Banning hereditary politicians

Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief election strategist, spoke in Fukuoka on Monday, where he suggested that the government might not wait until September 2009 to call an election after all. He noted that the prime minister might instead decide to call an election in early 2009, before the start of the ordinary Diet session, or in March or April following the passage of next year's budget.

But the more interesting portion of his remarks pertained to the role of hereditary Diet members. A recent column by Shiota Ushio in Toyo Keizai notes that there are 180 hereditary members between the upper and lower houses, amounting to a quarter of the total membership of the two houses of the Diet. Of the past ten prime ministers, all but Murayama Tomiichi and Mori Yoshiro have been second- or third-generation members of the Diet. 40% of LDP members of the Diet are, according to Shiota, hereditary Diet members.

Mr. Koga, not a hereditary politician himself, sees this as a problem. Indeed, he sees the prevalence of hereditary members within the LDP as a source of the party's fragility.

"Hereditary Diet members are not well acquainted with hardship — born in Tokyo, raised in Tokyo. Even if theirs is a rural electoral district, they don't really understand the area. This has led to the LDP's weakness."

Undoubtedly a certain portion of the party sees the matter differently.

Has the LDP been mortally wounded by its hereditary members? Would the LDP have governed differently, especially over the past twenty years, had its ranks been filled with more members who hadn't been born into politics? The LDP is weak not because its members are weak (or weak-headed), but because the system it engineered and used to stay in power is crumbling. One could even argue that hereditary politicians make better politicians, having learned the art of politics from a young age. (I don't actually believe this, but one could logically make the argument. Why don't I believe it? Exhibit one: Abe Shinzo. Exhibit two: the Hatoyama boys.) Non-hereditary members are little better. "Understanding the area," in Mr. Koga's terms, has often meant knowing the right people to deal with when it comes to rounding up votes and passing out favors (AKA public funds). No group of politicians is inherently better or worse than the other.

It is with this in mind that I read a recent Mainichi editorial on a proposal being mooted by the DPJ. A subcommittee of the party's headquarters of political reform headed by Noda Yoshihiko, charged by reviewing the Public Office Election law, wants to submit a bill to the autumn extraordinary session that will make it illegal for children to run in seats once held by their parents. (I suppose the bill would apply only to parents and children. No word on whether this would apply to other relatives [grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.].) Mr. Noda hopes to secure LDP agreement on this issue. Mainichi applaudes this idea, and suggests that even if the bill doesn't become law, the DPJ should go ahead and write this provision into the DPJ's party laws, noting that this is a good way for the DPJ to distinguish itself from the LDP. Given the aforementioned ratio of hereditary to non-hereditary Diet members in the LDP — not to mention that presence of hereditary members in important positions in the DPJ — this bill is unlikely to be introduced to or passed in the Diet. And it won't make it into the party rules.

Is this such a bad thing? The Mainichi editorial suggests that the rise of the hereditary member is indicative of a drying up of the political talent pool. But is the prevalence of hereditary members a cause or an effect of the lack of talented candidates for public office? Does the party turn to hereditary members because it can't find anyone else, or do good people stay away from politics because of corruption, the inheritance of Diet seats included?

But as I argued before, hereditary members are not inherently better or worse than non-hereditary members, and I'm not certain that Mr. Koga's claim that hereditary members are more out of touch from their districts than non-hereditary members is true. I suppose that the reason why people — and Mainichi — have a problem with hereditary members is not that they dilute the talent of the political class or anything like that, but that they are an offense to democratic sensibilities. And they are! If hereditary members are not inherently superior to non-hereditary members, why not give non-hereditary candidates a chance to screw up rob the people blind represent the people. Some readers may recall that I had a certain grudging respect for the late, unlamented Matsuoka Toshikatsu, who clawed his way into politics and who was sacrificed in order to save the government of Mr. Abe, that exemplar of hereditary politicians.

But it seems to me that a bill along the lines suggested by Mr. Noda and encouraged by Mainichi would be unconstitutional. The first part of article 14 of the constitution reads, "All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin." Banning second- or third-generation politicians from running in certain districts looks to me like discrimination in political relations based on family origin.

The Japanese people will have to continue to tolerate the presence of hereditary politicians in their midst. After all, it is the people who are responsible for the existence of hereditary Diet members. Mainichi neglects to mention this, instead pointing to the advantages enjoyed by hereditary members in terms of money, name recognition, and preexisting campaign organizations. But the people still ultimately have a choice whether to elect a hereditary politician.

Instead of banning hereditary members, perhaps Mr. Noda and the DPJ should consider more substantial revisions to Japan's election laws that make it easier for challengers to contend with hereditary politicians. Why not lift restrictions that make it difficult for candidates to interact with voters one-on-one? Why not loosen restrictions on when, where, and how a candidate can compete for public office — Japan's incumbency protection laws? Arguably the job security enjoyed by incumbent Diet members is a greater threat to Japanese governance than hereditary Diet members.

Guam, Okinawa, and the fate of realignment

The Joint Guam Program Office, the US Department of Defense office responsible for drawing up plans for the expansion of US military facilities on Guam to accommodate the forthcoming influx of US military personnel, has a new website.

For a look at the scale of the on-base construction project — the project to which the Japanese government will contribute — the JGPO has a draft of its master plan (PDF) available that shows the extent of the task at hand.

Meanwhile, Japanese democracy may have dealt its latest blow to the realignment as the Okinawan voters delivered control of their prefectural assembly to the opposition.

