ABSTRACT
Until the recent, and brief, advent of a DPJ-led coalition from 2009–12, and certainly until the electoral reforms of the mid-1990s, post-War state-level power in Japan was widely seen as being contained within an iron triangle which encompassed the LDP, government bureaucracy, and associated big business (Johnson, 1982). While it is, as yet, unclear to what long-term extent the full-scale change of administration will impact upon the constitutive elements of Japan’s policy community, what seems beyond doubt is that they have already been transformed from the rigid structure of Johnson’s “plan-rational system” to something far more embroiled in the issue networks of media and civil society (Campbell et al., 1989). It has also been observed that despite this apparent departure from the so-called iron triangle model, prime ministerial power, particularly following reforms implemented under Koizumi Junichirō, has been increased and the PM’s relationship with the public sphere is now of crucial importance (Steel and Kabashima, 2010: 86–104).
