Funding within the framework of the National Science Center OPUS 23 research grant (registration number: 2022/45/B/HS5/00354).

PI: prof. Karol Mieczysław Żakowski

Project contractor: Marcin Socha, PhD

The purpose of this project is to analyze the institutional determinants and decision-making processes associated with the economic growth strategies formulated by the Japanese government. It will be examined which institutional actors most influenced the formulation and enactment of Japan's economic growth strategies in the postwar period, and to what extent the strengthening of the prime minister's position since the 1990s has affected the consistency of these strategies.

Traditionally, the formulation of economic growth strategies in Japan has been heavily influenced by bureaucrats, especially those in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Finance. However, after the administrative reforms initiated in the 1990s, the position of prime ministers in the government was significantly strengthened. The project's main hypothesis is that the centralization of decision-making was the reason for the greater dynamism, but also the unpredictability of Japan's economic growth strategy. To verify the hypothesis, the project will analyze ten case studies of economic growth strategies promoted by different prime ministers from the 1960s to the 2000s. Half of these were written before and the other half after administrative reforms.

While Japanese economic policy has often been studied by scholars, the proposed project is novel in that it will analyze the evolution of the institutional determinants of Japan's economic growth strategies throughout the postwar period and focus on the changing role of prime ministers in this area. While previous research has shed some light on the role of institutional, particularly bureaucratic, actors involved in the formulation of Japan's economic growth strategy, insufficient attention has been paid to examining the impact of administrative reforms that began in the 1990s. Prime ministers have tended to be viewed as passive policymakers, which has translated into limited scholarly interest in their role in shaping Japan's economic policy. The project will challenge this view.

The project's authors argue that prior to the institutional reforms, the role of Japan's prime ministers in formulating economic growth strategies was more than just passive observers. While the heads of government had to balance various ministries and policy groups, they were able to use their connections with political, bureaucratic and corporate elites to promote growth strategies. In turn, the reforms themselves did not automatically allow prime ministers to become strong leaders. In an increasingly complex global economic environment, it was more difficult to reach a consensus on growth strategies among elites, which created more room for political maneuvering by heads of government. Administrative reforms provided prime ministers with the tools necessary to move from consensus-seeking mechanisms to top-down formulation of economic policy. However, due to structural remnants of the old system, in order to effectively formulate economic growth strategies, heads of government had to skillfully balance one department with another.