行政改革の現状と評価

抄録

In 1981, the Provisional Commission for Administrative Reform(“Rincho” in Japanese) started under the all-out support of the Cabinet. The Prime Minister at the time was Zenko Suzuki who was the predecessor of Yasuhiro Nakasone. Rincho embarked upon rigorous review of substantive policies like social security, social welfare, public works etc. and deliberated the privatization of the big three public corporations like the National Railways and the Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation. Successive Cabinets have fully implemented almost all the recommendations made to the Prime Minister by the Rincho and its successive follow-up Councils. We can call this period 1981 to 1993 “the Rincho reform period”.

In the July 1993 general election the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority for the first time since its founding in 1955. Administrative reform entered into a new phase since this political change. The most important change from the era of LDP one-party dominance is that coalition governments and competitive elections have worked to increase the influence of politics and politicians relative to the bureaucracy. Large-scale ministerial reorganization and decentralization, both of which had been blocked by bureaucratic resistance under LDP one-party dominance, were vigorously tackled by the successive governments, especially by the Hashimoto cabinet. His cabinet succeeded in enacting the Basic Law for the Reorganization of Central Government Ministries and Agencies which came into effect in June of 1998. The law comprises almost all the subjects of administrative reform. This article deals with, in comparison with the Rincho administrative reform, the features of administrative reform based on the law, such as its concept of administrative reform, its reform procedure and the full use of Administrative Reform Council chaired by the Prime Minister Hashimoto. The author presents a general view of major administrative reform items, and points out the problems latent in them. The problems include inappropriate organization management like building gigantic ministries which might be out of political control and difficulties in providing “an independent administrative corporation” (a new type of public organization called, Dokuritsu-Gyousei-Houjin) with real autonomy. In addition, the author refers to the importance of the software rather than the hardware in the practice of administrative reform.