The DPJ, which currently has no representative from Okinawa in either chamber of the Diet, increased its representation in the prefectural assembly from one to four in this election, and is looking for ways to enhance its electoral performance in Okinawa. Not surprisingly, it has staked out a position opposing the relocation of the US base at Futenma to Nago city, an integral step in the bilateral roadmap for realignment. As Hatoyama Yukio said Monday, "The emphasis of the DPJ and other opposition parties has been that the transfer should be not to Nago city but outside the prefecture...First we are groping for a transfer outside the prefecture, and after that we are aiming for transfer outside the country."

With a DPJ or DPJ-led coalition government a distinct possibility in the near future, US authorities should steel themselves for the inevitable calls for revision of the realignment roadmap that would accompany the DPJ's ascension to power. The DPJ's "Okinawa Vision" is a bit dated; released in 2005, it does not appear to have been edited to acknowledge the promulgation of the 2006 roadmap. But the document shows a DPJ hostile to the idea of continuing US presence in Okinawa — and somehow I don't think the "transfer to the mainland first, then transfer out of the country" model would be politically tenable (cf. Iwakuni). At the same time, the DPJ is willing to consider POMCUS, the prepositioning of material configured in unit sets, to enable Okinawa to provide surge capacity for the US Military in the event of a crisis in the region.

That said, as long as the DPJ contains a multiplicity of views on security policy and the alliance, its position on Okinawa will likely be tempered by the need to hold the party together.

But the reality remains: the more Japanese democracy evolves, the more the US-Japan alliance will come under public scrutiny, the more the public will seek to revise or abandon deals made by LDP governments in the absence of oversight. The US military and the US government can either resist the change, or they can accept it and embrace the need to make their case directly to the Japanese people — and accept that more radical change in the configuration of US forces in Japan may be necessary in the future.

The DPJ botches the endgame again

After holding the line against the government — forcing it to use its supermajority to override the HC — in both the special session of the Diet (the MSDF refueling mission) and the current regular session (the temporary tax), the DPJ has been unable to find the right way to respond to the government's use of the supermajority.

In January, the endgame was marred by Ozawa Ichiro's storming out of the Diet before the refueling bill came to a vote again.

Wednesday, the endgame was marred by the DPJ's boycotting the vote en masse and, more seriously, DPJ members barricading Kono Yohei, speaker of the House of Representatives, in his office for an hour before guards escorted him to the Diet chambers for the vote on the tax. The former is less troubling than the latter; not showing up is a great way to ensure that no one breaks ranks on the vote, and, as MTC notes in a comment to Jun Okumura's post on the boycott, "Boycotting sessions en masse is also a recognized form of Diet protest. That opposition members chose to boycott the session was a reasonable response to an unreasonable approach to lawmaking."

Barricading the speaker of the house in his office, however, is inexcusable. Reminiscent of the Socialist Party's futile raging against the LDP during the cold war, the use of physical pressure to restrain a legislative officer has no place in a democracy. Whatever the DPJ thinks of the government's use of the supermajority to reinstate the temporary tax despite public opposition, the government, contra Hatoyama Yukio (who according to Okumura-san likened the government's acting without formal disapproval by the HC to an act of violence), is acting in accordance with the constitution. Article 59 gives the HR the right to override the HC with a two-thirds vote if the latter does not act on legislation within 60 days.

The LDP may come to regret governing by Article 59, but that is for the people to decide. It is for the DPJ to act with dignity, register its complaints through the proper channels, and then campaign like hell against this manner of rule when the next general election comes.

Speaking of democracy

Addressing the DPJ's rejection of the nomination of Watanabe Hiroshi to be deputy governor of the Bank of Japan at a press conference Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura Nobutaka commented upon the internal dynamics of the DPJ. He said, "Although a majority of the DPJ's investigatory subcommittee on joint personnel decisions approved the nomination, I want to say that there is no democracy within the party. This is truly a complicated and mysterious party."

Yes, Mr. Machimura, chief cabinet secretary of the LDP-led coalition government and titular head of the LDP's largest faction, is questioning the democratic bona fides of the DPJ.

How does one even begin describing how inappropriate it is for Mr. Machimura to comment upon the lack of democracy in the DPJ? One could start with last September's LDP presidential election and go from there, but I'm not going to do that, because since when did political parties have to make internal decisions democratically?

No, Mr. Machimura's comments are particularly galling because of the current government's attitudes about democracy in the political system at large. In the same press conference, Mr. Machimura noted that the LDP and Komeito are considering revising the law governing the Bank of Japan, enabling HR decisions on the Bank's leaders take precedence.

On Wednesday, the LDP-Komeito "investigatory committee concerning the way joint personnel decisions ought to be" held its first meeting to look into changing the BOJ law so that the bank's succession is never again challenged by the HC.

This is typical of how the LDP has viewed DPJ control of the HC. If the DPJ can't be made to shut up and do what the government tells it to do, then it and the HC should be circumvented and ignored. If the DPJ uses the powers accorded to the HC, then remove those powers bit by bit, all while claiming to be acting in the name of the national interest, to be putting country before party, to be desirous of compromise.

I hope the DPJ loudly opposes this move, not because of its immediate significance but because of its symbolic importance. The DPJ's control of the HC is an important moment for Japanese democracy, certainly more important than the question of whether Mr. Shirakawa or Mr. Muto was named governor of the BOJ.

Democracy is a process by which those out of power can keep those in power honest and accountable. It may not always result in good policymaking, but when it works properly it enables the outs to challenge the sagacity, the morality, and the competence of the government over the course of making and executing policy.

With the DPJ in control of the HC, an opposition party is finally in a position to question the government and hold up policy when it feels that the government is lacking on one or all of the above-mentioned counts.

Ozawa Ichiro replied in this manner to Fukuda Yasuo, who criticized the DPJ for "misusing its power" (as if the LDP is the arbiter for the proper use of power). He said, "The government has a majority in only one of two houses. The government has not reflected sufficiently on the kind of situation that arose from last summer's election."

