Due to the computer access problem, I could not write any diaries in Japanese currently.

I feel very sad about this, because I myself can not read English quickly even it is written by myself. the presumption is that I myself enjoy read the previous diaries which I wrote by myself.

To sum up, writing diary not only means that it is written by the author to influence others or stir up the contemporary inteligential world, but also means that the author wants to preserve what he/she thought then.

Turn to the main issue.

I am writing about Japanese politics as a political science student.

The starting point of my argument is whether Japanese politics is "un-Westminster" or not.

Aurelia George Mulgan asserts this in her recent book 'japan's failure.' It is kind of a fun book to read. She vividly describes what is happening in contemporary Japan. Prof Stockwin, an emeritus prof of Oxford, admires her book as "a text for Japanese policis student'

It has a long tradition that Japanese politics is not clean, while British politics is clean and idealistic. Prof Yamaguchi at Hokkaido University writes in line with this in his article in "Shushou kousensei wo kangaeru." It is natural that Prof Yamaguchi is writing in this line because he was affiliated with the opposition party when LDP was kicked out of the ruler and he once studied at Nissan Institute at Oxford.

I am doubtful on this presumptions that Japanese politics is un-westminster.

Obviously Westminster style parliamentary politics was billed as idealistic polity in the 19 century and was exported from the UK to all over the world especially to the British colonies.

The kernel of the Westminster style is the sovereign of the parliament where representatives of the people have rights to vote for the national policy. The original intention is that the core executive is subordinate to the parliament. But subsequent development of party coalition led to the strongness of the party leadership and thus makes strong core executives, the cabinet ministers. In other words, the foundation of the power is the sovereign of the parliament, but the collective dilemma forces the parliamentary men to create party and institution which repersent their interest as an agent.

Logical consequence of this phenomena leads to the powerful cabinet politics.

This kind of thing can not be observed in Japanese politics (George, Yamaguchi). Prime minister Koizumi often faces rebellions in the parliament. Due to "too rebellious backbenchers", the prime minister can not make a dynamic reform. Vocal backbenchers prevent the leadership from doing necessary reform and this makes Japanese politics miserable. THIS IS UN-WESTMINSTER.

NO NO NO NO.

I examines this provocative story.
Firstly, they are wrong in that the backbenchers are too rebellious. The statistics shows that the party discipline is "ironclad" while British party witness many rebelions since 1990s.

Secondly. Using recent developed legislative studies theory, I prove that Japanese backbenchers committee (PARC committee; seichokai) serves as a Political market place--they capture gains from exchange. It is wrong to recognise the institution just a culprit which deter the prime minister from exercising his power.

Although Game theory demonstrates that Japanese PARC committee is stronger than British standing committee and accordingly we can conclude that Japanese prime minister is deprived of his power in comparison with British Prime minister.

The foundation of the Japanese backbenchers is "EX ANTE VETO" power (Weingast and Shepsle) It can retain the right to nullify the idea of the prime minsiter. It retains power to monitor what their agent is doing.

The ex ante veto power is produced by two peculiar rules--Voting power and Unanimous cloture. In order to pass the PARC committee, the bill needs to be voted for universally in the PARC committee. Unanimous cloture transfers the vote to the strongest form of bargaining power--veto power.

Thus it is correct to say that the culprit of depriving prime minister of his power is 'EX ANTE VETO POWER' which British backbenchers do not possess. This EX ANTE VETO POWER makes japanese politics UN-WESTMINSTER.

My argument is that conceding EX ANTE VETO POWER makes japanese politics UN-BRITISH, but it is a DERIVATIVE of WESTMINSTER style.

The Committee itself is rational choice of the party. It creates the market place for exchage for voting. Logrolling is much easier in this place. I found this is highly developed style of the committee where the MPs who have same interest is pared up in order to trade easier. Japanese committee offers even inter-committee transaction which even US committee does not have--the highly developed version of committee. (McCubbins)

The Unanimous cloture itself is also a rational choice of the party. Unanimous cloture ensures that each MP can obtain equal reward. Risk averse party prefers unanimous cloture to majority cloture. (Krehbiel) Ex ante both of these two rules say the equal distribution of the resource, but ex post only the former ensures the equal distribution. the latter is a lottery. The unanimous cloture in the PARC committee is a rational choice of the party. Veto power of each MP are not just given simply because their skepticism towards the leadership of the party, but (also) because it ensures improvement of their interest which in turn maximize the party's welfare.

In short, the claim that Japanese politics is culturally created peculiar one is simply flawed. It is established for a reasonable reason. The long life of the ruling party is of course helped by the Japanese situation as a fort against communism countries in the international politica context but also helped by this rational institution established by the ruling party itself. In other words, Japanese politics is NOT UN-WESTMINSTER, BUT A DERIVATIVE of WESTMINSTER.

This argument predicts that future British parliamentary system may adopt the same structure of Japanese politics.

Currently, British parliament even does not have a permanent standing committee. this weakens the need of the party to establish the pre consultation committee within the party itself which functions the smooth approval of the parliamentary committee.

But British parliament is about to follow the Japanese or United states committee--the introduction of permanent standing committee. When it is done, the party may adopt the pre-consultation system within the party to ensure the majority vote in the committee. the internal party committee may obtain power to control agenda. If the party members are risk averse enough--which we believe not unrealistic--that they will adopt unanimous cloture in the internal party committee. This leads to bless the EX ANTE VETO POWER to the backbenchers which in turn deprive the prime minister of exercising their agenda power.

I do not impair the feeling of honorable British people but I dare to say that British parliament is not ahead of Japanese politics. Rather their institution is behind Japanese politics in this perspective. The frequently argued claim that Japanese politicians should follow the 'IDEAL" British politics (YAMAGUCHI) is seriously flawed. They should take into consideration the possibility that British politics seem to be clean (of course not in reality, see the recent sleazy problems) and transparent because they are primitive.

British politics may not be risk averse. This is the point. If they are risk averse, they will adopt unanimous cloture. but If they are not, they will may adopt majority cloture. It means more impaired version of veto power of the backbenchers.

Yes the unanimous cloture has a serious problem. Because the resource is distributed among all the members equally, the initiator has less incentive to propose the new plan. the other backbenchers can simply free ride on the plan proposed. Japanese politics solve this problem by giving high incentive to the bureaucrats. It is out of my ambit to tell what type of incentives is given to japanese bureacrats, but you may be soon convinced by exploring other existing literatures.

It is easily conjectured that British bureacrats are not given these high incentives. which means unanimous cloture may not work well. If so, Westminster system witness the range from unanimous cloture to majority clotre depending on the regions in the world.