ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to establish a few common and distinctive features of the ‘physiology’ of Soviet and Japanese political clientelism. That is to say, it attempts to identify the reasons for the development of clientelism, how it works and what part it plays in the operation of the system as a whole. Since the audience to which this chapter is primarily addressed will generally have some familiarity with case material illustrative of political clientelism in the USSR, but be less familiar with comparable phenomena in Japan, it will be useful to start by looking fairly closely at a particular Japanese case, one which appears to be entirely typical, albeit unusually well documented. Examples of functional motivation may be observed in those aspects of the politicoadministrative process most obviously subject to clientelist activities, namely, recruitment, advancement and postretirement security, but may also manifest themselves in the policy process.
