Replication Data for: Who Answers for the Government? Bureaucrats, Ministers, and Responsible Parties

A key feature of parliamentary democracy is government accountability vis-à-vis the legislature, but the important question of who speaks for the government—cabinet ministers or unelected bureaucrats, and the institutional underpinnings of this behavior—receives scant attention in the existing literature. We investigate this question with the case of Japan, and data on more than 4 million committee speeches spanning distinct electoral and legislative institutional environments. We document how a party-strengthening electoral system reform in 1994 facilitated a dramatic shift in the nature of government accountability to parliamentary committees: speeches by ministers increased, speeches by bureaucrats decreased, and discursive accountability between ministers and opposition legislators increased. Subsequent legislative reforms expanding junior ministerial roles and placing explicit limits on bureaucratic participation further reinforced the effects. These findings shed new light on the institutional foundations of responsible party government in general, as well as its progressive development in Japan.议会民主的核心特征之一是政府对立法机关的问责，但现有学术文献中，关于"谁代表政府发声——内阁大臣还是未经选举产生的官僚"这一重要问题，以及该发声行为背后的制度基础，却鲜有探讨。本研究以日本为案例，借助覆盖不同选举与立法制度环境的超400万份议会委员会演讲数据展开探究。研究揭示，1994年强化政党的选举制度改革推动了政府对议会委员会问责模式的显著转变：大臣的演讲占比提升，官僚的演讲占比下降，且大臣与反对党议员之间的话语问责程度有所提高。后续的立法改革通过扩大副大臣职权、明确限制官僚参与，进一步强化了上述效应。本研究结论为理解负责任政党政府的一般制度基础，以及该制度在日本的渐进式发展提供了全新视角。