As Mr. Machimura's and Mr. Fukuda's comments and the governing parties' actions show, the LDP and the Komeito haven't made their peace with the conditions of Japan's evolving democracy.

The Machimura faction tries to untwist the Diet

The Machimura faction, which just gained a new member to solidify its position as the LDP's largest, has delivered a proposal to Prime Minister Fukuda that calls for the drafting of new rules for Diet management in light of the divided Diet. The proposal, according to Asahi, points to a "structural deficiency in the constitution," in that it mandates different methods for dealing with the budget and budget-related bills. As such, it demands that Mr. Fukuda push through rules that provide for the passage of the budget and budget-related bills at approximately the same time.

As usual for LDP and conservative complaints about the post-July political situation, the proposal bemoans how the divided Diet makes it difficult to address Japan's national interests, in this case fixing the country's abysmal fiscal situation. (No mention, of course, as to how that situation came about in the first place.)

May I make the modest proposal that perhaps more democracy is in Japan's national interest, no matter what the impact on public policy (and no matter how insufferable Mr. Ozawa and the DPJ can be at times)?

The rule changes demanded by the Machimura faction are nothing short of anti-democratic, in that they would limit the HC's ability to exercise its constitutional duty to act on a certain type of legislation. The Japanese people voted last year to give control of the House of Councillors to different parties than that controlling the House of Representatives. Just because it has made governing more difficult does not give the LDP the right to manipulate the political process to reverse the consequences of the election.

Fortunately Mr. Fukuda disagrees with the opinion of his faction. He replied by emphasizing that he intends to "take every opportunity to appeal to the opposition parties" for cooperation. And so it should be: as we learned this month, the government and opposition are perfectly capable of cooperating on legislation, despite the media-driven impression of gridlock. The constitution mandated roles for each house, and the LDP should not opportunistically undermine one house just because it's now become a hindrance to LDP rule.

(Incidentally, this is why Japan needs regular alternation of ruling parties: a ruling party aware that it could easily end up in the opposition would perhaps be less blithe about proposing rule changes to handicap the opposition.)

Not your father's (or grandfather's) LDP?

Asahi reports that the LDP has leaped into the twenty-first century and set up a YouTube channel of its own, with Kono Taro, third-generation LDP member of the House of Representatives (and third-generation potential party leader) as the party's face on YouTube.

The innovation is not in putting videos on the Internet — there has been no shortage of videos released by the LDP and the Kantei — but in doing it through YouTube, which necessarily means making the party videos open to public comment (and criticism). If the old party Internet strategy emphasized one-way communication, this step could signal the LDP's, or at least its young members', embrace of technology to enhance multi-directional communication between the party and Japanese voters.

The content currently available at the channel by no means suggests a revolution in Japanese political communication, but it's a start. At this point, any step taken to open the political system to the Japanese people is a good thing. This effort does suggest that at least some LDP members realize that the party needs to broaden its appeal. It cannot afford to write off urban and younger voters.

Could the next LDP presidential election — or the next general election — be Japan's first YouTube election?

Surmounting decay

MTC, in a post on Japanese democracy that references this recent post, argues, "Right now Japan's democracy is just sitting down, frazzled and panting."

There's not much I can add to this excellent post, other than that if this era is, as some (Mr. Ozawa especially) have suggested, the third paradigm shift for modern Japan following the the Meiji Restoration and the postwar occupation, then Japan may be reaching the nadir of its fortunes, just as the Tokugawa shogunate, beset by naiyu gaikan proved increasingly unable to deal with both the encroaching West and increasingly brazen daimyo. Mr. Ozawa may fancy himself a latter-day Yoshida Shoin, schooling a generation of leaders who will lead Japan into a new era — just read the beginning of his recent book Ozawaism — but I suspect that Mr. Ozawa is deceiving himself.

As suggested in an article in Liberal Time, Mr. Ozawa's "permanent address" is the LDP, making the DPJ his "current residence." It is unlikely that the breakthrough that Japan's political system needs will come from Mr. Ozawa or others of his generation, LDP or DPJ, because the worldview of their generation is, in MTC's words, "Movement and heat are antithetical to the pure political operator, who has to know that what he secured today will be unchanged when he comes back to it again in a year. Calculation and cowardice devour all; democracy becomes a numbers game."

It is therefore not surprising to see that the DPJ has struggled to rise above merely responding to opportunities handed it by the LDP to articulate a vision for Japan rooted in democracy and openness.

After reading MTC's post, it's hard be optimistic about the prospects for political change in the near term, because piecemeal solutions do not seem to be the answer.

The Jiminto Rule Assistance Association?

The revelation that Prime Minister Fukuda is seeking a grand coalition with the DPJ has unleashed a flurry of political activity, as the parties and the Japanese people struggle to make sense of the swiftly changing political environment.

DPJ backbenchers and rank-and-file supporters have come out resoundingly against the idea of joining a coalition with the LDP, with someone close to Mr. Ozawa in the party executive saying, "Ozawa-san will probably resign as party head."

Mr. Fukuda too may find himself in a tougher spot following this gambit.

The Japanese people, meanwhile, seem divided, with some seeing the value in a grand coalition, and others rejecting the idea as detrimental to the political process.

Prime Minister Fukuda is arguing that a grand coalition is "for the people." Yomiuri made similar arguments for the grand coalition back in August, and is once again arguing this on its editorial page. On the face of it, this logic seems impeccable: There are problems that must be addressed, and anything that interferes with finding a solution to urgent national problems (i.e., political competition) must be subordinated to the greater good.

