Fukuda the pressured

Watching the news this morning, I saw Fukuda Yasuo's remarks yesterday on whether he intends to reshuffle his cabinet in advance of the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet.

As before, he stated that he has not made his decision yet, that he is considering the "whole situation" in regard to conditions within the LDP and the policy agenda for the forthcoming session. He repeated that he will make his decision on a reshuffle by 29 July, incidentally the first anniversary of the LDP's historic defeat in the 2007 upper house election.

Ibuki Bunmei, speaking in Osaka, confirmed that the prime minister has yet to decide on a course of action.

The look on Mr. Fukuda's face was grim, almost pained, and his speech was strained.

In short, it looked and sounded to me like he had made up his mind on a reshuffle: he doesn't want to do it.

However, it seems that he is being forced to make a show of considering it and may even be pressured into going through with a reshuffle, thanks to pressure from within the LDP (channeled through a pliant political press). That seems to be all there is to the idea of a reshuffle: leaks to the media from certain members of the party and government who desire a reshuffle in the hope of hounding the prime minister into deciding in their favor.

As noted previously, it's not even clear what a Fukuda-colored cabinet will look like. Yamamoto Ichita provided one answer to this question: "Blue."

Asked to explain what the Fukuda "color" following a luncheon meeting of the Machimura faction by a reporter, Mr. Yamamoto answered that it is difficult to say just what Mr. Fukuda stands for, what qualities a Fukuda-colored cabinet would possess.

Masuzoe Yoichi, minister for health, labor, and welfare, made the case on TV Thursday for his staying in his post (i.e., that he is appropriately Fukuda-colored), describing his leaving the ministry after less than a year as "idiotic."

Mr. Masuzoe's comment gets to the heart of the matter. If Mr. Fukuda is forced to reshuffle his cabinet, the third cabinet within the past year, it will be yet another sign of the LDP's reverting into the hands of its risk-averse elders — and yet another sign of the LDP's unsuitability as the vehicle for fixing the mess that it has created.

It's time that Mr. Fukuda followed Koizumi Junichiro's advice and made a decision, preferably a decision not to reshuffle, thereby reasserting his authority (for the time being anyway).

Fukuda falls, Masuzoe rises

Sankei has published an article breaking down the factors in the Fukuda cabinet's falling poll numbers — and notes an interesting finding.

Among the people who replied to the question asking them to evaluate Masuzoe Yoichi, minister of health and welfare, 72% replied favorably, making him the highest rated among eleven Diet members included in the poll. By comparison, Mr. Koizumi, now back in the public spotlight, received a 57% favorable rating, Aso Taro received a 52.9% favorable rating, Hatoyama Kunio received a 16.7% favorable rating (and a 68.8% unfavorable rating), Ishiba Shigeru received a 43.1% favorable rating (and a 40.8% unfavorable rating), and Ozawa Ichiro received a 26.5% favorable rating (and a 58.2% unfavorable rating).

In other words, Mr. Masuzoe may be the only member of the Fukuda cabinet to emerge from this government with his public standing enhanced.

I can't say that I'm surprised by this finding, but it does serve as an indictment of Mr. Fukuda. At the start of his cabinet, there were hopes that Mr. Fukuda's agenda would be consistent with Mr. Masuzoe's "humane reformism" — particularly concerning the Japanese bureaucracy. In the 100+ days since Mr. Fukuda took office, however, he has backpedaled, backing away from commitments to, well, just about any course of action.

The support for Mr. Masuzoe also suggests something about how the Japanese public thinks about reform. I suspect that Mr. Masuzoe's persistent criticism of the bureaucracy and its privileges wins him points. Beyond that, I think Mr. Masuzoe's kinder, gentler reformism, focused on improving the health care and welfare systems, is more appealing to the general public than Mr. Koizumi's strident reformism (just look at Mr. Koizumi's language: "destroy," "opposition forces," etc.) He offers a way forward for the LDP — a way forward that the LDP is incapable of embracing.

