The People’s Post Office: The History and Politics of the Japanese Postal System, 1871–2010 by Patricia L. Maclachlan (review)

Patricia Maclachlan’s The People’s Post Office is a comprehensive historical analysis of the Japanese postal system that spans the entire period from the system’s inception as a government entity in the Meiji era through its controversial transformation into a private entity under the administration of Koizumi Jun’ichirō, prime minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006. Despite its political importance, the postal system has not previously been the subject of a systematic study, although scholars of Japanese politics and economics, as well as Japanese journalists, have examined certain aspects of it. Focusing on two central themes—politicization and postwar reform—Maclachlan traces the evolution of the postal system through a framework of historical institutionalism. Her study provides a detailed and insightful account of the complex political interactions that took place at various stages of the postal system’s evolution.

Maclachlan addresses the politicization of the postal system in chapters 1 through 3. She focuses on the commissioned postmasters, who—despite their being public employees—enjoyed a great deal of managerial autonomy as well as a system of de facto inheritance. She explains how their status evolved in the context of wider changes in the postal system overall. Her analysis spells out how these postmasters’ roles developed during the early part of Japan’s modernization and how these employees became an essential component of voter mobilization for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), enabling the party to maintain significant political power over many years.

The author’s analysis of the postal system’s formation during the Meiji era is particularly insightful. Maclachlan emphasizes the crucial contribution of Maejima Hisoka, a Meiji government leader whose goal was to modernize the Japanese state. Maejima was determined to establish a postal system in Japan, recognizing its critical importance as part of a modern infrastructure, but because of a lack of funding this was not an easy task. The author highlights Maejima’s skill and foresight, describing how he met the financial challenge by coming up with the idea of recruiting local elites as commissioned postmasters. These positions lacked monetary compensation, but they offered prestige as they came with the status of government official. Maejima was thus able to quickly develop a nationwide postal network at a relatively low cost, thereby helping to accelerate Japan’s modernization.

Maclachlan’s analysis of the postwar period sheds light on the importance of another innovative leader, Tanaka Kakuei, in the politicization of the postal system. Tanaka became Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in 1957. Recognizing the potential utility of the commissioned postmasters’ network in the LDP’s rivalry with the Japan Socialist Party, he increased the number of postmasters and assigned them the role of mobilizing voters for LDP candidates in local elections. The LDP candidates would in turn defend these officials, whose semipublic status had come under heavy criticism. Following his tenure, Tanaka continued to oversee the development of this reciprocal relationship and created a triple alliance of the postmasters, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) bureaucrats, and pro-ministry LDP politicians (known as yusei zoku); this alliance kept the postal system closely connected to politics.

Chapters 4 through 6 examine postwar reforms, particularly those of the Koizumi administration. Maclachlan places Koizumi’s actions in a historical context, following the trajectory of postal reform from the 1960s onward. Presenting an analysis organized around the networks of political and economic actors who benefited from the government-operated postal system, she illuminates the relevant political dynamics of the time. At the core of the networks was the aforementioned triple alliance, but also involved were various organizations such as postal unions (the largest of which dropped its antagonistic stance toward the triple alliance in the 1980s and eventually became an active member of the networks); semipublic organizations related to postal services, which provided MPT bureaucrats with postretirement...