Public sector reform and public management theory ―cases of Japan

Toshihiko Ishihara

Toshihiko Ishihara (2021) Public sector reform and public management theory ―cases of
Japan, Public Management Review, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2021.1893093

ABSTRACT
This paper outlines public sector reform and Public Management Theory in Japan. Especially
focusing on Japanese huge public debt and recovery plan based on public management
theory.

KEYWORDS:

New public managementnew public governance

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Old public administration (OPA) times: 1945-1990

In 1945, the end of World War II, the economic recovery in Japan began, leading to what it is
today. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the development of basic living infrastructure,
including roads, houses, schools, and waterworks, progressed steadily. In 1964, the Tokaido
Shinkansen (Bullet Train) Line between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka stations was launched, and
the Olympic Games took place in Tokyo. The World Exposition was held in 1970 in Osaka
and the Winter Olympics took place in Sapporo in 1972. During the 1960s and 1970s, the
Japanese economy achieved high growth, and its gross domestic product (GDP) grew to the
second largest position in the world, one place below the United States. In 1979, Professor
Ezra F. Vogel of Harvard University published the book Japan as Number One, which
became a big best-seller in Japan. Despite the two oil shocks, the Japanese economy
developed smoothly until the early 1980s. At that time, the majority of Japanese citizens
considered themselves middle class. This is because they were highly satisfied with their
living standard. With the Plaza Accord in 1985, Japan entered an era of monetary easing. In
the second half of the 1980s, land prices and stock prices soared enormously in Japan under
the influence of this monetary easing. An economic bubble formed in real estate and stocks
(the arrival of the bubble economy) where individuals and companies were playing money
games in Japan.

From the postwar to the bubble economy period, Japanese citizens did not necessarily have
much interest in the activities of the national and local governments (Suzuki 1999). The
quality of life of Japanese had been steadily improving every year along with the improving
infrastructure, active business activities of private corporations, and the growing income of
citizens. Looking at favourable social indicators, such as a slow ageing rate and low
unemployment rate, few people were concerned about their lives. The national and local
governments were also financially stable at that time. During this period, the administrative
departments of the national and local governments were expected to use the traditional
administrative management approach (Yamamoto 1997)).

Trust in public administration was high, and the general stance of public administration was
‘You can make people follow you but it is difficult to make people understand the reason’
(alluding to a lesson from Confucius). The most strongly demanded principle behaviours to
the public administration was legitimacy and compliance. The adverse effects of
proceduralism or precedentism that resulted from these principles were rarely pointed out,
and there were almost no discussions on the results of budgeted projects and policies,
productivity of public servants, or needs for information disclosure (Yoshimi 2000).

Post-OPA times: 1990-2000

Japan’s bubble economy did not last that long the consumption tax in 1989 and the tightening
of monetary policy by the Bank of Japan in 1990 led to a decline in land prices and stock
prices (Ito and Kurihara 2010). At financial institutions, situations in which collateral values
went below loan amounts became normal. Corporate profits fell sharply in this unprecedented
recession, and the Japanese economy faced a serious bubble collapse. Prime Minister (PM)
Ryutaro Hashimoto assumed office during this difficult situation. He formed the cabinet in
1996. The Hashimoto Cabinet proposed six major reforms: ‘administrative reform,’ ‘financial
structural reform’, ‘economic structural reform’, ‘financial system reform’, ‘social security
structural reform’, and ‘educational reform’ (Yamada 2001) All of these reforms were
promoted by the government (government officials). However, in the case of finance, social
security, and education, the reform was promoted through listening to the opinions of a wide
section of the general public (Nishide and Yamauchi 2005). This period can be called as post-
OPA era between OPA and New Public Management (NPM). Promotion of administrative
reform was the only policy Hashimoto Cabinet had to its name. Under the strong leadership
of the PM himself, the cabinet worked on administrative reform and succeeded in
reorganizing 22 ministries and agencies by shrinking the administration to one cabinet office
and 12 ministerial-level organizations. The Ministry of Finance, regarded as the largest
government office, also was subject to the reform. The banking office was transferred to the
cabinet office, and the financial operations were separated from the Ministry of Finance.
Measures such as the review of the cabinet function with the strengthening of the PM’s
authority, and the integration of the three postal services were consolidated into one public
corporation, and the 10% reduction in the number of civil servants resulted in the Basic Act
on Central Government Reform of 1998. The Hashimoto Cabinet succeeded in reducing the
size of the bloated administrative and public finance system since the bubble collapse. The
series of measures led by the cabinet can be evaluated as a successful case of administrative
reform based on the OPA theory (Christensen and Yoshimi 2003; Yamamoto 2002)). In
addition, it can be positioned as a post-OPA reform case intervening between the OPA and
NPM in terms of its attitude of widely listening to public opinions and reflecting their
contents into their administrative reform (Hori 2003; Oshima 2018).

