Ringi: from a circulated proposal to a decision

Ringi is a document-based approval procedure within an organisation. A proposal is written, reviewed by relevant people and decided by someone with the necessary authority. Its document is often called a ringisho; public offices also use kian-sho, a draft submitted for decision. The applicable matters and route depend on the organisation’s own rules.

Drafting, consultation and final authority

Kian prepares the proposal. Aigi refers here to consultation or clearance by relevant offices. Kessai is the authorised decision. A consulted unit may examine expenditure, operations or documentation. Several clearance entries on a form do not mean that every reviewer holds the power to make the final decision.

Routes can be sequential or parallel. Ibaraki’s rules allow simultaneous electronic consultation when a proposal concerns two or more offices. Important or technically complex matters may also require an explanation by the drafter. Written circulation can therefore coexist with direct discussion and branching review routes.

A proposal can proceed, be revised, be held or be abandoned. Once completed, its record preserves the relationship between the request, its review and the decision. Ibaraki’s rules also provide for circulation after approval to offices that need to know the outcome.

Ibaraki’s rules let a reviewer record an opinion for the final decision-maker without necessarily rewriting the proposal. A substantive revision requires contact with the drafter, followed by notification to those who reviewed the earlier version. When deciding, the authorised official must make the necessary adjustments concerning comments and changes. The procedure preserves disagreement while assigning final coordination to a particular decision-maker.

A workflow published by SOKENDAI in 2017 shows what approval does within a larger transaction. Staff enter a purchase request, print it for confirmation by the applicant and budget holder, and attach a quotation or specifications. The office checks it before submission to finance. An order follows approval; delivery then requires inspection, a liability record and payment processing. Authorising a purchase, ordering it and confirming receipt are distinct acts. This particular workflow also combines online entry with paper approval.

Staff may draft a ringisho while senior leaders set the direction or resolve disagreements. Studies of the procedure have therefore separated the movement of a document from the actual distribution of initiative and authority. Strategic meetings, senior decisions and document-based approval of specific measures can all operate within one organisation.

A decision rule can authorise a lower office to finish a case. Ibaraki distinguishes senketsu, standing authority to decide specified matters on a superior’s behalf, from daiketsu, temporary substitution when the authorised person is unavailable. Neither is ordinary departmental clearance. Even a normally delegated matter must go higher if the responsible official considers it important or exceptional. Delegation therefore changes where authority lies, rather than merely removing stamps from an otherwise identical route.

Circulation shares information and provides a review record, but a broad route can add waiting and repeated checks. Postwar debates about ringi reform addressed delay and unclear responsibility by trying to define jobs and their authority more precisely. The issue concerns who needs to review and decide, as well as the medium used.

Modern ringi developed alongside government organisation and documentary rules. Keisuke Obata’s study of the early Meiji Finance Ministry describes deadlines and required approvals on circulated proposals as ways to clarify and accelerate decisions. In 1873, the ministry’s coordinating experience and personnel were transferred into the Dajōkan, the central government apparatus.

A 1911 Tokyo City document records engineer Shin’ichi Yonemoto’s overseas sewerage study trip. The proposal passed from the drafting office through its chief, the chief engineer, deputy mayors and mayor, followed the next day by a resolution of the city’s sanjikai deliberative council. Corrections are marked too. The archive explains that this circulation form continued after the war until a different decision-document format replaced it in 1967. The next step is visible too: a dispatch order followed on 20 July, after the resolution on the nineteenth. The completed file was classified and bound for preservation. The archive reconstructs circulation from the arrangement of offices and seals, while correction and completion marks identify changes and closure. These traces connect the request to an authorised assignment.

In the 1950s and 1960s, administrative demand and approval documents increased while staffing was constrained. Yohei Ito’s research describes delegation and clearer decision rules as part of a shift from reliance on experienced clerks’ personal expertise toward more systematic administration. Businesses also debated ringi reform during the same period.

Itō’s analysis of a 1952 efficiency conference describes a Finance Ministry change: after one office reviewed a document, it went to the next instead of repeatedly returning to the drafter. Cases that remained slow could use simultaneous circulation. A related reform argument was to document routine procedures and delegate routine decisions, reserving senior attention for exceptional matters. One change concerned the journey of the paper; the other concerned decision authority.

The 2018 electronic-approval policy required that completed decision documents not be substantively changed without a fresh decision, and that the system enforce this rule. The record must establish which content was approved, not simply keep the newest file. The policy also addressed restricted access to confidential documents and approval involving more than one ministry, including joint procurement. Parallel circulation can reduce sequential waiting, but access, amendment and accountability still depend on explicit rules as well as software.