This e-mail is a response to some of the e-mails that I have received personally rather than via the SSJ-Forum. I have already replied to those who have sent e-mails to me directly, but have also included the contents here for other people on the mailing list to ponder over.

One problem that keeps coming up is the idea of a "typical PM". Murayama is NOT one - after all he's a socialist, etc. Hosokawa is not seen as one - too radical, etc. In my opinion, Hata was not typical. Nakasone (who is the centre-piece of my research) is often cited as not being typical - due to his "presedential" style, etc. So who is typical? I'm beginning to wonder if such things exist anymore.

I am most interested in Nakasone and Education Reform - the appearance is that he did initiate education reform as a policy. However, I have serious doubts about his commitment to it. Then when the policy began to run out of steam/not go the way Nakasone apparantly wanted it to/etc - the policy all but vanished from the political agenda - yet Nakasone does not seem to be concerned. Now obviously, if I had been in his position and knowing that implementation of my ideas was seeming impossible, I would like to walk away from it, but I would expect it to be relatively difficult since it was one of the main policies that the party used to get re- elected.

Normally, one of the best ways to get a policy enacted in Japan is to get the ball rolling, then make sure that your successor continues with the policy. (This idea & point comes from a book by Hayao Kenji). However, Nakasone did nothing to try and get Takeshita to continue education reform - strange for someone who apparantly had his heart set on changing the education system.

So coming back to the original point of responsibilty, it seems that even though Nakasone did campaign for education reform in a way not dissimilar to a British PM would, he managed to get a lot of distance between himself and the policy when things did not go his way (assuming he actually did want reform, which I'm still not convinced about). This point I find quite interesting, but whether it is something unique about Nakasone, the education issue, or Japanese politics in general, I am still not sure.

I look forward to hearing any further ideas and examples about any of the points raised above.

Christopher Hood.

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Christopher Hood
Home: 79 Wilkinson Street, Sheffield, S10 2GJ, UK. Tel.: (0114) 272 2259
Uni.: School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, UK. Tel.: (0114)
282 4384 Fax.: (0114) 272 9479
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http://www.shef.ac.uk/~eas/ss/chood/ (updated: 25/07/95)
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