New public management times: 2000-2010

While the Hashimoto Cabinet was working on reforming the administrative system
(Watanabe 2007), a serious economic crisis was happening in Asia. The Asian currency crisis
occurred in 1997. Due to this, some of Japan’s major financial institutions went bankrupt due
to the increase in bad debts and stock market stagnation, which led to a financial crisis. In
1998, the Bank of Japan introduced the ‘zero interest rate policy’ to keep the interest rate at a
record low of 0.15% as a measure against the deteriorated economy triggered by the bubble
collapse. After the Hashimoto Cabinet ended, relatively short-lived administrations continued
in Japan. In 2003, the Junichiro Koizumi Cabinet was formed, and remained in power until
September 2006. It executed a drastic administrative reform with citizens’ enthusiastic
support for PM Koizumi. The slogan of Koizumi Cabinet’s reform was ‘what is manageable
in private sector, do so in private sector.’ The cabinet not only promoted the delegation of
authority to the private sector, but also adopted the management styles of private corporations
to run the public administration (Yamamoto 2006). Private citizens were actively appointed
as ministers (Eto 2010). It was during the Koizumi Cabinet’s era that the opinions from a
large number of private citizens, who were involved in the conference bodies, had a great
influence on the major decisions of the government. The Koizumi Cabinet is the first cabinet
in Japan that promoted administrative reform based on the NPM theory. During its tenure,
Shinzo Abe, the current PM of Japan, was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary despite this
being his first entry into Cabinet.

Here, let me review the outline of postal privatization accomplished by the Koizumi Cabinet
(Imada 2010). Postal privatization was a particular case of administrative reform in which the
NPM theory was most actively employed by the Japanese government. It was intended to
reorganize the organizational structure of the postal service, which had been traditionally
managed by the government, into a private company. In Japan, the privatization of the three
postal services (mail service, life insurance, and banking) was promoted from the late 1990s
to the 2000s (Yamamoto 2008). Post offices prior to the privatization used to operate banking
services called ‘postal savings’ and insurance services called ‘simplified insurance’, in
addition to mail delivery service. A total of 350 trillion yen were collected at post offices
nationwide due to the bankruptcy of Hokkaido Takushoku Bank and Japan Long-Term Credit
Bank. These funds were lent to the Japanese government by the post office. The government
used these funds to finance ‘Fiscal Investment and Loan Program (FILP),’ which lent funds
to government-affiliated corporations, such as the former Japan Highway Public Corporation
and the Housing Loan Corporation. With these FILPs, many businesses developed through
which funds were easily reflowing to government-affiliated corporations, and cost-
effectiveness was not taken into consideration. As a result, large-scale public investments,
such as construction of unprofitable highways and unnecessary river dams, dauntingly
continued, adversely affecting the government’s finances (Miyamoto, Sato, and Kitazume
2005). The Koizumi Cabinet discontinued the mechanism in which Japanese government
could take advantage of the funds managed by the post office, and required government-
affiliated corporations to raise funds from the market by themselves like private corporations.
The post office operations themselves were also switched to private corporation operations,
and the funds handled by the post office through banking and insurance business were
required to be financed using their own creativity to pursue profits. After the postal service
was privatized, Japan Post became subject to taxation (including corporate tax) as a private
company, and was no longer under the convoy system of the Japanese government. As a
general private corporation, Japan Post was exposed to market competition. In the
privatization of postal services, the main principles of NPM such as result-orientedness,
competition principle (market principle), and delegation of authority (decentralization) were
applied, which led to the establishment of Japan Post (Doi and Ihori 2009).

During the period when NPM-based administrative reform was being promoted by the
Koizumi Cabinet, some local governments in Japan that actively embraced NPM emerged
(Kikuchi and Nakamura 2008) and mayors were praised all over Japan. This period was also
the time in which a consensus among citizens was formed: ‘if government-led reform does
not move forward, let’s local reforms come true.’ At that time, Governor Masayasu Kitagawa
of Mie Prefecture, who was most famous as a reformist governor at that time, undertook
various administrative system reforms with the slogan of ‘people-based administration’. The
most noticeable among his reforms at the time was the introduction of performance
management and accrual basis accounting (Aya et al. 2015; Yamamoto 2003).

