The Abe Administration and the Rise of the Prime Ministerial Executive by Aurelia George Mulgan (review)

In The Abe Administration and the Rise of the Prime Ministerial Executive, Aurelia George Mulgan enters the long-standing debate on "who leads" in Japan by boldly asserting that the answer is clear: the prime minster and the prime minister's executive office. The book comes to this conclusion after an in-depth look at Prime Minister Abe Shinzō's time in office since 2012—his second following an earlier stint as prime minister in 2006–2007. The author acknowledges the importance of several systemic/institutional changes dating back to before Abe's tenure and explores several other strong leaders from the past (including Nakasone Yasuhiro and Koizumi Jun'ichirō) to place the Abe administration in comparative perspective. These changes are discussed with respect to the extent to which they represent a movement toward one or the other of two governmental models: a Westminster system or a presidential system. George Mulgan ultimately concludes that neither model completely captures the current shifts in power, asserting that the current system is best described as one entailing strong leadership by "the prime minister and his executive office, backed up by a substantial policy apparatus" (p. 99). The more pertinent question, which she acknowledges in her conclusion, is the degree to which the changes in the balance of power observed since Abe returned to office in 2012 have been institutionalized. Like all of George Mulgan's work, the book benefits from her attention to detail and engagement of primary Japanese-language sources. In particular, she draws extensively on Japanese media coverage to uncover the policy-making dynamics of the Abe administration from 2012 to the present.

Her work builds on her previous leadership studies of Koizumi Jun'ichirō and Ozawa Ichirō.¹ George Mulgan has been exploring trends in power relationships among politicians, special interests, and the bureaucracy throughout her career, examining Japan vis-à-vis Westminster parliamentary systems as well as presidential systems. In this book, she does a particularly good job of explaining what the process she calls "Westminsterising" is and is not. Concerning the extent to which Japan can be said to have transitioned to a Westminster system, she argues on pages 88–89 that "a strengthening of the leadership of the prime minister has been achieved without the integration of the ruling party and the government" and that while a strong prime minister is necessary in such a system, it is not sufficient. A further condition, she notes, is a strong prime minister and cabinet working together. She states that "the increasing centralisation of policymaking authority in the prime ministerial executive is creating prime ministerial executive government, not cabinet government." The strong leadership, however, does not make the system presidential; "Abe," she observes, "still governs through his party" (p. 94). Collective decision making remains the norm, despite the centralization of authority in the prime ministerial executive office, or Kantei.

While this analysis is useful in explicating the respective features of Westminster and presidential systems, the distinction is a bit misleading, in particular because a parliamentary system will never approach a presidential system without significant institutional change. Instead, the matter of which system Japan more closely resembles is more accurately a comparison used to assess the increasing power of the prime minister. As George Mulgan notes herself in the conclusion, the more relevant question is to what degree changes in the prime ministership observed under Abe have been institutionalized.

Perhaps the book's most significant contribution is its discussion of the change in the balance of power between the Kantei and the party (as well as the bureaucracy and special interests). Quoting journalist Iida Yasumichi, George Mulgan characterizes the current dynamic as "government high and party low (seikō tōtei) or strong government and weak party" (p. 53). In particular, she notes that the LDP's Policy Affairs Research Council and its zoku (policy tribe) politicians...