ABSTRACT
In Japan between 1946 and 1985, fourteen prime ministers chaired twenty-eight cabinets, with regular reshuffling in between. The average tenure of office of a prime minister was 2 years. Theoretically as well as constitutionally, prime ministers are free in choosing those colleagues with whom they share collective responsibility to the Diet and who serve at their pleasure. Professional politicians are trained after they are elected to the Diet for the first time. Every member of the Diet is assigned to one or more standing committees and special committees of the house to which he or she belongs. Every agenda is previewed in a meeting of administrative vice ministers and others, held one day before each cabinet meeting. An entangled matter must have been settled by the councillors of the Cabinet Office, or it will never come up to the cabinet table. The number of cabinet members is fixed at twenty by the Cabinet Law.
