ABSTRACT
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Koizumi Junichirō (2001-06), policy making in Japan changed drastically. During the 2001 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) presidential election campaign, the prime minister publicly vowed to carry out structural reform of various aspects of the Japanese economy. The untraditional, top-down decision-making style he used to carry out reforms met with fierce resistance from LDP members. During the five and a half years of his term, however, Koizumi successfully streamlined the public sector, privatized the special public corporations, government financial institutions, and, most importantly, the postal services, while also resolving the problem of non-performing loans.