The NPM administrative system reform in Mie Prefecture started in 1998 (Osumi 2004). The
financial management of Japanese local governments at that time operated under the budget-
priority principle that emphasized using the budget approved by the parliament until the
balance became zero by carefully paying attention to compliance and legitimacy.
Specifically, in the world of civil servants, this type of practice was extremely important.
There was no sense of cost, which reserves the remainder balance in their budget
implementation (Ishihara 2001). Using up the budget was their general idea. In addition, there
was no concept of evaluating the results of projects and measures to covey feedback
regarding the results to the next budget formation. Governor Kitagawa felt questionable about
these situations and looked at New Zealand’s administrative reform to find ideas for reform.
At that time, Mr. Nobutaka Murao (who later became Japan’s representative newscaster) had
been dispatched from the Ministry of Finance to the Mie prefectural government as General
Manager of the General Affairs Department. Governor Kitagawa instructed Director Murao
to implement the administrative reform of the Mie prefecture system, which was inspired by
reforms in New Zealand. The administrative evaluation and accrual accounting introduced by
the Mie prefectural government into prefectural government reform were the two major tools
of administrative reform, brought as a product of their visit to New Zealand. The Mie
prefectural office formulated the ‘Guidelines for Assessing Public Engagement’ by referring
to the six questions of the Canadian federal government. These assessment guidelines were
used successfully for reviewing the projects of the entire prefectural office; 20% of the total
projects were subject to review.

Behind the successful administrative reform of the Mie prefectural office, there was an
organizational culture that actively attempted to ‘copy and paste’ models from New Zealand
and Canada, countries that were drawing attention for advanced use of NPM at the time. It is
important to notice that one of the achievements of Governor Kitagawa was that he
succeeded in developing this organizational culture. The philosophy, focusing on Good
Practices and Best Practices and proactively incorporating them into the organization,
underlies NPN. Having this philosophy stay in place throughout the entire organization was a
major factor in the success of the Mie prefectural office reform. Mie prefectural office used
the term administrative ‘system’ reform at that time. The word ‘system’ indicated that the
administrative reform was intended to last permanently in the prefectural government
organization. This raises the question of how changes in the administrative system can be
avoided even if the governor changes. Governor Kitagawa was considering the future of the
prefectural office in his plan to build a management system, which is also one reason that the
reform of the Mie prefectural office attracted attention nationwide (Nakamura 2013).

Post-NPM times: 2010-2020

The low interest rate policy has continued since 2000 in Japan. Interest rates paid on
government bonds and municipal bonds have continued to drop, and the amount of interest
payments has fallen by about 20% between FY1990 and FY2018 despite the significant
increase in outstanding balances. Even when the Lehman shock in 2008 adversely affected
the economies of the world, financial institutions in Japan did not make excessive real estate-
related investment and were not affected catastrophically, due to the experience of the bubble
collapse. Under such circumstances (Hanada 2013), the second Abe administration was
established in December 2012. The three economic strategies of the Abe Cabinet, called
Abenomics, are: ‘implement bold monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy’ and ‘a growth
strategy that encourages private investment’. These policies of the Abe Cabinet have resulted
in long-term, sustainable economic growth (Oyama and Oda 2016). On the other hand,
deregulation, which is indispensable for growth strategies, has not progressed, and there has
barely been any reduction in the social security costs necessary for fiscal consolidation.
Measures with conflict of interests that are difficult to coordinate are put off, and only
monetary easing is moving ahead (Kikuchi 2017).

