Organization-public administration relations

As examined in the previous section, local government organs are considered an important source of information. At the same time, these are considered as an effective political target. This section provides a closer examination of organization-public administration relations.

4–1 Various aspects of organization-public administrative relations

In this survey, we asked the following questions regarding each organization’s relationships with state administrative organizations and national governments (Q8), as well as local governments (Q9).

(1) Do you need to get accreditation or approval by the national (local) government?

(2) Do they impose legal restrictions or is licensing required?

Table 5–6 Target of Activities (Ranked #1 in the survey)

(3) Do they give your organization administrative guidance?

(4) Do you support and cooperate with the policy-making processes and budget-making processes of the national (local) government?

(5) Do you exchange information regarding organizations and industries?

(6) Do you send your organization’s members to council and/or advisory committees (shingikai)?

(7) Does your organization offer positions to national (local) government officials after retirement?

Table 5–7 summarizes replies to the above questions and is divided into three major sections. One section shows the relationships between organizations and the national level, the second, between organizations and the local level, and the third, between organizations related both to the national and local government level.

Depending on the activity area, the relationships among organizations and the national and local government levels vary. Generally speaking, except for the global level, as the activity area expands, the relationship between organizations and national-level bodies is strengthened. Organizations that are active at the prefectural level have strong ties with local government. Moreover, as we can see from the third section in Table 5–7, organizations that are active in the regional area have closer relationships with the national and local-level governments than other organizations.

4–2 Direct contact with public administration

Let us now look at how much contact organizations have with public administration. In our survey, we asked, “When your organization directly contacts the administration, who (ranking or position) do you call or meet with?” At the national level, we provided four answers to choose from: the minister/director level, the section chief level, the subsection chief or clerk level, and the general staff level. As for the local level, the four choices are governor-mayor level, the section chief level, the subsection chief or clerk level, and the general staff level.

If the organization chose at least one of the positions out of the four, we considered it to be a positive answer that the organization has contact with the administration.2Table

Table 5-7 Relationship between Organizations and Public Administration

5–8 summarizes the results in terms of percentages. Within Japan, as the activity area expands, contact with public administration increases, while as the area of activity contracts, contact with local government increases. This is quite clear from Table 5–8.

Let us now look more closely at the contact pattern of organizations with the national and local government levels according to activity area (Table 5-9). We identified four contact patterns: (1) contact with both the national and local governments; (2) contact only with the national government; (3) contact only with the local government;

and (4) contact with neither.

Contact patterns differ greatly according to area of activity. Organizations that are active at the municipal and prefectural levels tend to contact local governments only, while nation-level organizations contact the national gover nment only. Many organizations active at the regional and global levels tend to contact both the national

Table 5–9 Patterns of Contact with the National and Local Government (%) Table 5–8 Contact with Public Administration (Raw Percentages)

2 The original question asked about the frequency of contact. Organizations can be divided into those that had contact and those that did not. We did not ask about the frequency of contact, rather, only whether the organization had any type of contact.

and local governments. This may be due to the fact that the activity areas and (administrative) regions do not match. Less than 30 percent of organizations contact neither the national nor the local government.

4–3 Indirect contact with administration

Organizations not only contact public administration directly but also indirectly. In order to grasp how organizations contact public administration indirectly, in Q11 of our survey, we asked, “Does your organization appeal to the government ‘indirectly’ through any of the following people?” The choices for answers are: (1) Diet members from the local area;

(2) Diet members from other areas; (3) heads in the local area or local government representative. To contact local-level government, the choices are: (1) Diet member for the local area; (2) local political representatives; and (3) other powerful people in the local community.

Table 5–10 summarizes the results according to areas of activity.3In general, the most popular answer was “Diet members from other areas.” However, the percentage of respondents that chose this answer was 24 percent, which was much lower than the figure for direct contact (refer to Table 5–8, in which we found that 58.4 percent or organizations contacted the central government overall). Organizations that are active at the prefectural and regional area levels contact their local Diet members, while those active at the regional and national levels contact “other Diet members.” Organizations active at the regional level also contact heads of the local area and local-level representatives. These results show that in order to influence Diet members, the area of activity needs to be large to some extent.

Table 5–10 reorganizes the results according to whether organizations directly contact public administration organs or political parties.4 Generally speaking, organizations that make any form of contact with the administration (See 滷in each table) tend to use indirect means. Moreover, those that have indirect contact with political

3 The original question asked about the frequency of contact. Here, organizations are divided into those that had contact and those that did not. We only asked whether the organization had any contact.

4 We will discuss the operationalization of political party contact later.

Table 5-10 Contact with Public Administration

parties tend to go through politicians such as Diet members, local representatives, or local political figures (see 潺in each table). Direct contact with public administration figures is not the only means used by organizations that attempt any type of contact. Our survey found that there are organizations that attempt contact with the administration indirectly through politicians.

The percentage of organizations making indirect contact with local governments through politicians (11 to 23 percent) is not as large as direct contact (46.3 percent).

Organizations active at the prefectural and municipal levels tend to contact local representatives.