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"Preface" [2015] ELECD 474; in Wolff, Leon; Nottage, Luke; Anderson, Kent (eds), "Who Rules Japan?" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) viii

Book Title: Who Rules Japan?

Editor(s): Wolff, Leon; Nottage, Luke; Anderson, Kent

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849804103

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 7

Extract:

Preface
Leon Wolff, Luke Nottage and Kent Anderson

This book owes its origins to a small workshop held in a hired meeting
room at the International House Japan, in Tokyo, several years ago. The
theme of the workshop was `who judges Japanese law?' ­ a legal twist on
the political science question of `who governs Japan?'. This `who
governs' debate, led by Chalmers Johnson (1982, 1995), interrogated the
extent to which powerful bureaucrats controlled public policy, especially
in economic and trade policy, and thereby subverted the democratic
principle of public sovereignty. Our workshop theme of `who judges', by
contrast, was designed to elicit critical reflections on the extent to which
justice reforms proposed by the Justice System Reform Council in 20011
had been successful in strengthening civic engagement in the Japanese
legal system and reducing the role of ex ante bureaucratic regulation of
economic and social rights. The two questions shared common ground to
the extent they both concerned the relative influence of bureaucrats and
regulation in Japan. They departed insofar as the former debate addressed
the quality of Japanese democracy whereas the latter evaluated the
broader socio-legal significance of law in Japanese society.
The workshop was unconventional for an international academic
meeting. There were no paper presentations. No power-point slides. No
audience questions. No worried time-keepers trying to keep loquacious
speakers in check. It was a free-form brainstorming session ­ a `confer-
ence' in the true sense in that the objective was to explore, test and flesh
...