One more month

As anticipated, the Fukuda cabinet has decided to extend the extraordinary (and extraordinarily long) Diet session thirty-one days, to 15 January, ensuring that the sixty-day rule will take effect and allow the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror special measures law.

As noted by MTC, the extension means that the Diet will recess for two days — when the LDP and the DPJ will hold their national conventions — before reconvening for the regular session of the Diet on 18 January.

Has the government, as suggested by Komeito, "crossed the Rubicon?"

It may look that way, especially since the decision to extend the Diet session — in effect a demonstration of the government's resolve to do whatever it takes to pass its bill — has coincided with the reemergence of the pensions scandal at the forefront of the national discussion. Mr. Fukuda has acted quickly in an attempt to soften the blow — in this week's mail magazine, he wrote, "As the representative of the Government, I offer my apologies to the people for the misconduct that has gone on for many years" — but his public support will probably drop some more, and, as suggested by Jun Okumura, Masuzoe Yoichi may be forced to offer up his head, an unfortunate consequence for the government.

Is this the beginning of a death spiral that will result in a dissolution, a general election, and possibly a change of ruling party? As reported by Mainichi, Komeito is evidently not convinced that the government will be able to avoid a snap election. And, of course, the LDP has given the DPJ yet another gift that will allow it to remain on the offensive against the government.

But I still think that should the Upper House pass a censure motion against the government in response to the re-passage of the anti-terror law in the House of Representatives, Mr. Fukuda will be able to ignore it and carry on with governing, at least for the time being.

It is interesting to see the approach that the prime minister has taken in response to the new pensions scandal. Aside from wasting no time in apologizing to the Japanese people, he has also wasted no time in making clear that the issue is the bureaucracy and its failings:

It turns out that in numerous cases these unidentified records involve rudimentary mistakes, including typos and record transfer errors, on the part of the Social Insurance Agency. The further we advance in our investigations, the more it has become apparent just how slipshod work had been at the Social Insurance Agency. Each and every one of the pension records is directly connected to the livelihood of a person. Nevertheless, the Social Insurance Agency failed to act in a manner consistent with this basic fact, which I find to be truly regrettable.

Is Mr. Fukuda able to take this approach — which Mr. Abe conspicuously did not take when first faced with this issue — because of the supposed respect he receives from the bureaucracy? (Remember back to September when this was mentioned frequently as one of the strong points of his candidacy for the LDP presidency.) Is it a matter of principle, a burst of Koizumism? Or is it simply an expression of LDP survival politics, an acknowledgment that the LDP is more than willing to jettison the bureaucracy's privileges to save itself?

Whatever the case may be, it would truly be a shame if Mr. Masuzoe — who, as I've discussed before, sincerely believes in the need to transform the bureaucracy to limit the kind of behavior noted above by the prime minister — were to be forced out of the cabinet as a result of the bureaucratic misdeeds against which he has railed.

"The state is less dependable than a convenience store"

Masuzoe Yoichi, minister of health, labor, and welfare and the LDP's resident political scientist, has an essay in the December issue of Chuo Koron in which he details the crisis of confidence in the Japanese state and calls for systemic change that will restore the confidence of the people in their government.

The title of his article — which I've borrowed for the title of this post — is based on the idea that somehow banks, post offices, and convenience stores manage to handle the transfer of funds without problems, but the national and local governments cannot transfer social security payments without embezzlement. In part one, he pins the blame squarely on bureaucrats.

"From old it is said, 'Kanson minpi [bureaucrats exalted, the people despised],' with the hidden premise being that bureaucrats are steadfast and the people terrible. However, now it is the exact opposite of that. Therefore, it is basically good to entrust "to the people that which the people can do."

In the second part, he discusses how the scandal-ridden Social Insurance Agency — part of his ministerial ambit — cultivates a culture of unaccountability for lower officials. As he writes, "In other words, since there are no orders from above and a lack of scrupulous oversight, it happens anyone can do whatever they want. The result is that this invites the occurrence of scandals like the sloppy management of records and embezzlement." He even goes so far as to suggest that the contemporary bureaucracy, as a system of irresponsibility, is "completely the same as the Japanese Imperial Army."

