Introduction

The Legislative Supporting Agencies (LSAs) are agencies supporting the legislation of the Diet and legislative activities by its members. In the Japanese Diet, the Research Bureau of the House of Representatives (RBHR), the Research Bureau of the House of Councillors (RBHC), the Legislative Bureau of the House of Representatives (LBHR), the Legislative Bureau of the House of Councillors (LBHC), the Research Bureau of the National Diet Library (RBNDL) and the Policy Secretary are all considered to be LSAs. Although playing a role through information provision and support for drafting a member's bill, they seldom attract attention because of their role in supporting legislative activities from the sidelines. However, because of their role, LSAs are deeply related to the Diet and its members’ activities, and they and the other political institutions and political actors have a mutual effect on each other. In this respect, more attention could be paid to them when examining the function and state of the institutions and actors in the legislative process. Based on these issues, this chapter will focus on LSAs and, through comparison with other countries, clarify their constructions and functions, as well as how they participate in the policy analysis of the Diet.

In the second section, the definition and classification of LSAs will be given. Subsequently, in the third section, LSAs of the US, UK, Germany and Japan will be compared and their differences will be examined. In the fourth section, the role of LSAs in the Japanese legislative process will be assessed. Finally, in the fifth section, the specific function of each LSA will be examined from the perspective of policy analysis.

Definition and classification

Definition

First of all, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the term ‘Legislative Supporting Agency’. However, there is still no clear definition and the term is interpreted differently by different individuals. Normally, a definition should be established through detailed examination of the elements that compose the words ‘Legislative’, ‘Supporting’ and ‘Agency’, and then determining the meaning of each word in the political context.