I don't buy it. Many of Japan's problems either result from — a hangover, so to speak — decades of unaccountable LDP governance or were ignored by the LDP as they emerged. And now the answer is to subordinate political competition (and the enhanced accountability and transparency that result from it) to the solution of national problems? The DPJ, for all its faults (and there are many), poses a real challenge to LDP rule, and thus the more powerful it gets, the more it is able to question the LDP and its bureaucratic allies, the healthier the state of the Japanese polity. Democracy is not an end state but a process through which sectional interests clash and are reconciled in the pursuit of national interests. The stronger the parties, the better this process works. It is also a process by which those in power are held accountable for their actions. With control of the Upper House, the DPJ is in a position to both hold the LDP accountable and articulate its own solutions to Japan's problems, compromising with the LDP on an issue-by-issue basis.

I would argue that the creation of a new political system is as important to restoring Japan's vigor as is resolving the economic and social problems that beset the country; insofar as a grand coalition dedicated to addressing the latter retards the former, the grand coalition "cure" could be worse than the diseases.

The problem with this is that advocates of the LDP-DPJ grand coalition assume that partisan conflict with vanish if the two parties join hands in government. Given that the DPJ is hungrier than ever to unseat the LDP, it is foolish to think that this is so. Just look at Germany's CDU/CSU-SPD grand coalition, which is now facing, according to Der Spiegel (in German), a "crisis climate." The SPD, its fortunes reviving after time spent in the doldrums, may yet prove to be a feistier partner for the center-right, potentially paralyzing Chancellor Merkel's government. The lesson here seems to be that it is an illusion to think that a grand coalition can spell the end of partisan conflict on issues of national importance. It could even make government more cumbersome and prone to gridlock than it is now. (Incidentally, I would curious to hear from my German readers what they think of their country's grand coalition and whether there are lessons from that that apply to the Japanese situation.)

I remain convinced that the LDP has less to lose from an LDP-DPJ grand coalition than the DPJ has to gain from joining it, and that if somehow the DPJ accepts Mr. Fukuda's offer, it will ensure the prolongation of LDP rule by demolishing the DPJ's prospects as an opposition party. The Fukuda government will try to present a grand coalition as a patriotic act, the only solution to the country's problems. The DPJ must utterly reject this idea by insisting that it is willing to cooperate with the government on some issues — and explaining the value of the competition between parties in a democratic system as beneficial for Japan over the long term.

The stakes of the anti-terror law debate

The DPJ has wasted no time in using its new found power to pressure the government.

Two days into the Diet session, Mr. Ozawa has lambasted the government's suggestion that it will use its House of Representatives supermajority to override Upper House rejection of an anti-terror law. Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Komura said that a new law that excluded provisions requiring Diet approval was "no problem whatsoever" for civilian control. In response, Mr. Ozawa wielded the mandate he believes his party earned in the Upper House elections, warning that the government risked intensifying public opposition if it were to ignore the will of the people on this issue.

The LDP's Upper House caucus, however, perhaps chastened by the election, is reportedly concerned about the passage of a new law that ignores the House of Councillors. Yamazaki Masaaki, the LDP's Upper House secretary-general, has expressed his desire that the government prioritize reaching agreement with the opposition, thus including the Upper House in the process. Komeito, too, has cautioned its coalition partner to not run too far ahead of public opinion on this issue so as not to provoke public backlash.

Officials in the LDP are obviously not blind to the risks they run if they ram the bill through over Upper House opposition. Yamasaki Taku, the former party vice president, is chairing the LDP's committee on the bill, and emphasized that the onus is on the party to explain its reasoning and persuade the people. Regarding the use of the House of Representatives supermajority to pass the law, Mr. Yamasaki said, "It is essential that we do so together with two-thirds support from the people."

That is the choice facing the LDP: will it put ideology over the democratic process? Will it lead the public, which necessitates the public's actually following the government, or will it act independent of the wishes of the Japanese people and the opposition in the Diet?

As Asahi writes in its editorial today, this is a fundamental question for Japanese democracy (perhaps this is what Mr. Abe means by "casting off the postwar regime"). The trend in the US away from legislative approval for the use of armed forces abroad should not be emulated in Japan. The commitment of a nation's armed forces abroad, even if only to contribute logistical support far from the battlefield, is a solemn decision that must be made by the nation's representatives. Just because the US Congress has failed to exercise its prerogative since the end of the cold war doesn't mean that the Diet should do the same. Indeed, in Germany, the Constitutional Court during the 1990s strengthened provisions requiring the Bundestag's approval before sending the Bundeswehr abroad. Why shouldn't Japan do the same?

Mr. Abe's half-baked scheme

As expected, Mr. Abe went to Indian Parliament on Wednesday and called for "a 'broader Asia' partnership of democracies that would include India, the United States and Australia but leave out the region's superpower, China." (Reuters)

At an earlier point in my intellectual development, I might have praised Japan's pushing for an organization of Asian democracies, with a significance leadership role for Japan. But at this point, this gesture is futile, and as a concept it might be shorter-lived than Mr. Abe’s government.

First, on a personal level, I have a problem with Mr. Abe's calling for an organization of democracies when it is clear from his book (and his actions over the past month) that he has only a passing acquaintance with the meaning of a democratic society. As seems to be his wont, Mr. Abe is once again trying to play Winston Churchill. (As much as I admire Mr. Churchill, I sort of hope someone will write a new, devastatingly revisionist account of Churchill that will diminish his reputation for a while so that the moral midgets governing democracies today will stop trying to appeal to his legacy.) It is more than a little pathetic for Mr. Abe, criticized at home even by his own party for failing to acknowledge the clear message sent by the people last month, to stand at the rostrum in New Delhi and hold forth about the virtues of democracy and the need for democracies to cooperate.

