Europe s Poisoned Chalice of Growth

Koizumi had real successes in these reform efforts, which significantly transformed a malfunctioning Japanese state that was in the grip of pork barrel LDP politicians, bureaucrats, and big business elites. Koizumi had relied on the bureaucrats to implement his reforms, but he did so at the price of postponing an overhaul of the civil service, which became a poisoned chalice that he passed on to Abe.