How has Japanese Public Administration Studies Viewed “Neoliberalism”?

Abstract

Public administration studies (in Japan), which primarily focuses on administrative structures, has viewed “neoliberalism” primarily as an ideology that seeks to restore “small government.” On the other hand, the growth in the number of public servants in Japan already reached a ceiling at the beginning of the country’s rapid economic growth, and even today, the number of public servants per capita in Japan remains low by international comparison. In other words, “small government” had already been realized in Japan before the “neoliberal” administrative reforms that brought about the concept of governance and NPM in advanced democracies after the 1970s. Reviewed in this paper is how “neoliberalism” has been evaluated by Japanese public administration studies, whose research focuses on such administrative structures.