invested heavily and profited greatly.

After the 1955 election the Liberal and Democratic parties merged into the Liberal Democratic Party (LOP) which was to rule Japan for the next thirty-five years. LOP rule was consolidated in 1960 with the Ikeda administration, which lowered the temperature of the

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ideological battles over rearmament and focused attention on economic growth. The beginning of LOP rule coincided with high economic growth, which together with the end of emergency economic recovery laws, changed the nature of the relationship between politics and economics. The government did not retreat to a laissez faire role. Intervention through administrative guidance continued but, except for direct government procurement, the authoritative allocation of quotas among companies ended. Corruption in the Showa Denko or shipbuilding style was no longer possible.

Corruption clearly continued under the LOP but may well have been reduced. Politicians and bureaucrats had less to sell and rapidly growing industry has less need to buy political influence. There is some reason to believe that corruption decreased and there is certainly no reason to think the level of corruption remained constant, but there are at least two reasons to believe the 1960s might look less corrupt than they actually were. First, the LOP


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was entrenched in power and therefore in a better position to suppress information about the corruption that did exist. The media certainly had information about corruption that was not published. Secondly, the corruption trials of the 1950s produced very few convictions. It proved to be virtually impossible to prove that money was paid in return for the exercise of political influence. Politicians could simply claim that the money was a campaign contribution. Though little is known about the role of judges and prosecutors in investigating corruption, it is reasonable to hypothesize that they were less willing to pursue cases with low probabilities of conviction. Thus, some unknown combination of lower actual rates of corruption and a lower probability of prosecuting corruption resulted in twenty years without a major scandal.

The corruption that was uncovered was still quite raw. The prostitution bill scandal of 1957 involved payments from the prostitutes' union to persuade politicians to vote against, alter the implementation of, and finally get compensation for the law outlawing prostitution. (It had been legal but regulated up to that point.) The politicians involved represented areas with large 'red light' districts and were representing their constituents in typical LOP fashion. If the industry involved had been more respectable, there might have been no scandal. In the event, shopping centres were built in the districts to provide alternative employment for those put out of work by the law, another typical LOP policy.

Most revealing of corruption during the quiescent 1960s are the 'Black Mist scandals' of 1967. There was no major incident. The 'Black Mist' was much more of a media event than either Showa Denko or shipbuilding. The issues played up by the newspapers at the time were less matters of money exchanged for influence than the abuse of power. There were two cases of politicians using coercion to extract money and favours from businessmen, but the more colourful incidents were more popular. The Minister of Transport ordered express trains to stop at a small town in his district and was forced to resign his post. Another LOP Dietman managed to have the government pay for his daughter's honeymoon trip. A third ordered the military band to play in a parade welcoming him home to visit his district. This type of corruption seems particularly

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fitting for the beginning of LDP one-party dominance. While one can never be certain that corruption really did fall during these years, the fact that the media failed to uncover any scandals as serious as Showa Denko or shipbuilding, even when corruption was on their agenda in 1967, is rather convincing.

The career of Tanaka Kakuei changed the face of Japanese politics in several ways. In 1972 he succeeded a series of three elite Tokyo University educated, ex-bureaucrat prime ministers though he had not graduated from college. He built his political career on bringing porkbarrel benefits to his electoral district and organizing a legendary political machine there. He was a master of political manoeuvre inside the Diet, breaking and rewriting the rules of factional politics inside the LDP and negotiating with the opposition parties to move controversial bills through the Diet. He understood democratic politics in a way his bureaucratic predecessors did not. He was LOP SecretaryGeneral during the 1969 election and, though he was given more credit for that victory than was his due, his detailed knowledge of the political situation in each electoral district and strategic calculations may have won the LOP a few extra seats. Tanaka should be a familiar figure in any country with a Jong enough history of democratic politics. In the United States, his career is remarkably similar to that of Lyndon Johnson.

Tanaka's role in changing the face of corruption in Japan seems to have been to systematize and rationalize the process and to shift the pattern from businessmen and interest groups offering money for influence towards politicians demanding money from businessmen and interest groups under the implied threat of loss of influence (Johnson, 1986). Corruption became less like business transactions and more like extortion. The clearest example is the 1974 House of Councillors election in which particular companies and industries were assigned candidates to fund and elect. Despite significantly increased expenditures, this 'companybased' (kigyou-gurumi) election campaign failed to reverse the LDP's electoral decline. There were, however, over a hundred arrests on charges of violating election laws.

