Trade Unions and Interest Groups: Japanese Politics 101

Описание: Trade unions and interest groups have a special role within public policy in Japan. Their substantial leverage on governing bodies is a force to be reckoned with. Abe has done much to hinder their influence, but who are the big players and what do they really represent?

Join Timothy Langley and Michael Cucek for another Japanese Politics 101 instalment.

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More information can be found here:
1. http://the-japan-news.com/news/articl...
2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
3. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/...
4. http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/at/jp_i...

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Transcript:
Tim: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Japanese Politics 101. In this series we talk about the hierarchy of components that make up Japanese politics. We started, for viewers that have been watching all along, with the Emperor and we've been going down to different pieces. Today, we're gonna talk about special interest groups, in fact, interest groups that have some political weight and use that way in effecting change in Japanese politics, Michael.

Michael: There's a need to talk about the ways that legislation and regulation get manipulated. And because they are manipulated, there are people who can work outside of what is normally seen as the citizen and representative framework. Those interest groups that are able to take their agenda and make it the government's agenda, I mean, they come in various forms: some are real citizens groups that get together in civil society, organizations environmental groups, health welfare groups; but then, there are people who do it and are in it for as a business.

Tim: Right. It has a bit of a bad color. I mean, if you say lobbyists in this context people immediately think of the bad part about, you know, handcuffs and in bags of money, people in sunglasses and that sort of thing. But actually, these interest groups are an essential component of a regular normally operating democracy.

Michael: And in the case of Japan, the very largest organized interest groups are necessary for the actual production of much of the legislation and regulation that happens. Basically, very large interest groups, let's start with the business lobbyists (Keidanren, Keizai Doyukai, JCCI.They have resources, they have people, they have branches all over Japan and all over the world, in the case of the JCCI, that are just absolute sponges for information about the country and all the wishes and the desires of Japan's corporations. And the three different groups each has its own flavor: Keidanren is big business because it's about 1,400 big business corporations as members. The Keizai Doyukai is sort of the reformist liberal lefty group because its executives who are interested in governance issues. And then, the JCCI is the grubby short end guy with over a million members organization that just pushes, you know, for lower taxes and the simple things. Each of them has its own desires and its own flavor of business lobby. So, Japan has a really well developed business lobbying situation. Now contrast that to what in most countries exists in terms of the workers. And so, the management is well represented but then there's the workers and the story is different.

Tim: So, typically in a lot of countries, not just the United States or in in many European countries, when you have for example a trade union, that union broaches different industries for people who do a similar job, so they might be mechanics or there might be nurses or something like that, and in Japan the story is completely different.

Michael: Yeah and it's very much a vertical situation: a single company, a single union enterprise unions.

Tim: Everybody's thrown into the same the same union.

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