ABSTRACT
While the majority of the literature about Japan is mainly concerned with how other actors can exert influence in this “one-party-dominated bureaucracy-led system,” this chapter evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of institutional and partisan frameworks on the government’s power to set the legislative agenda. Factors which will be taken into account are time constraints, formal and informal rules of parliamentary proceedings, and the intra-party decision-making process. I will address institutional advantages and disadvantages for the government in the second section. After showing that most Japanese governments controlled a stable and disciplined majority, I will explain how the ruling majority is able to railroad government bills through parliament and what restrictions apply to the majoritarian setting (third section). The fourth section will show how the identity of the government is shaped by factions and by the prior approval system of bills. These features pose partisan disadvantages and restrict the government’s agenda setting power. In the last section I will use a recent case of legislation, the Postal Service Reform Bills, as an example of how the government can overcome partisan disadvantages by using the strongest institutional instrument, the dissolution of the Lower House, in order to discipline their own majority in both chambers of parliament.
