著者

沢田 善太郎

出版者

学術雑誌目次速報データベース由来

雑誌

ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.43, no.3, pp.3-18,146, 1999

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Until Weber's study appeared, the most systematic thought on the bureaucracy was found in J. S. Mill's On liberty and Considerations on Representative Government. Though Mill's works were translated into Japanese in early Meiji era, his concept of bureaucracy was frequently misunderstood by the Japanese translators in those days. That is, where Mill discussed the troubles of the administrative bureaucracy as a whole body, the Japanese translators used to interpret them as being brought about by one or few influential who controlled the bureaucratic system arbitrarily.<br> Such a misunderstanding of the concept was also found in the petition submitted by Taisuke Itagaki, Taneomi Soejima, Shojiro Gotfi, Shinpei Eto and others to the government in 1874, proposing the establishmement of an elected house. Their zeal for the representative government and their criticism of the "Yushi Sensei" (the despotism of the administrative officers) were inspired by Considerations on Representative Government. However, the implications of the "Yushi Sensei" were rather different from Mill's discussions on the bureaucracy.<br> Probably, these misundestandings were brought about by the premature state of the administrative bureaucracy in early Meiji era and by the past tradition which was attached to the education of Chinese Confucian classics.