On Friday I posted a message that responded indirectly to six comments on my first message on this topic; it actually appeared along with five more responses.
Thanks to all, and I will probably write again trying to respond to those (and any more that come in).

For the moment, however, I'd like to recommend an interesting piece by Frances Fukuyama, part of a longer series about "governance" and how to compare it. A lot of the recent discussion seems to be arguments about whether he is right to restrict the topic to implementation, rather than anything about substantive policy (I agree with FF on this). This piece focuses on the tendency to blame overregulation and heavy-handed government interventions into the economy and society on officious and power-hungry bureaucracies.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/fukuyama/2013/08
/19/bad-mandates/

Fukuyama doesn't mention Japan but in fact that line of criticism is ubiquitous here and rarely challenged. Or rather, rarely challenged in the mainstream discourse in Japan. Of course the whole principal-agent line of argument, by Ramsayer, Rosenbluth, and others, is an exception.

Where does the fault lie for government intrusion?
Fukuyama says it is "bad mandates" from the legislature, that is, politicians. Surely that is where most of the blame (60%? 90%?) for all this lies in Japan too, looking back to 1955 say.

Westminster enthusiasts will argue that taking power from ministries and concentrating it in the Kantei will go a long way to dealing with this problem and they have a good case, but in the long run I'm not so sure.
Or maybe, even if true in the domain of implementation, maybe not so much if we do think about substantive policy.

jc