His solution is the implementation of a top-down system in which responsibility and accountability are clear.

In addition, he suggests that other checks on administration are needed, pointing to the example of the ombudsmen in Scandinavian countries. And he suggests that rather than viewing the nejire kokkai as a bad thing, it might be a good thing for accountability in Japanese governance. (Indeed, it was for this very reason that I think that a grand coalition would be a bad thing.)

In the third part, he explores the Japanese policy agenda, looking at the implications of the faulty social welfare system for the Japanese economy as a whole. He argues that consumer spending is low due to fears of inadequate care in old age. Ergo, if the Japanese government can alleviate insecurities about retirement, it can get people to spend more, jump-starting the Japanese economy. He suggests that an increase in the consumption tax rate from 5 to 10% is necessary, with the difference alloted to maintaining the social welfare system. Accordingly, the more people the spend, the better funded the welfare system. (This proposal strikes me as too good to be true — and it's not entirely clear to me why people wouldn't react to a consumption tax hike by spending less.)

Mr. Masuzoe concludes by calling for radical restructuring of Japanese sub-national governance, reorganizing prefectures into larger regions with radical subsidiarity, reducing the central government to nothing more than the cabinet office and the foreign, defense, justice, and finance ministries.

Mr. Masuzoe's heart is in the right place, so to speak. In particular, longtime readers of this blog will be aware of my belief in the importance of systems of accountability both inside and outside of government. Mr. Masuzoe clearly recognizes that Japan is missing the institutional checks present in other democracies that ferret out and punish wrongdoing by legislators and bureaucrats. Its courts are weak, its prosecutors face a standard of evidence that keeps many cases from going to trial, its agencies lack ombudsmen and inspectors general, its journalists and media outlets have all-too-cozy relationships with those in power (without a tradition of investigative journalism), and the political parties and the Diet, thanks to the LDP's nearly uninterrupted hold on power, are enablers of bureaucratic incompetence and corruption rather than a check on administrative abuses. NGOs are a recent arrival, and many depend on the government for funding.

In other words, this is where Mr. Masuzoe and other reformers should focus their attention. Regular alternation of ruling parties will help too, of course, but barring that reformers should push for the creation of accountability systems throughout the Japanese government.

Meanwhile regional subsidiarity strikes me as a scheme that would, if anything, ensure that certain rural regions that are already dying would have even less chance of reversing their fortunes. As MTC notes in the post linked to above, the central bureaucracy has much to answer for as far as the decimation of the Japanese countryside is concerned. But it is not altogether clear to me how removing impoverished regions from the hands of the central government and putting them into the hands of cash-strapped regional governments will make them any more likely to thrive. As a matter of principle, subsidiarity is great — after all, as students of the American progressive movement know, states can be the laboratories of democracy. But moving government closer to the people is no guarantee of good governance; I think it's just as likely that the mega-regional governments in Mr. Masuzoe's scheme could be just as prone to profligacy and venality as Tokyo has been.

In short, I agree with Mr. Masuzoe's diagnosis, but I don't think he paid nearly enough attention to the cure.

The Fukuda fakeout

Earlier this week, Masuzoe Yoichi, health minister, suggested that a snap election may be possible within the year, fueling speculation of an imminent dissolution of the Diet as a result of parliamentary deadlock.

He was promptly reprimanded by Chief Cabinet Secretary Machimura, who clarified that it is the prime minister's responsibility — the prime minister's alone — to dissolve the House of Representatives and call an election, and that it is inappropriate for a member of the cabinet to address this (no matter how many books on politics, including one on the premiership, to his name).

Prime Minister Fukuda, too, jokingly chided himself for hinting at the possibility of a snap election at an informal gathering of cabinet members.

But behind the jokes, however, is the very real concern that should the LDP call an election now, it could face a defeat that would make the July defeat look like an LDP triumph. Miyagawa Takayoshi, head of the Center for Political Public Relations, had an article in the October 18th issue of Shukan Bunshun (not online) in which he describes his predictions for a general election.

