ポスト構造改革の政策路線

―労働市場規制を事例として―

抄録

  The Abe Administration declared the continuation of the “Koizumi structural reform”. In spite of having been given the political advantage of a great victory in the general election in September 2005, the Government was forced to abandon Koizumi-like neo-liberal policy plans. Adopting grid-group cultural theory, this paper explores the factor of such policy change in labor market regulation. Various factors were pointed out in previous researches. In this paper, the author who emphasizes a change of people's values compares a public evaluation of a neo-liberal policy plan in the Koizumi era to that in the Abe era. This analysis suggests the following points. First, in the Koizumi era, people evaluated regulatory reforms as good ones that struggled with vested interests and lead to economic recovery. Second, on the contrary, in the Abe era, people criticized neo-liberal regulatory reforms as bad policies that lead to so-called “working poor” phenomena. Third, this shift not only offered bureaucrats a chance to re-regulate labor market but also provoke the prominent character of the Liberal Democratic Party ? to stand by the weak in case of political crises.