ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates how the complex macro level of powerful political economic institutions impacts and configures the micro level of small groups, families, and individuals. Exploring the interconnections among the macro, meso, and micro levels allows us to appreciate numerous issues. These include how elite interests establish hierarchies, lines of command and communication, as well as relations among governmental agencies, commercial enterprises, and societal concerns. As an example of a crucial macro-level institution that has its bureaucratic tentacles deeply entangled at the micro level, let us analyze the structure of the ministry of health, labor, and welfare (MHLW). Such an investigation allows us to see what officialdom believes is important policy-wise, and lays bare the complex exchange circuitry linking the interests of state and society. In the case of the MHLW, its minister's secretariat oversees a statistics and information department. At the local level the MHLW supervises eight Regional Bureaus of Health and Welfare and 41 Prefectural Labor Bureaus.
