This article describes and analyzes postwar changes in the Japanese state leading up to the 2000-2001 reforms in central policymaking and administrative structure. These reforms would assert the primacy of politicians in Japan's bureaucrat-dominated policymaking and diet process and would streamline and reduce, through mergers, the number of national ministries from 22-13. Despite basic cultural and material differences between the two countries, the Japanese experience should inspire the Philippines to seek to strengthen its own bureaucracy and state as a development strategy. The issues involved in this strategy are briefly identified.