Tanaka set record highs for prime ministerial popularity when he was selected in 1972,



but soon set record lows, primarily because of the inflation caused by his spending policies. In 1974 he was forced to resign because of the publication of an expose about his political style. The LOP selected a 'Mr Clean' in Miki Takeo although, during Miki's administration, the fact that the Lockheed Corporation had paid bribes to Japanese politicians was revealed in the US Congress (MacDougall, 1988). The US Congress caused political trouble in many different countries with this investigation, but the revelations hit Japanese politics at a particularly vulnerable juncture. The Lockheed scandal might have been swept under the carpet, but Miki demanded full documentation from the United States and vigorous prosecution from the Japanese justice system. Tanaka was caught in this web. He was arrested and put on trial for the second time in his career.

Despite his involvement and even after his conviction in 1983 the Tanaka faction continued to grow. Because the Tanaka faction was the largest and had no candidate for prime minister itself, Tanaka was able to play king-maker and continued to exercise a great deal of power until he was incapacitated by a stroke in February 1985. For at least three years, the most powerful politician in Japan was exercising his power behind the scenes while appealing against a bribery conviction.

The Lockheed scandal was reminiscent of the Showa Denko and shipbuilding scandals in that money was exchanged for a governmental decision which profited the company directly. It differed, however, in that it involved a foreign company and was revealed by foreign politicians, making it extremely difficult to evaluate. One could see it as an exception to a general pattern of lesser domestic corruption or as an exception to the rule that domestic corruption can be kept secret. In any case, once the Lockheed scandal was resolved. until 1988 Japan seemed to return to the patterns of the 1960s.

The most interesting part of the story is the final chapter, the corruption crisis that helped change the Japanese party system. Unfortunately, the events are too recent and too complex for any firm conclusions to be drawn at this time but an outline of the major events follows. The main difficulty is that the scandals of the 1990s fit no common pattern and no simple summary is possible.

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The Recruit scandal involved a relatively new company in the relatively new information industry. Although the Recruit Cosmos company did receive some policy considerations in return, this scandal caught the company making a large-scale investment in its political future. The company seems to have been buying its way into political networks. As a newcomer, the company seems to have misunderstood some of the subtleties of the game. The public was appalled at both the amounts of money and the number of politicians involved, including many from the opposition parties. The Kyowa and Sagawa scandals were, in many ways, typical cases of bribery, notable primarily because they kept reports of corruption in the newspapers. Investigation of Sagawa, however, led to Kanemaru Shin which in turn led to revelations about connections to organized crime and to the Zenekon scandal. Zenekon revealed systematic kickbacks in the construction industry and forced the resignations of several governors and mayors. It was the regular revelation of corruption that led to increasing disgust with the political system and contributed to the defeat of the LOP.

Putting Japanese corruption into perspective

Heidenheimer (1993) provides the best framework for analysing corruption in a comparative perspective and part of his analysis is reproduced in Table 3. Of his four categories, we need examine only the last two, the 'modern bosspatronage-based system' and the 'modern civicculture-based system', because it is clear that Japan is neither a 'traditional familist based system' or a 'traditional patron-client-based system'.

In some cases, Japan clearly fits in the bosspatronage category. On item #2, people in positions of power can expect a lot of gifts. Currently the 'scandal' of lavish entertainment of national bureaucrats by local officials is in the news. Similarly, political fund-raising through 'clean graft' (#4) is so common it might even be considered SOP (standard operating procedure). At least in the construction industry, kickbacks ( #7) were required, though one may wonder about how widespread the practice


404 Steven R. Reed

TABLE 3. Japanese corruption in comparative perspective

#1. Officials deviate from rules in minor ways for benefit of friends

Modern boss

SOP Modern civic

Frequent

#2. Gifts accepted by officials for generalized good will

#3. Nepotism in official appointments and contract awarding

#4. Officials profit from public decisions through sideline occupations (clean graft)

SOP

SOP

Frequent

Occasional

Occasional

Occasional

#5. Clients pledge votes according to patron's direction

#6. Clients need patron intervention to get administrative 'due process'

Frequent

Occasional Rare

Rare

#7. Gifts (kickbacks) expected by officials as prerequisite for extending 'due process'

Occasional Rare

#8. Officials tolerate organized crime in return for payoffs.