Second, as I wrote on Wednesday, I'm not exactly clear on how Japan or any other country would lead such an organization, because US leadership may not be forthcoming thanks to the black hole that is Iraq (more on this later).

Third, whether on a regional or a global scale, an organization of democracies suffers from the simple problem that it is wholly unclear to me what a "democratic" foreign policy is. No democracy conducts a purely democratic foreign policy; realpolitik in some form or another is unavoidable. Had Mr. Bush been more sensitive to this, he would not be talking of himself as a frustrated dissident. What exactly will an organization of Asian democracies be able to achieve that the member states won't be able to achieve within the other international organizations that dot the Asian landscape?

Fourth, what of China? Defenders of this idea might argue that it is a natural response to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Is the best response to China's cooperation with the countries in its continental periphery really an organization of (maritime) democracies with a vaguely defined purpose that could rather easily take on the form of an anti-China military bloc? Will this community be strictly economic? If so, how can it exclude China, with which each democracy in the region has substantial ties? Will it be a security organization? If so, how will it avoid giving China the impression that it is being encircled?

Fifth, what of the US? Is the US in a position to commit the time and energy to make such an organization work? Washington is having a hard enough time cooperating with preexisting Asian organizations; there is little reason to believe that it will suddenly be able to dedicate substantial support to an organization that is redundant and/or dangerously provocative. Also, given that the environment in Washington of late has favored the "responsible stakeholder" approach to China, it seems that the Bush administration would be disinclined to go along with this at a time when it is trying to work with China on financial issues and the bilateral economic relationship, and North Korea. Now if Mr. Abe called for an organization without the US, that would be one thing, but calling for the US to be involved — borrowing US leadership to paper over the significant differences between Asian democracies (between Japan and South Korea, for example) — risks turning it into an anti-China bloc by another name.

At most, his scheme will result in yet another talking shop in the region to join the myriad already extant. The reality is that the region's democracies have no alternative to working with China to manage the region, and no regional power should harbor illusions to the contrary. Is there a substantive issue in the region that can be solved without China's involvement? All effort should go to making preexisting arrangements more effective and binding upon China, not excluding it from regional leadership and forcing it to make its own regional organizations and thus play by its own rules. If the US, Japan, and others want China to play by the rules, they have to let China participate in the rule-making process.

We should not, of course, forget the role played by Mr. Abe's domestic circumstances in producing this proposal, because Mr. Abe undoubtedly believes that appearing statesmanlike on foreign stages makes him appear to be a better leader back home. Or it could simply be that Mr. Abe likes being treated as an honored guest by foreign legislatures, instead of facing the hostile legislature waiting back home.

Whatever the case may be, I do not expect that we will hear much more of Mr. Abe's "broader Asia" democratic partnership after he returns home for his ongoing lesson in democracy.

More signs of Abe's end

Mainichi has a long account of the meeting between (now former) LDP Secretary-General Nakagawa, Upper House head Aoki, and LDP boss former Prime Minister Mori on Sunday evening as the returns came in suggesting a major LDP defeat.

In case anyone still has any doubts, this article makes it clear that it is wholly unclear whose confidence Abe still enjoys. He is alone, but for his band of followers, and undoubtedly with each passing day, with each new poll that shows his cabinet's support rate dipping lower and records public opposition to his remaining in office, his position and with it his party's position grows ever more tenuous.

On that evening, Mori, Aoki, and Nakagawa had apparently discussed and agreed upon a caretaker Fukuda government, because Fukuda would "be calming, and ensure a sense of stability." "But," the article continues, "Fukuda is 71. Mori, who values Fukuda, persistently argued that this is a 'provisional emergency plan.'" However, Nakagawa, representing the trio, met with the prime minister, who completely rejected the plan, and informed Mori directly that he will not go. The article suggests that Abe's decision has killed the Fukuda caretaker government plan, but I'm not entirely sure whether that plan is dead or simply on hold until the "opposition forces" (to borrow a phrase from the Koizumi era and put it to entirely different use) can gather strength and force the prime minister to face the reality of his situation.

So again, what mandate does the Abe government enjoy at present? By whose leave is Abe still ensconced in the Kantei? Will the only way to get him out be a full-scale reenactment of the 1960 ampo demonstrations that Mr. Abe remembers so fondly? None of this should be all that surprising. Perhaps the most significant lesson I learned from reading his book is that Abe is driven by a sense of mission; while vague and ill-defined to the rest of the world, it is apparently clear to him inside his head, and nothing or nobody is going to interfere with his mission. Maybe Japan should think twice about the presidentialization of the premiership, if it is only going to result in a Kantei completely unaccountable to the rest of the government and the rest of a country as a whole.

The emerging contours of post-7/29 politics

I am back from the lunchtime session with Professor Curtis, who gave a thorough and pessimistic account of the era in Japanese politics coming into being.

I do not think it inappropriate to speak of a new era in Japanese politics; Professor Curtis is certainly convinced that Sunday's catastrophic electoral defeat for the LDP marks the beginning of a new period of policy stasis, political gridlock, and perhaps the catalyst for the final destruction of the LDP. Indeed, the one bright spot in his remarks was the idea that this election was a victory for Japanese democracy — a notion I discussed here — since the voters punished the government for its inattentiveness to their concerns.

I will not even try to provide a full summary of his talk, which contained enough nuggets of wisdom to fill a long article or two, and anyway, you will be finding bits and pieces of his talk in foreign press coverage of the election over the next several days. I will, however, give you his main points. First, this election, rather than signifying an embrace of the DPJ, represents a vote of no-confidence in Prime Minister Abe, with voters saying no to his leadership, his policy priorities, and to his predecessor's economic reforms (at least in the countryside). Accordingly, Professor Curtis insists that Abe should resign on account of the failures being a product of his insecurities, his ideological obsessions, and his reliance on yes-men, and yet he won't: "He does not get it. He does not know why the voters rejected him." (In that sense, Abe is just like his grandfather, who just couldn't understand why the people were demonstrating against him and his treaty. As Abe wrote in his book — mentioned in this post — "I asked my grandfather, 'What's ampo?' I dimly remember that thereupon he answered, 'The Mutual Security Treaty [ampo] is a treaty so that Japan will receive protection from America. Why everyone is opposed to it, I don't understand.'")

