Policy Coordination through Joint Establishment of Councils

Abstract

Advisory bodies are important tools for acquiring expertise in the policy process. Some of these advisory bodies have recently been established by jointly holding different ministerial councils or co-organizing a cross-ministerial meeting body. This paper discusses the functions and limitations of jointly established councils in the policy process, which have not received much attention. Although they vary in form and operation, they can be broadly classified into three types according to the purpose of their establishment: co-jurisdictional administrative processing type, overlapping coordination type, and conflict coordination type. A common feature is the widespread adoption of a rotation system in which the ministries in charge of the secretariat take turns. This system makes it easier to facilitate inter-ministerial policy coordination. The cases of food labeling policy, which is an overlapping coordination type, and climate change policy, which is a conflicting coordination type, show that the continuity of committee members combined with the secretariat rotation system forms the basis for policy coordination. On the other hand, it should be noted that this may act as a disincentive to policy innovation, for example, by avoiding conflicting agendas. In order to understand the overall picture of the joint establishment of councils, it will be essential to collect and compare cases that have been operated in various fields in the future.