Also, with the social environment changes such as the shifting demographics (Kariya 2011)
as significantly contributed to the increase of long-term debt outstanding in the public sector.
Certainly, attention is placed on the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). However, on the
other hand, with the current situation in which the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is undertaking a
major portion of increasing balance of the Japanese Government Bond (JGB), plus nearly
70% of JGB’s and local bonds are not being used as resources of public investment but as
ordinary expenses every year to cover its lack of financial resources, the biggest challenge the
Japanese government and local governments are facing now is how to manage reducing the
balance of long-term debts. Several years after the beginning of the 21st century, the national
and local governments started to realize that the declining birthrate and ageing population of
Japan may lead to the financial failure of the Japanese government in the future (Tanaka
2015). In fact, the public debt balance of Japan’s public sector (proportion of GDP) has
grown by 3.5 times over the past 30 years. The balance of government bonds has increased
by 4.5 times. The proportion of deficit-bearing government bonds, unable to serve as a
financial resource for capital investment in infrastructure, has increased by 1.75 times in the
last 30 years. This is due to the significant increase in social-security-related costs centred on
the welfare and medical care of the elderly (Hsu and Yamada 2017). The government’s
social-security-related expenses, which had been less than 10 trillion yen in 1985, tripled to
30 trillion yen over the next 30 years. More than half of 56 trillion yen of national tax
revenue of 2015 was accounted for social security-related expenses. The ageing rate (ratio of
elderly people aged 65 and over to the population) was 12% in 1990, which has increased to
30% in 2020 (Hirakawa 2017)). We must not overlook the fact that the remarkable rise in the
ageing rate signifies not only an increase in social security-related expenses but also a
decrease in working generations who support the financial resources (Kudo 2015).

Balance of JGB and Local Bonds

Table

CSVDisplay Table

In debating financial issues, not only the logic of beneficiaries but also the logic of bearers
must be considered. Everyone wants to receive the greatest benefit and the least burden.
Thus, financial management must confront the pressure of free-riders who always want
increased benefits and reduced/postponed burden. Regarding environmental issues including
global warming, there is the logic of ‘tragedy of the commons’ where shared-resources,
accessible to many individual users, are overused and exhausted due to lack of ownership.
‘Tragedy of the commons’ also applies to the finances of national and local governments
(Kondo and Okubo 2020) and elderly generations depend greatly on financial resources and
spend it for themselves, future generations will have to pay the price and financial resources
will be depleted. NPM theory cannot prevent ‘tragedy of the commons.’ The solution to this
problem would be to share the current situation with all citizens. What types of means of
information sharing would work? This is the newly-recognized theme of public management
research in the post-NPM era.

New public governance times: 2020－present

In Japan, there is a challenge in reviewing NPM policies that focus on market and
competition principles. In terms of a result-oriented perspective, measures and projects that
cannot expect short-term results were abolished in the era of NPM. As a result, budgets for
basic research, such as public health in research institutions including universities, were
greatly reduced. With the introduction of competitive research funds, financial resources
eventually concentrated in some major universities, leading to the decline of many regional
universities. This is an ironic result, despite regional revitalization being an important policy
of the Abe Cabinet. How do you define ‘results’? This is a question of how the concept of
‘value’ needs to be incorporated into the theoretical system of public management with out-
of-the-box thinking to go beyond the established concepts of ‘input’, ‘process’, ‘output’ and
‘outcome.’

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted the Japanese economy. The financial
situation of the Japanese government is expected to further deteriorate in the future. It would
be impossible to solve various social problems only by relying on the national and local
governments. The balance of government bonds and local bonds in Japan is positioned at the
worst level in the world. Unless the current low interest rates continue, Japan will experience
a financial collapse at any moment (the leveraging effect of the outstanding public debt). For
mitigating these national financial challenges, the cooperation of citizens is indispensable.
Without it, no social activity can be sustained for long. Obtaining the cooperation of citizens
depends largely on the quality of leadership of politicians and chiefs. What to say and who to
say it to may sound similar but different. Social change cannot take place without a leader
who is broadly supported by the citizens. In response to COVID-19, Governor Hirofumi
Yoshimura, Osaka Prefecture, has become extremely popular in Japan. His popularity
exceeds that of PM Shinzo Abe and Yuriko Koike, Governor of Tokyo. The performance of
the public sector is determined not only by right or wrong on the selected policies and
services but also human factors including the personality of the leaders who promote these
policies and services and are considered to have a great influence.

Considering the way of public management in post-Corona times, collaboration among the
public sector, private sector, and third sector has become more important than in post-NPM
times. This is so-called ‘collaboration with the citizens’. Research focusing on the co-creation
of value produced through collaboration is required, even in the theoretical research on public
management. New Public Governance (NPG) provides the concept of ‘value’ and the
framework of ‘co-creation’. The challenge for public sector reform in the 2020s is to review
by questioning what the new public value is (not the outcome of NPM) and how all sectors
work together (not the competition of NPM) to co-create that value, in line with NPG’s
fundamental philosophy (Misawa, Fukuyoshi, and Sengoku 2020).

The challenge revealed through COVID-19 is sharing information on the government sector
across the nation and the cultivation of philanthropy and caring about others. It is a question
of determining the communication tools required in order to prevent the ‘tragedy of the
commons’ (Ando et al. 2020; Inoue, Murase, and Todo 2021; Kikuchi, Kitao, and Mikoshiba
2020).

