Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2018. ix, 191 pp. (Tables, graphs.) US$59.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5017-1565-5.
Carlson and Reed’s Political Corruption and Scandals in Japan offers a theoretically driven typology and analysis of political corruption, defined broadly as behaviour that perverts “the functioning of the democratic process” (15). Because corruption, by its very nature, involves covert behaviour, it is difficult to measure comprehensively. The authors cast an intriguing net: gathering data on all scandals that garnered media attention and threatened to damage the standing of political figures. Each case is deconstructed by how the information became public, what behaviour caused the issue to become a scandal, how it harmed the democratic process, and whether attempts at reform worked. Along the way, we learn about salacious incidents of public money squirrelled away into private slush funds and gold bars found in the homes of political leaders. This is the first academic book that I enjoyed reading cover to cover in a while.
The first half traces the evolution of political scandals chronologically. Chapter 2 (1948–1978) looks at the early postwar period, where corruption mainly took the form of quid pro quo bribes by interest groups to politicians for specific policy favours. The “bad apple” villain, whose presence hovers over much of the book, is Tanaka Kakuei, who institutionalized these exchanges and extorted money and votes from interest groups. Chapter 3 (1979–2001) tells a more optimistic story about the positive influence of political reforms. The adoption of a majoritarian electoral system in 1994 eliminated intra-party competition and reduced electoral costs. New guilt-by-association rules (renzasei) and accounting requirements improved the transparency of campaign donations and expenditures. By giving political watchdogs more tools to identify and scandalize corruption cases, overt corruption became more rare. Chapter 4 (2002–2018) examines a second stimulus: the emergence of a viable opposition party. The possibility of government alternation incentivized opposition parties and the media to construct scandals from anything that embarrassed the government, including its policy record and the personal peccadillos of cabinet ministers (also covered in chapter 6). The authors conclude that, over time, we “see more but find less” (90): scandals have gone up, but the severity of corruption has gone down.
The second half of the book shifts to an analysis of distinct types of scandals. Chapter 5 is particularly intriguing for its focus on bureaucratic corruption, wherein “the course of the administrative process” is perverted (92). Most of the quid pro quo scandals of the pre-reform period would not have been possible without the mediation of elite civil servants. At the same time, there are repeated revelations of bureaucrats enriching themselves by siphoning off public funds. These cases receive less attention from the media, because bureaucrats seldom appear in the news, are not held to account in periodic elections, and largely involve retired bureaucrats who sought to preserve their post-retirement jobs (amakudari). The authors warn that these represent perhaps the most insidious form of corruption, because their opacity makes them difficult to reform.
Broadly speaking, this book makes three important contributions. First, corruption manifests in diverse ways, from straight-up bribes to obscure campaign-law violations. Whether these are illegal depends on the regulations of the day, and whether these are scandalous depends on norms about standard operating procedures. Instead of relying on one quantitative indicator, the authors adopt a vague but more flexible standard: whether the corrupt behaviour harmed the democratic process. They allow society to determine what is scandalous and corrupt, instead of imposing a clearer but more restrictive standard.
Second, the book demonstrates that different types of corruption demand different solutions. “Systemic corruption,” such as bribes for votes, requires changes to political institutions. Chapter 7 uses police reports to show that the shift to party-centred elections reduced electoral law violations. By contrast, “standard-operating-procedure corruption,” most notably the skimming of public funds, requires more transparency. Eliminating corruption may be impossible, but empowering watchdogs—opposition parties, the media, and legal authorities—with tools for oversight can improve the functioning of the democratic process.
Third, more scandals does not equate to more corruption. Greater transparency has led to the discovery of more scandals, but as politicians learned to avoid egregious behaviour, the severity of corruption has gone down. While the pre-reform period saw major scandals that collared multiple legislators and prime ministers, post-reform scandals largely revolve around personal embarrassments and policy failures.
This book is strongest when it focuses on political incentives to engage in corruption. It is somewhat more vague on the micro-level motivations and behaviours of the watchdogs. There is a general allusion to risk aversion among the mainstream media, who want to preserve access to the insular “press clubs” and legal prosecutors, who fear the wrath of senior politicians. However, to the extent that major scandals can sell papers and boost careers, it would be worthwhile to explore how these watchdogs have learned from past successes and failures. For example, the book relies on scandal coverage in the Asahi, a centre-left newspaper that has been critical of the LDP, but have centrist and centre-right papers (such as Mainichi and Yomiuri) been more or less aggressive? For prosecutors, what are the risks versus rewards for pursuing corruption cases, especially if they fail to secure a conviction? Is collaring a major political figure a career boost, and has it always been so?
The role of oversight is particularly important, because legislators will not change the rules that brought them into power unless they fear the wrath of voters. Transparency, however, may come with a broader social cost: the revelation of scandals can breed disillusionment among the public, even if the severity of corruption is declining. Given growing concerns about the rise of populism and an increasing democratic deficit, the next step may be to explore the gap between public perceptions and actual realities of political corruption.
Kenneth Mori McElwain
The University of Tokyo, Tokyo