90 SOCIAL SCIENTIST another author that direct participatixm by the people in politics had to be forestalled if bureaucratic power was to be preserved in the post-war period and that the bureaucracy fully realised this. It is his ingenuity, the obverse to his hard headedness therefore, when he wonders: "For reasons that are none too clear the occupation authorities...never singled out the civilian bureaucracy as needing basic reform" (p 41). Can it be arrogance that makes it "none too clear" that the occupation authorities may have realised 30 years before him that the bureaucratic system was crucial to the stability of the Japanese political system? He is clear that both "government" (could this be the inadequately conceptualised "committee to manage the business of the bourgeois"?) and industry recognised the need for a political division of labour in the post-war democratic political system. There was also a need to "forestall disruption" of the positive "development" by the newly enfranchised groups in the society. Thus the division between the "reign" of politicians and the "rule" of the bureaucracy came about. The bureaucracy itself has been, until recently, above the law, in the sense of independent judicial review. In fact, "rather than a rule of law, a rule of bureaucracy prevails". Administration is "for the sake of the citizenry" rather than carried out "with the participation of the citizenry". While this was true for the people at large, Johnson is clear that after the war the bureaucracy began to consult big business on all important issues and blurred "the distinction between the state and the private sector by insinuating (sic) numerous ex-bureaucrats into the board rooms of the economically strategic industries" (p 196). It is perhaps appropriate to end with two quotations which bring out clearly the political implications of the ^ Japanese, Taiwanese, South Korean and Singapore model of economic growth. "Although it is infltienced by pressure groups and political claimants, the elite bureaucracy of Japan makes most major decisions, drafts virtually all legislation, controls the national budget, and is the source of all major policy innovations in the system" (p20). "Nevertheles-s, it must be pointed out that the effective operation of the developmental state requires that the bureaucracy directing economic development be protected from all but the most powerful interest groups so that it can set and achieve long-range industrial priorities. A system in which the full range of pressure and interest groups existing in a modern, open society has effective access to the government will surely not achieve economic development, at least, under official auspices, whatever other values it may fulfil^ (p 44; emphasis added). This is surely a cheerful * message for "nationalist political officials"aUending courses on "developmental administrations". NASIR TYABJI Madras Institute of Development Studies^ Madras.