In addition, what can we do in order to shake off the attitude of ”I only care about myself”?
Following the law is the bare minimum expected from every person in the society, but
something more is required to sustain today’s social activities. If everyone thinks and act with
the idea of ‘I only care about myself,’ the current society will be doomed to collapse.
Clarification regarding these social theses and methodologies is required. Fortunately, NPG
includes the new research areas of integrated reporting for the former and
philanthrocapitalism for the latter. In post-corona times, the quest for these two research
themes is expected to push the structural reforms of Japanese society in a positive direction.

Mission of public management theory

Since World War II, the development of the Japanese economy has been realized by the
activities of private companies. During this period, tax revenues grew steadily. The formation
of infrastructure assets, education system, pension system and medical insurance system were
completed one after another. The income level of the Japanese people has risen steadily, and
many people have little interest or dissatisfaction with the activities of the central and local
governments. During this period, central and local governments’ management were carried
out on a procedural and formalistic basis. Compliance was the focus of budget execution.
There was no idea of measuring the effects of public policy, and no idea of introducing
private sector vitality into the creation of public services. There were no substantial meanings
on Public Management Theory. What was recognized in public policy until 1980s was just
public administration theory.

It was not until the 1990s that this trend changed significantly. Around this time, in Japan,
high economic growth became a dream story of the past, and the public’s attention was
focused on the budget deficits of the central and local governments. In Japan as well, the
administrative reforms undertaken by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United
Kingdom in the 1980s attracted attention, and the fiscal consolidation and administrative
reforms of Canada and New Zealand were studied by many public policy and management
researchers in Japan. During this period, attention was focused on the idea of actively
introducing private management methods into the governmental sector. In the 21st century,
the idea of New Public Management became widespread in Japan. The introduction of NPM
in Japan has been successful in introducing private sector vitality, trial of accrual accounting,
and thorough customer orientation. However, the pursuit of excessive-efficiency has become
a problem, and around 2010, very few administrative and governmental organizations are
trying to introduce NPM in Japan.

The reason for NPM’s failure is that efficiency in the private sector has been overemphasized
in the governmental sector. In addition, NPM was grasped as a theory that manages
individual organizations such as city council and prefectural council. As a result, NPM could
not explain the modern idea that there are various actors and they are interrelated to form a
society.

The theory of public management does not seem to be necessary when the economy is
growing steadily and many people are satisfied with their lives. However, as in Japan, the
indifference of people leads to the accumulation of enormous public fixed-term debt, and
when the people notice it, it is almost too late. So the theory of public management should be
needed from the time when the finances and economy are sound. The theory of public
governance, which is drawing attention today, is intended for co-creation of public services
with collaboration between government and private sectors. Public governance based on
NPG’s theory is the most necessary public theory in Japan today. The special circumstances
in Japan are that the people cannot fully understand the sharp increase in public debt. And
even in the elections of central and local councils, people tend to vote by territorial or blood
relatives, vote for celebrities, and vote for incumbents. Voter turnout is also very low, about
30% to 50%. In order to resolve these crises, it is necessary for Japanese society to have
properly disclose information on the administration and finances of central and local
governments. Also, the disclosure must be easy for anyone to understand. In this regard,
research on integrated reporting and democratic accountability, which has been attracting
attention in the public sector these days, is considered to be the most necessary in Japan.

There is no doubt that NPG will play a central role in the theory of public management
necessary for Japanese society in the future. However, there are many findings that need to be
newly added to the existing NPG framework. For example, service management and
marketing logics need to be integrated with NPG to improve the quality of public services. In
addition, from the perspective of fiscal consolidation of the central and local governments, it
is necessary to improve public procurement and public bidding. For that purpose, not only
electronic procurement and electronic bidding, but also procurement by a central procurement
organization and selective introduction of PFI methods such as BTO/BOT/BOO/RO are
required, and the general theory that logically supports this implementation is completed.
Finally, public management theories related to governance structures, such as accounting,
inspection and auditing are of particular importance in Japan. Behind the scenes, Japan’s
Local Government Law was amended in 2017, imposing legal responsibilities on local
government mayors and governors to establish internal controls to promote compliance and
Value for Money.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information
Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
[08730092,09730105,11873009,16K13405,17653044,19203022,19K02031,19KK0034,2165
3037,24653109].
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