Professor Curtis sees no good scenario resulting from the election, and he does not envision an early departure for Mr. Abe, who will try to use the cabinet reshuffle to signal a "new start" for his government. (Indications suggest that the reshuffle will not come until early September, after Mr. Abe's tour of Indonesia, India, and Malaysia.) He will hold power in large part because opposition within the LDP is scattered and cowardly, an unfortunate consequence of the Koizumi era, which resulted in the emasculation and marginalization of faction heads and actors who might moderate the Kantei. At present, Abe's opponents, including the "New YKK" of Kato Koichi, Yamasaki Taku, and Koga Makoto, as well as former Finance Minister Tanigaki are unable to agree on a successor — aside from preferring anybody but Aso — and are thus unwilling to take steps to oppose formally and publicly Abe's remaining in power. This despite the widespread recognition, according to a senior LDP politician with whom Professor Curtis spoke about the election, that the LDP is like the Titanic except the passengers know it is going to sink — and they are powerless to stop it.

An intriguing question raised by Professor Curtis is whether Komeito, seeing its candidates lose unexpectedly and still caught uncomfortably between its principles and the pull of power, will use this defeat as an opportunity to back out of the coalition, or whether it too will go down with the ship. For the moment, it looks like Komeito won't be going anywhere.

And the DPJ? Professor Curtis praised Ozawa for his brilliant electoral strategy of swooping in to rural areas alienated by the Koizumi reforms, but cautioned that Ozawa has a "fifteen-year-history of upsetting expectations that he will do good things for Japan," and that his overweening pride and inability to cooperate with those who disagree with him undermine any party with which he is affiliated. He nixed the idea of any DPJ members leaving for the LDP, given the extent of the LDP's loss, but he was skeptical of the idea that the DPJ is ready to assume the reins of power and suggested that the best thing for the DPJ might be Abe's holding on to power for longer, giving them time to consolidate and build on their gains, and draft a coherent agenda — this of course runs contrary to DPJ's now publicly stated objective of using its Upper House position to force an early general election.

So at this point anything is possible. An LDP crackup, a new partisan realignment, a moderate coup within the LDP that unseats Mr. Abe and tries to draw the DPJ's conservatives to the LDP, Mr. Abe's cabinet somehow lasting until September 2009, an early election called by Mr. Abe to try to profit from DPJ obstructionism: any one of these scenarios is possible, which in the meantime will mean that the policy making process grinds to a halt.

Democracy is the issue

The DPJ appears to be advancing on all fronts, pushing hard even in "conservative kingdoms" like Kagoshima Prefecture in Kyushu, the surprisingly competitive election in Kagoshima being the subject of an article in today's Yomiuri (surprise! not online).

If the campaign continues this way until Sunday, even my worst-case scenario prediction will likely miss high.

Not surprisingly, Abe's cronies have taken to repeating the party line that since, in the words of Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki, "the Upper House election is not an election for choosing the cabinet," there should be no discussion of Prime Minister Abe's taking responsibility for a defeat by resigning.

Meanwhile, the signs of LDP desperation continue to mount. There are proliferating reports of Koizumi sightings in closely contested prefectures, most recently in Kagoshima on Monday, where he told the crowd that Abe should not take the blame for the pensions scandal, which is the fault of the bureaucrats at the Social Insurance Agency. Will Koizumi's presence be enough to make voters forget their rage at the present government, even as that government and its prime minister have failed to embrace the ideas that helped make Koizumi appealing in the first place? (Bill Emmott's column in Asahi this week addresses this idea, and suggests that it will be a positive step for Japanese democracy if the voters punish Abe for his disregard for their interests.)

And will Koizumi's presence help to retain the female vote for the LDP? David Pilling's latest article in the FT addresses Japan's female voters, who comprise a majority of the electorate. He suggests that women who were drawn to the LDP by Koizumi are ready to abandon it just as quickly, although it is unclear which party that will be abandoning it for, with the DPJ also unpopular among women.

Meanwhile, in recent days one has heard greater emphasis from the DPJ on the danger to Japanese democracy posed by the Abe Cabinet having both a Lower House super-majority and control of the Upper House. The idea of this election being about not only the pensions and other bread-and-butter issues, but the very nature of Japanese democracy is an important one, and the DPJ is right to stress it. If Japan is ever to become a proper liberal democracy, checks on the untrammeled power of executive, ruling party, and bureaucracy are essential — formal, legal checks backed with enforcement power, and not informal arrangements that give opposition some say over the drafting of legislation in the Diet but few other means to hold the government accountable for malfeasance, corruption, and policy failures. (As I've suggested before, Transparency International's report on Japan's national integrity system is an excellent place to start.) But divided government and the regular alternation of parties are only important first steps on the road to accountable, even liberal government.

To continue my thread on Japanese democracy and Mr. Abe's curious ideas about government, the danger of the Abe "color," to use the newspaper term, is that it has no particular respect for the importance of democracy as a process, a means to ensure that the concerns of the people are brought to the attention of the government, that the actions of the government are presented to and judged by the people, and that the government has the people's confidence in implementing policies that affect millions. Policy is all that matters, because Abe, the Nakagawas, and so forth are convinced that they have all the answers for Japan's future. If one has all the answers, why bother with elections and democratic processes? Democracy demands that a politician accept the possibility that he might be wrong, or at the very least accept the idea that other people might have a different but equally valid perspective. At no point while reading Prime Minister Abe's book or following the ten months of the Abe cabinet have I felt that the prime minister has made this fundamental democratic "concession."

