“Institutional Conversion of Japan’s National Personnel Authority: How Indigenous Forces Have Reshaped a U.S. Occupation-imposed Bureaucratic Institution”

Abstract

The National Personnel Authority (NPA), Jinjiin in Japanese, was an unwelcome gift from the U.S. occupation ruler. It was fundamentally alien to Japanese bureaucratic traditions. It was a U.S.-style independent agency and aimed to remake the Japanese bureaucracy on the American model. This article analyzes the NPA’s survival in the post-occupation era from the perspective of historical institutionalism. It argues that the NPA has been successful because of institutional conversion in indigenizing itself. Soon after Japan’s recovery of independence in April 1952, the NPA abandoned its original mission of Americanization. Instead, it repositioned itself as the promoter of harmonious industrial relations in the public sector to contribute to promotion of Japan’s high-growth economy. Moreover, with the end of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)’s hegemony in the 1990s, the NPA has reactivated the function of safeguarding the bureaucracy’s partisan neutrality. This development represents the paradox of foreign-imposed institutions because the NPA ignored its responsibility for protecting bureaucratic neutrality for many years under the LDP’s monopoly of power.