#9. Activists suddenly change party allegiance for pecuniary Occasional

Occasional Rare

Rare reasons

#10. Officials and citizens ignore clear proof of corruption Occasional Rare

Source: Adapted from Heidenheimer, 1993, pp. 156--57

is in other areas. In other cases, Japan clearly fits in the civic system category. Nepotism (#3) is not common; the number of votes that can be mobilized through patron-client structures ( #5) is negligible; and one rarely sees activists changing party allegiance for pecuniary reasons (#9).

In many cases, one could argue either side of the issue: Japanese officials do deviate from rules in minor ways for the benefit of friends, but that is normal even in modern civic systems. The question is whether this is done frequently or is the standard operating procedure (SOP). It seems that Japan falls somewhere in between: the practice is not at all uncommon but SOP only in a select set of administrative activities or for people of high status. Similarly, one can find examples of clients not getting 'due process' without a powerful patron, but could this be called an 'occasional' or 'rare' phenomenon? Connections certainly do make a difference in the speed with which due process is achieved. Until recently, organized crime was tolerated to a degree but not necessarily in return for payoffs. Here again is an area which deserves more study, but one reason that organized crime was tolerated was the assessment that a realistic policy to keep it within bounds was better than an idealistic one of trying to get rid of it.

Perhaps the most difficult question involves the degree to which clear evidence of corruption

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is sometimes ignored. Again we must decide between occasionally and rarely, and recent revelations of corruption in virtually every industrial democracy suggest that we should not set the standard for judging Japan too high. The idea that corruption is routinely ignored in Japan rests primarily on the fact that corrupt politicians are routinely re-elected and that the LDP retained power, even though periodically rocked by major scandals. One can criticize Japanese voters for not being sensitive enough to corruption charges, but the same charge can be made against voters in every democracy. Voters do not live up to the standards set by self-appointed guardians of democracy from either the media or academia. In fact, candidates and parties tainted with scandal have lost votes. Japanese voters have not ignored corruption. Similarly, one might blame the media for not informing voters of normal corrupt practices. Again, however, Japan looks perfectly normal. Lyndon Johnson comes to mind again: 'everyone' (except the public) knew of his shady practices. If Japanese voters and media have done their part, Japanese politicians have long failed in theirs. Most spectacular is the failure of the LDP to reduce the power of Tanaka Kakuei after 1983.

Judged overall, Japan fits somewhere in between a boss-patronage system and civic-culture system. The precise location is debatable


Political corruption in Japan 405

but recent events are best interpreted as part of the process of transition from a boss to a civic system. We may hope the transition proves

successful but the history of democracy elsewhere offers no hope that corruption will ever disappear completely.

References

ENDO, H .. 1992. 'Kigyou Katsudou ni okeru "kouseisa" no Kokusai Chousa Houkoku'. Dentsuu Souken.

GIBBONS. K. M .• 1993. 'Towards an Attitudinal Definition of Corruption'. In Heidenheimer et al. (eds). Political Corruption: A Handbook. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

HEIDENHEIMER, A. J .. 1993. 'Perspectives on the Perception of Corruption". In Heidenheimer et

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al. (eds). Political Corruption: A Handbook. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.

JoHNSON. c .. 1986. 'Tanaka Kakuei, Structural Corruption, and the Advent of Machine Politics in Japan'. The Journal of Japanese Studies, 12. pp. 1-28.

MACDOUGALL, T., 1988. 'The Lockheed Scandal and the High Costs of Politics in Japan'. In A. S. Markovits and M.


Silverstein (eds), The Politics of Scandal, Holmes and Meier.

REED, S. R .. 1994. 'The Response of the Japanese Electorate to Corruption Scandals'. Paper presented at the Sixteenth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, Berlin.

WOODALL, B .. 1993. 'The Logic of Collusive Action: The Political Roots of Japan's Dango System'. Comparative Politics, 25, pp. 297-312.

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6.4 reed political corruption in japan