The content of policy is, of course, important, but no policy, even policy essential for the future of Japan, is worth the price of the degradation of democracy.

And so the DPJ victory on Sunday may not have all that much impact on policy, but it will hinder the ability of the government to use its Lower House super-majority as a bludgeon, which will amount to a victory for democracy as a process — and that in itself is crucial.

Thinking about Japanese democracy

With the Upper House elections now a week away, it is worthwhile to step back and think about Japan's political system. At least that's what I did recently, reading Bradley Richardson's Japanese Democracy: Power, Coordination, and Performance — this month's recommended book.

Published in 1997, Richardson's book is obviously not the place to go for analysis of the latest developments in the Japanese political system. Rather his book is useful for his elaborate illustration of what is enduring in postwar Japanese politics. How is power distributed in the political system? How do actors reconcile clashing interests? What role for special interests? Political parties? Bureaucrats? Richardson provides a thorough portrait of the 1955 system, and with the LDP reverting to old ways, perhaps his book might be becoming more current by the day.

My biggest problem with it is that Richardson spends the book demolishing a straw man. He conceived the book as an argument against the idea, popular among polemicists in the 1980s and early 1990s, of a monolithic Japan, Inc. in which bureaucrats, the LDP, and big business collaborated to formulate policy that would make Japan "number one." While that idea may have gained popular currency at one time, enough academics — Richardson's audience, for this is an academic book — had done work illustrating the various ways in which Japanese politics were more pluralistic than commonly thought. As such, Richardson wastes plenty of ink explaining the straw man of a top-down, monolithic, "undemocratic" Japan and then demolishing it, when he would have been better off documenting the problems with Japanese democracy as he describes it (more on this later).

The thrust of his argument is that although the long, uninterrupted rule of the LDP made Japan appear to be less than democratic, the reality is that at each stage in the policy making process the LDP dominance was challenged and the party was forced to compromise (and even with the LDP there were, and are, considerable divisions that frustrate efforts to impose policy top-down).

For our purposes, the most useful chapter in this book is probably the second chapter, "Political Culture and Electoral Behavior." With scores of data breaking down Japanese voting patterns throughout the postwar period, Richardson provides an excellent look at how Japanese voting behavior has changed and become more unpredictable, concluding that there is considerably more to how the Japanese vote than economic actors lining up behind different parties, especially as Japan has urbanized. His discussion of "political alienation" in Japanese political culture particularly resonates for us watching this Upper House election campaign, with the two major parties both struggling to overcome strong negative perceptions among voters. His section on mobilizing Japanese voters is also useful, supplementing and updating the description of Japanese campaigning found in Gerald Curtis's landmark study Election Campaigning Japanese Style.

Meanwhile, one table — "Cosmopolitanism Versus Parochialism in Japanese Political culture" — suggests that the LDP may really be in trouble next week, with Mainichi finding the DPJ leading the LDP 31% to 21%. Why? Because according to Richardson's data, only 29% of voters surveyed said they voted on the basis of the candidate in Upper House elections, as opposed to 49% saying Lower House elections and 57% saying Prefectural Assembly elections. Of the 29%, slightly above-average percentages were found among farmers and those living in rural areas (as opposed to urban areas). In the years since Richardson compiled that data, I have to imagine that that figure might be even lower as party identification has fallen. All of which leads me to wonder if we might be witnessing the beginning of a new, more competitive era in Japanese politics (or perhaps it began earlier but had been obscured by Prime Minister Koizumi, and is now returning in his wake).

The most interesting thing about this book to me, however, is what's missing. Namely, the phrase "liberal democracy" does not appear outside of being part of the name of that impeccably liberal organization, the Liberal Democratic Party. It seems that the absence of liberalism would be worthy of comment, but Richardson is silent on this score. The differences between liberal democracy and plain, old democracy (or illiberal democracy or whatever other variety of democracy imaginable) are substantial, and if Richardson had taken his argument in this direction this book could have made a valuable contribution to discussion about democratization. It is this absence of liberalism — which for our purposes can be thought of as the expression of the individual citizen and his or her rights in politics — that makes Japanese politics problematic, especially when American advocates of democratization try to use the US occupation of Japan as an example of successful democratization (not to mention when the Japanese government talks about democracy promotion; I don't think this is what most people have in mind). In fact, Richardson's "bargained distributive" democratic Japan owes much to a style of social organization that existed in prewar Japan. For you see, it is groups that matters in Japanese democracy, even as elections are apparently decided on the basis of personality. The mechanism has worked to resolve differences between parties, interest groups, businesses, and government ministries, and the individual has been forced into the background.

This is not meant to be taken as criticism, but I still find that the absence of liberalism in Japan is not easily explained. Richardson indirectly points to that absence, but does not get any closer to giving a convincing account of why it's the case. Is it culture? Political culture? "Sticky" institutions? Education?

This is not merely an academic question. With politicians struggling to figure out how to make Japan a dynamic economy in which individuals "can challenge again and again," answering the question of why Japan is not a particularly liberal democracy can help predict whether and how efforts to reform the Japanese economy along more individualistic, dynamic lines can succeed.

(I will pick up this thread in my next post.)

What kind of debate does Yomiuri want exactly?

The Yomiuri has published its editorial on the official start of the Upper House election campaign, and, as has been its ken for much of the past nine months, it argues on the need for a debate on the nation's strategy in the face of new challenges.

Sounds good, right?

