太平洋戦争期の議会勢力と政策過程 : 農政問題を中心に

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This paper is based on a viewpoint developed in a previous paper concerning Diet power during the period of the Japanese-Chinese War, which criticized the opinion that during the Showa wartime era in Japan the National Diet was stripped of any real power, or else functioned merely as a passive reactionary group. In that discussion the author cited actual cases previously ignored, which showed the power of the Diet positively affecting the policy making process during the war in China. As a result of this investigation, the author was able to clarify that 1)the way in which the Diet was able to participate in policy making was not through political parties, but rather by means of suprafactional groups of DMs that based their activities on special interest groups, and 2)even after the dismantling of the political parties during the era of the New Establishment in the summer of 1940, the Diet continued to function effectively through those special interest groups. In the present paper, the author takes up a similar viewpoint in an investigation of the Paciffic War era, specifically during the 77th Session of the National Diet. It was in the autumn of 1941 that the Yokusan Giin Domei was formed by a majority in the House of Representatives supporting imperial rule. The bonds tying this alliance together were weak, and its policy making effectiveness depended mainly on existing special interest groups. This the author shows by means of tracing the issues of how to integrate agricultural associations and how to build an educational promotion system. In the case of integrating agricultural associations, for example, at first the influence of Diet member groups was not able to solve the impasse that had developed within the bureaucracy between the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, after the national elections of April, 1942 (known as the "Yokusan" election), when the Yokusan Seiji-kai (hereafter Yokusei) organization was formed, the way in which Diet powers were able to participate in the policy making process was changed around the Yokusei's political affairs investigation committee. Both policy proposals and political compromises began to contain provisions that were not necessarily in line with the demands of special interest groups. This change is shown through examples of administrative simplification, agricultural association integration, and the issue of increasing the food supply. Yokusei embraced a number of different political forces and strongly resembled a ruling party capable of forming consensus opinions. As to the actual policy proposals made by the political forces in the Diet, while they did support the war efforts both in China and in the Pacific, they did oppose the government over the issue of expanding the powers of the bureaucracy. Soon after the fall of the Tojo Cabinet, as the movement to reorganize the political establishment strengthened, the involvement of the Diet in policy making waned. In sum, despite a relative overall weakening of the position of the National Diet in political affairs throughout the Showa wartime era in Japan, it definitely continued to play an important role in the area of policy making. The factors enabling the Diet to play such a role was its strong opposition to radical institutional reforms under the slogan of "national unity" and its influence in the government's choosing a wartime establishment instead.
財団法人史学会の論文
1993-04-20

太平洋戦争期の議会勢力と政策過程 : 農政問題を中心に

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