Industry MP

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As industry delegates are parliamentarians called who specializes in a particular subject area.

They sit on the relevant committees and maintain contacts with the responsible ministries and the interest groups concerned . Typical fields of activity of industry representatives are above all where there is considerable public funding, i.e. in infrastructure , defense , health , education and social policy . They focus on industries that are heavily dependent on public investment or political decision-making, such as construction , post and telecommunications (unless privatized), power generation , aviation , pharmaceuticals and agriculture .

Correspondingly specialized members can be found in all parliaments. This term was mainly coined by political scientists who deal with Japan , since such industry representatives represent a decisive power factor in the Japanese parliament .

In Japanese politics

In Japanese, industry representatives are referred to as zoku-giin ( 族 議員 ). The Japanese name comes from the fact that MPs who specialized in one policy area formed groups ( 族 , zoku ). In English texts one can sometimes find the very literal translation tribal dietmember . They first appeared as an influencing factor in the 1970s. One of the first was Tanaka Kakuei , who later became Prime Minister. The zoku emerged as a parallel structure to the factions .

Mainly active are the Japanese industry MPs in the Policy Research Council of the LDP , the department of the party that must go through all legislative initiatives of the LDP MPs. You are of course also on the relevant parliamentary committees. Amakudari , alternating between business, ministry and the House of Representatives, is a common practice among these MPs. This creates a dense network of personal contacts in the "power triangle" of Japanese politics. The close contact with the interest groups in their branch also ensures these members of parliament a sufficient amount of donations to be able to carry out the constituency maintenance, which is very expensive in Japan.

literature

  • Minoru Nakano: The policy-making process in contemporary Japan. Digital print. Palgrave, Houndmills et al. 2001, ISBN 0-333-65250-9 .
  • Axel Klein : The political system of Japan (= Japan archive. Vol. 7). Bier'sche Verlagsanstalt, Bonn 2006, ISBN 3-936366-12-8 (also: Bonn, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 2005).