戰後日本政治的顯著特色為自民黨長期執政和與自民黨內部的派閥政治。在自民黨的主導之下，派閥政治不僅影響自民黨黨內的決策過程，也影響政府的資源分配。伴隨社會分工化與利益的專業化，自民黨的長期執政造就族議員現象，其專注並在特定政策領域上具有專業知識。除了這些非正式的權力結構，自民黨的決策過程主要掌控在政策調查會和國會對策委員會，其分別負責黨內協議和對外協商。在2009年政黨輪替之後，民主黨訴諸體制改革和政治主導，環境變化導致政黨協商在決策過程中日益重要。因此，本文旨在檢視政治環境的變遷是否影響政策調查會和國會對策委員會在決策過程中的重要角色。
The most prominent characteristics of Japanese politics after World War II are the long rule of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and factional politics within the LDP. Under the dominance of the LDP, factional politics had affected not only decision-making processes within the LDP but also the distribution of public resources through the government. With the social division of labor and benefits of specialization, the long-ruling LDP had also given rise to the phenomenon of Zokugiin, in that the so-called tribal Dietmen specialized, and claimed expertise, in specific policy areas in the decision-making processes. In addition to these informal power structures, the decision-making processes of the LDP had been controlled mainly by the Policy Research Committee (PRC), and the Parliament Strategy Committee (PSC), which were respectively responsible for internal and external negotiations. After the power transfer in 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) began to implement its agenda of political structural reform that emphasized the importance of initiatives launched directly by politicians. In other words, inter-party negotiations have become more important than before. This paper aims to examine whether the change of the Japanese political context has influenced the critical role of PRC and PSC in the political decision-making processes.
