Tōgi kōsoku is the rule that binds the members of a party to the decision of their party, the tōgi. The encyclopedia Imidas notes that, because of the ruling parties’ prior review system, the party decision was made before a bill was submitted to the Diet.
Breaking the rule had a price. In 2005, the Liberal Democratic Party did not endorse members who had violated the party decision.
Yamasaki Toyoko’s novel Shiroi kyotō (The Great White Tower) appeared in the weekly magazine Sunday Mainichi from 1963 to 1965. At its center is the election of a new professor of surgery at a university hospital. The surgeon Zaizen Gorō works behind the scenes, with money and the backing of his father-in-law, to win the votes of the faculty before the ballot. Both camps try everything to win the votes of a third candidate’s supporters.
A film version starring Tamiya Jirō was released in 1966. The novel was also adapted for television in 1967, 1978, 1990, 2003 and 2019.
Before a Diet committee session, members send their questions to the ministries. This is called shitsumon tsūkoku, question notice. Officials then write the minister’s answers. In a 2025 survey by the Cabinet Personnel Bureau, half of the questions arrived two days or more before the session. Nearly all the rest arrived by 6 p.m. the day before.
On average, officials could start writing at 6:32 p.m. and finished the answers at 1:48 a.m.
A shanshan sōkai is a shareholders’ meeting that ends in a short time, with no real discussion and no questions.
A Japanese legal journal writes that shareholders’ meetings were once called shanshan meetings, and that obtaining a valid resolution, free of defects, in a short time was considered desirable. A money magazine adds that at the time, a shanshan meeting was considered a good shareholders’ meeting.
Suriawase (すり合わせ): rubbing together. Comparing several proposals or opinions and adjusting them to one another. A dictionary of everyday expressions adds: adjusting the differences in people’s opinions and perceptions until they share an understanding and a direction.
Jinarashi (地均し): leveling the ground. Preparing in advance so that something goes smoothly, as in iken chōsei no jinarashi o suru, leveling the ground for coordinating opinions.
Before the Japanese cabinet approves a government bill, the bill is first approved inside the governing Liberal Democratic Party. This is the jizen shinsa-sei, the prior review system.
The usual view dates it to a letter of 1962 from Akagi Munenori, chairman of the party’s General Council, to Chief Cabinet Secretary Ōhira Masayoshi. One study argues that it began in 1955, when the party was founded and approval by its Policy Research Council became a condition for a cabinet decision on a bill.
Until 2009, the top civil servants of the ministries, the administrative vice-ministers, met on the day before each cabinet meeting, normally twice a week. They met to settle the items for the cabinet, such as bills, cabinet orders and appointments.
On September 17, 2009, the day after the Democratic Party of Japan government took office, the meeting held its last session, to confirm its own abolition. In 2012, the Abe cabinet renamed an existing liaison meeting of the ministries the Vice-Ministers’ Liaison Meeting.
In the Japanese Diet, it is common practice for the handling of business to be decided in negotiations between the parties’ Diet Affairs Committees, the kokkai taisaku iinkai. At important moments, the committee chairs of the parties meet to settle it.
Many large Japanese companies have a jōmukai, a meeting of the managing directors. Unlike the board of directors and the shareholders’ meeting, it is not required by law.
Japanese encyclopedias describe it as the place where matters that the board will formally decide are discussed in substance. There, nearly all important management decisions are made.
Nemawashi (根回し): going around the roots. In gardening, cutting the spreading roots of a tree one or two years before it is moved, so that fine new roots grow. At work, preparing a negotiation or meeting in advance so that it goes smoothly.
Sannin yoreba Monju no chie (三人寄れば文殊の知恵): when three people gather, they have the wisdom of Monju. Ordinary people who consult together in a group of three produce excellent ideas. Monju is the bodhisattva of wisdom.
Rentai sekinin (連帯責任): joint responsibility. A whole group answers for what one of its members did.