Except Yomiuri's idea of good governance in the face of national challenges is that of Prime Minister Abe.

"The Abe Cabinet has revised the Fundamental Law of Education, the 'Constitution of Education,' and raised the Japan Defense Agency to a ministry. This year, the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the constitution, it also passed a 'national referendum law' determining procedures for revising the constitution.

"For more than half a century, successive cabinets have been unable to achieve these victories. They are part of the prime minister's 'freeing [Japan] from the postwar regime' program. At the prime minister's first speech in the Tokyo metropolitan area, he enumerated this and emphasized the 'acceleration of reform'; the greatest results have probably come from this."

The editorial goes on to list how the government's bills have drawn support from one opposition party or another.

No mention, of course, of the unprecedented size of the government's majority, which has enabled the Abe cabinet to pass all of these "historic bills." No mention either of the changing balance of power within the LDP, with those who had opposed these measures in the past marginalized within the party. And Yomiuri's citation of opposition support for government measures serves only to show how the role of the opposition in the Lower House has become of that of mere window dressing on the government's untrammeled power.

For all the talk about the Abe cabinet's legislative achievements, however, Yomiuri actually says rather little about how this government is formulating a national strategy to cope with twenty-first century challenges.

See, I actually agree with Yomiuri on that; Japan faces a number of challenges that demand from the government wisdom, prudence, and steady, far-seeing governance, combined with concern for the people in a time of substantial change. But I look at the government that has been in power since last September and I see a government that possesses none of those qualities, and what's more is beholden to interests and steeped in corruption.

I am not arguing that a DPJ-led coalition government, if and when it comes, will be necessarily better than the current government — that remains to be seen. But political competition is necessary (well, necessary but insufficient) to make better parties. What impetus is there for a party to change unless there is a real chance of losing an election?

That decision, of course, rests in the hands of the Japanese voters. While I don't want to generalize, especially since the people quoted are in Tokyo, two articles in English-language sources have me less than convinced that the Japanese people are ready to punish the Abe cabinet.

First, the Japan Times ran an article about the first day of campaigning in Tokyo, quoting voters as to their preferences for the 29 July elections. It included this quote from a sixty-eight-year-old retiree: "I've always voted for the LDP and plan on sticking with them again, despite the problems with the pension premium payments. The DPJ has relied too much on blaming the LDP, when there isn't much the DPJ has actually achieved as a party." How many of this retiree's compatriots share his forgiveness for the LDP? (This is more or less the Yomiuri editorial line.) And will enough of them turn out to vote in sixteen days to give the election to the government?

Second, the BBC, in an article on Japan's restrictive campaign laws that focuses especially on restrictions on internet usage (the picture of Suzuki Kan's shuttered Second Life campaign office is priceless), quotes some younger Japanese talking about campaigning. Once again, I caution against generalizing from these quotes, but I cannot help but wonder if the sentiment expressed is not altogether uncommon:

In Japan, 95% of people in their 20s surf the web, but only a third of them bother to vote.

Some, though, do not seem keen on politicians using the web to try to win their support.

"I believe that internet resources are not very official," says Kentaro Shimano, a student at Temple University in Tokyo.

"YouTube is more casual; you watch music videos or funny videos on it, but if the government or any politicians are on the web it doesn't feel right."

Haruka Konishi agrees.

"Japanese politics is something really serious," she says. "Young people shouldn't be involved, I guess because they're not serious enough or they don't have the education."

There cannot be many places in the world where students feel their views should not count. Perhaps it is really a reflection of the reality - that they do not.

Here in Japan, it is seen as important to treat politicians with respect.

But such is the deference paid to them, it is hard for anyone to challenge them to try new ways to make the political system better.

I think the BBC is way off to conclude that the Japanese political system is unique for the deference and respect with which voters treat politicians. While Japanese politics may be politer than other democratic countries, it is a mistake to conclude politeness for respect. I have talked to a number of people about politics — including, no joke, people who work in politics — and what I have found is widespread discontent, disgust, and loathing for how politicians have misgoverned Japan. (Perhaps the reality is respect for individual politicians as individuals, disgust for politicians collectively — if so, that's not altogether different than the US, where voters consistently give their own representatives higher ratings than Congress as a whole.)

Nevertheless, the quotations from students suggest something important, that I've mentioned before: for voters, Japanese politics remains a spectator activity. Until this changes, the debate that Yomiuri says is necessary will be a stunted debate, a conversation among isolated elites that largely ignores the interests of the people and gives them no place in the discussion.

Election numerology

The press is filled with important numbers for the seventeen days of official campaigning. These are a few that caught my eye.

28%, 27% — 21%, 22%: These are the DPJ's and the LDP's poll numbers in proportional representation voting and electoral district respectively, as found in Yomiuri's latest poll. I should also add 33%, 34%, which are the numbers for undecided voters in electoral districts and proportional representation voting. What does it say about the DPJ that after months of good fortune, a poll — admittedly, in Yomiuri — shows that undecideds outweigh those committed to supporting the DPJ?

65%: In the same poll, the percentage of respondents who said that the pensions scandal is the top priority issue.

43%: In the Yomiuri poll, the percentage of respondents who said that the consumption tax issue is the most important election issue (it ranked second to pensions).

4.86: According to Mainichi, this is the discrepancy between the value of a vote between the prefecture with the fewest voters, Tottori Prefecture, with 248,091 registered voters, and the prefecture with the most voters, Kanagawa Prefecture, with 1,205,250 registered voters. The differential is over four for five other prefectures (Osaka, Hokkaido, Hyogo, Tokyo, and Fukuoka). That said, 4.86 is actually lower than the 2004 figure, which was 5.16. And so the balancing between urban and rural Japan continues apace, however slowly.