"Kozo kaikaku"(structural reform) is the buzzword these days. But it isn't clear exactly what it means. Yet it is the "clincher" in newspaper articles, economic journals and TV comments by economists. The common belief here is that structural reform is in and by itself good. It is held as an article of faith. Those who oppose it are labeled "resistance forces."
In the context of economics, "structure" means a mechanism that does not easily change, so changing that mechanism is "structural reform." For example, the systems and practices that define the mechanisms of Japan's economy are "structures" because they do not easily change.
In the 1980s, when the Japanese economy was booming while the U.S. economy was depressed, economists here praised Japanese systems and practices. In the late 1980s, their adulation of the "Japanese model" reached a new pitch.