The political economy of the Japanese financial big bang

"In 1966, the Japanese government passed a policy package to initiate massive deregulation and liberalization in the nation's financial sector, referred to as Japan's financial 'Big Bang'. This book argues that the emergence of the Big Bang Initiative poses numerous challenges to conventional interpretations of Japanese politics and represents a clear case of institutional change in Japanese finance. Whereas many observers stress continuity in Japanese politics, this book argues that the emergence in the 1990s of performance failures and scandals attributed to the bureaucracy, as well as the increase in the likelihood of change in government in this period, led policymaking patterns surrounding the Big Bang to differ radically from those dominating public policymaking in the past. The findings reveal that not only politicians, but also bureaucrats and interest groups, have reasons to pursue public support to enhance their respective political influence. Consequently, well-organized groups do not always prevail over the unorganized public."--BOOK JACKET.