POLI 342 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Clientelism, Koenkai, Park Chung-Hee
11 May 2018
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Department
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Local politics: Japan
• Central local relations: why does it matter and for whom?
o Central control and fiscal relations
o Decentralization returns
Fiscal policies
• Taxation is important to provide public goods
• Who keeps and allocates the taxes?
o You need to apply for returns
o Businesses must apply for subsidies
• Very centralized tax system
o Prevents high local debts of regions
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• National government has higher tax revenue
• Local government spends more
o A lot of the spending is from the national government's reallocation
• Total government expenditure highly exceeds tax revenues
o 150 trillion expenditure vs 87 trillion (tax revenues)
o High government debt
• The government borrows a lot of money (not from its ageing population because they are
spending the majority of their money) but rather from foreign governments
Central-local relations: why does it matter?
1. Clientelism + local fiscal dependence
o Local politicians rely on the image of being able to draw money and projects from the center
(from different ministries via introduction by Diet members
o Local players appeal to the Diet members (physically travel there)
o Argue that the local citizens (the Koenkai groups) will vote for them during the
election
o Many politicians acknowledge that the Koenkai groups have a negative impact
o Generation politicians inherit the Koenkai groups
• Koenkai groups help the continuous elections and support of LDP members
o Local voters casts ballots in local elections for such candidates
o Diet members try to make connects to bureaucrats in order to receive funding for
campaigns
o Businesses give support to the Diet members and bureaucrats for favorable business
policies
o The bureaucrats may go into the private sectors once they retire (ascend form heaven)
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