Third, the decentralization cause had the support of important political figures:
Murayama, the prime minister, formerly a member of a prefectural assembly, who was
supported by Jichiro (All-Japan Prefectural and Municipal Workers Union); Igarashi Kozo,
his chief cabinet secretary and a Socialist Party member, who had once been a city mayor;
Takemura Masayoshi, chief of the Sakigake Party, finance minister and former chief cabinet
secretary under Hosokawa, who had been a city mayor and prefectural governor before
entering the Lower House; Nonaka Hiromu, LDP leader and home minister, who was a former
mayor, prefectural assembly member, and vice-governor of Kyoto; and, standing between
politics and the bureaucracy, Ishihara Nobuo, the deputy chief cabinet secretary appointed
from the bureaucracy and former vice-home minister, who had served more than seven years
in the bureaucratic hierarchy and could exert effective coordinative power over the central
departments.
Japan’s policy process in the central government revolves around decisions taken by the
cabinet, which proposes over 80 percent of the bills submitted to the Diet. Most major
decisions in the cabinet thus require consensus among its members and those of the ruling
coalition parties. Thus, having placed key actors in the cabinet, the Murayama administration
was able to finalize decisions on decentralization and, despite negative attitudes within the
LDP and the bureaucracy, the interface of political and administrative systems—the fourth
factor on which administrative reform was based—functioned well.
A policy window, as in John W. Kingdon’s model (1995), opened as the LDP’s longstanding
dominance in Japanese politics ended. Without this political realignment, the
window would have remained shut, given the LDP was loath to pursue decentralization.
A fourth factor that made possible the enactment of the Decentralization Law is the
balance of power in the administrative system. Developments became possible with the
cooperation of the Ministry of Home Affairs, local government associations, and scholars
closely linked to the Murayama administration. In September 1994, six local government
associations had put forward the Guidelines for Promoting Decentralization. Meanwhile, the
recommendations and proposals made by the government administrative reform headquarters
and research committees were almost identical, most of the membership of the bodies
overlapping. When the Ministry of Home Affairs exerted particular influence on the
recommendations, causing other ministries to become not a little suspicious, the
responsibility for drafting the bill was allotted to the Management and Coordination Agency,
which was in charge of administrative reform. Counterattacks from the other ministries were
thereby blunted until deliberations began at the CPD.