Political leadership and civil servants in Japan and the UK | Yukiko Fujita & Yu Uchiyama

Описание: Watch a short interview with Yukiko Fujita and Yu Uchiyama, speakers at the seminar on 'Political leadership and civil servants in Japan and the UK', held in Florence on 30 June 2023.

About the event:

On the basis of a wide range of primary sources, including extensive field interviews in both the UK and Japan, this talk by two leading Japanese political scientists showed how and why political leadership and civil services in Japan and the UK have been changed, focusing on the policy-making patterns and the civil service systems. It comprised three parts.

In the first part, the speakers compared the policy-making patterns in post-war Japan and the UK. While prime ministerial leadership in post-war Japan was weak and policy-making was almost dominated by the civil servants and specialised politicians from within the ruling party (zoku), the UK has been characterised by strong prime ministers’ leadership and top-down policy-making. The reason for the difference will be explained with a focus on organisations of governing parties and governments.

The second part showed that Japanese prime ministerial leadership has been greatly strengthened by several institutional reforms during the past twenty years, with particular reference to the Koizumi and Abe governments. Meanwhile, UK prime ministerial leadership has been in a sort of mess since Brexit, so much so that prime ministers have been replaced rapidly. Now, it is clear that Japan has caught up with the UK’s politicians-led leadership, to the point that Japan might have overtaken the UK in terms of the centralisation of power by the prime minister.

The third part dealt with the civil service reforms in Japan and the UK. In Japan, through institutional reforms such as the creation of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs under the 2nd Abe government, the relationships between politicians and civil servants have been much changed in favour of the former. Meanwhile, in the UK, the relationships between the two have been rather affected by the interpersonal behaviours of ministers and special advisers than institutional reforms. The deteriorated relationships sometimes undermine the effects of reforms.

More about the event: https://www.eui.eu/events?id=559977
Read about the EU-Asia project hosted at the Global Governance Programme: https://globalgovernanceprogramme.eui...