Volume 7 Number 2 (February 1997), pp. 76-78.

POLITICAL BRIBERY IN JAPAN by Richard J. Mitchell. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996. 206 pp. Paper $25.00.

Reviewed by David M. O'Brien, Department of Government and Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia.
 

Anyone vaguely familiar with contemporary Japanese politics knows something about the periodic scandals that erupt over political bribery, from the Kyowa Sugar-Refining Company's large contributions to the Liberal Democratic Party in the 1960s and the Lockheed case in the 1970s, to the Recruit Cosmos scandal in the late 1980s and to the one over loans and political donations that drove Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa from office in 1994. Along with each came legal reforms and the promise of more reform. But, those reforms have proven inadequate in dealing with, what some political scientists term, the "structural corruption" inherent in postwar Japanese politics. In spite of anti-bribery laws and electoral and tax reforms, structural corruption persists because of the "iron triangles" formed by politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats in which the former exchange favors in return for money to finance their political careers (Herzog, 1993).

A historian at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, Richard H. Mitchell has written other books on law and politics in Japanese history, notably CENSORSHIP IN IMPERIAL JAPAN and JANUS-FACED JUSTICE: POLITICAL CRIMINALS IN IMPERIAL JAPAN. Here, in the first six chapters, he chronicles political bribery and electoral corruption from the seventh century to the 1990s, focusing primarily on modern period. In doing so, Mitchell sets himself three goals. First, he aims to show, and does so rather convincingly, that structural corruption did not originate in the postwar era but instead is rooted in premodern and prewar Japanese politics. Second, he explains, less successfully, the persistence of structural corruption in sociocultural terms. Finally, though all too briefly, he compares political bribery in Japan with that in Korea, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Beginning with the so-called Seventeen-Article Constitution of 604, chapter one briefly surveys prohibitions on bribery through the era of Tokugawa shoguns (1603-1868). Mitchell points out that by the latter period "gift giving was a long-established custom" and "the hairline between bribery and etiquette was difficult to ascertain" (p. 9). And the rest of the book serves to underscore how elusive that fine line remains in spite of repeated legal reforms. Chapter two turns to Japan's founding as a modern nation-state in 1868 under Emperor Meiji, along with the growth in the power of bureaucracies and the prosecution of corruption cases in the late nineteenth century. The following two chapters chronicle the scandals over and attempts to purge political corruption from elections during the first part of this century.

Chapter five, then, describes the Occupation era (1946-1952), specifically the efforts of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) to dislodge traditional patterns of factionalism and corruption, as well as to establish a constitutional democracy. Notably, the chapter ends with a former Occupation official's reflections on SCAP's legal reforms. Ironically, he observes, "our political reforms certainly reinforced [factionalism and corruption] and perhaps made it worse. By inflating the number of elective political positions and in general raising the level of politicization of the country, we have made the problem of financing so difficult that the factional system has become entrenched as a life-and-death matter for politicians." (p. 108) Indeed, the deeply ingrained give-and-take pattern of "reciprocal dependency" in Japanese politics, extending from that of local politicians and their interest-group constituencies to the pork-barrel projects of national political figures and major corporations, has rendered most legal reforms very blunt instruments.

From there, chapter six turns to the frequent and major scandals over political bribery in the postwar era, in which "major newspapers focused on an average of slightly more than one political scandal per year." (p. 108) Not surprisingly, perhaps, major scandals involving national political figures are newsworthy but not particularly shocking. Indictments for bribery of local politicians, especially in rural areas, are generally viewed as unimportant. Moreover, and of interest to students of comparative criminal justice, Mitchell points to the low conviction rates in major cases of political bribery and that close to 90 percent of all bribery convictions result in suspended sentences. Although less tolerant of corruption among bureaucrats, who are civil servants and must pass highly competitive examinations, Japanese voters remain remarkably tolerant of the "money politics" of national and local politicians. In Mitchell's words, "political bribery appears to flourish much as it did during the prewar era" (p. 137).

In his last brief chapter, Mitchell attempts to explain the persistence of "structural corruption" in Japanese politics and to place it into comparative perspective. His explanation is largely cultural and goes back to the thin line that is easily obscured and blurred between political bribery, on the one hand, and the well-established traditional social etiquettes of gift giving, "commissions," and "introduction fees." Quite simply, personal and group ties matter more than institutional relationships and identities.

Some political scientists, of course, will object to Mitchell's cultural explanation for implicitly perpetuating the idea of "Japanese uniqueness." In addition, his explanation is not well developed in two respects. First, although he briefly takes up the influence of religion, he fails to probe, or even explain, the influence of Shinto, Japan's indigenous religion, which centers on rituals and ceremonies, not moral teachings or spiritual leaders. When comparing American views of political bribery as "morally wrong," he thus observes, "In the Japanese case, in contrast, the cultural context in which political bribery takes place results in a different outcome: a politician caught taking a bribe may feel shame at public exposure but may not feel a sense of moral guilt. Moreover, political careers flourish despite convictions for bribery." (p. 155). Still, such comparisons would be more understandable for non-Japanese specialists if Mitchell provided some discussion of Shinto and Japanese views of religion, more generally. The latter would also have strengthened his cultural explanation for political bribery in Japan. Second, remarkably, Mitchell neglects completely Japanese views about law, which certainly figures into the failure of legal reforms. (See Herzog; Beer and Itoh; and O'Brien and Ohkoshi.) Finally, Mitchell's comparative analysis is provocative but too truncated; a mere twelve pages simply does not do justice to a comparative study of political bribery in Japan and Korea, China, the U.K., and the United States.

In spite of these shortcomings, Mitchell focuses on an important issue and his highly readable survey should interest scholars of Japanese history, criminal justice, and law and society.
 

References
Beer, Lawrence W., and Itoh, Hiroshi, eds. THE CONSTITUTIONAL CASE LAW OF JAPAN, 1970 THROUGH 1990. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.

Herzog, Peter J. JAPAN'S PSEUDO-DEMOCRACY. New York: New York University Press, 1993.

Mitchell, Richard H. CENSORSHIP IN IMPERIAL JAPAN. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Mitchell, Richard H. JANUS-FACED JUSTICE: POLITICAL CRIMINALS IN IMPERIAL JAPAN. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992.

O'Brien, David M. with Ohkoshi, Yasuo. TO DREAM OF DREAMS: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS IN POSTWAR JAPAN. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996.


Copyright 1997