In short, disaster for the LDP:

LDP 197 (down 110 from 307, 134 single-seat constituencies)
Komeito 23 (down 8 from 31)

DPJ 224 (up 111 from 113, 145 single-seat constituencies)

Combined with slight gains or no change among the other opposition parties, the opposition as a whole would have 260 of the Lower House's 480 seats. The article goes into some detail about the components of this dramatic shift, with change concentrated in Hokkaido (where the DPJ already has a strong foothold and will be running against LDP heavyweights like Mr. Machimura and former PARC chairman Nakagawa Shoichi) and Tokyo, where the DPJ saw its position nearly wiped out in 2005 (another article in this issue suggests that Mr. Ozawa might consider jumping constituencies from Iwate to Tokyo, confident that the vacated seat will be picked up by the DPJ candidate).

A couple things leap out at me. First, even if this outcome comes to pass, the DPJ will still need a total of seventeen more seats to secure a governing majority, which will mean turning to some combination of Kokumin Shinto, SDP, the Japan Party, Suzuki Muneo's Great Earth Party, and an assortment of independents (not to mention the Communists, who may be an unlikely coalition partner but who may play a decisive role in the next election by changing their electoral strategy and limiting the number of candidates they run in the next general election). The opposition parties may be cooperating now, but would a governing coalition fall into place easily under Mr. Ozawa, given memories of the last multi-party coalition engineered by Mr. Ozawa? Obviously this case would be different, given the DPJ's overwhelming dominance of a coalition, but the DPJ would still depend on its coalition partners in order to govern, despite the discrepancy in numbers.

Second, and more significantly, given the prospects of a defeat of this magnitude, why would Mr. Fukuda decide to call an early election that would mean the end of LDP rule? If the party had even a remote possibility of restoring its prospects over the next twenty-three months, why would it act within the next three, as suggested by Mr. Masuzoe? Sure, it could get worse for the LDP, and the DPJ could take an outright majority, but it seems like that's a risk worth taking.

And I think the LDP knows this, which is why I suspect that any references to an early election from Mr. Fukuda or his inner circle are intended more to rattle the DPJ than to signal serious intentions of calling an early election. Why? Because as suggested by Mr. Koizumi's new "mainstream / anti-mainstream" thesis, the closer an election seems, the more the DPJ will go on the attack and try to widen the differences between it and the LDP. Like bullfighting in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, Mr. Fukuda can wave the cape of an early election, prompting Mr. Ozawa to lower his head and charge, only to withdraw the cape and have the DPJ slam head on into the cold, hard anvil of another two years (at least) of divided government.

All of this depends, of course, on Mr. Fukuda's retaining his teflon coat — or to stick with the metaphor, remaining the calm, unflappable matador untouched by the turmoil around him. As Jun Okumura suggests, Mr. Fukuda's cabinet might even be on the brink of losing its allure and seeing its popularity plummet should its new anti-terror law stall in the Diet thanks to Moriya Takemasa's allegations. But I still have strong doubts that Mr. Fukuda will cave into a snap election quickly.

As for Mr. Miyagawa's predictions, I haven't checked them thoroughly, but I intend to do my own breakdown and predictions for the 300 single-seat constituencies soon, critiquing Mr. Miyagawa's in the process.

What role will Masuzoe play?

"The leader's magnanimity, symbolized by the appointment of Mr. Masuzoe."

That is the headline on a Mainichi article discussing the appointment of Masuzoe Yoichi as the new minister of healthy and welfare. Mr. Masuzoe, you will recall, was one of the fiercest critics of Mr. Abe's staying in office, arguing that the prime minister's decision ignored the will of the people as expressed in the Upper House elections.

Abe said in a press conference late Monday that he appointed Masuzoe to the critical post because he is capable of explaining to the people due to his "deep knowledge of pensions." Masuzoe was equally nonchalant about his appointment, saying, "Criticism is criticism. Now we must make the LDP one."

On some level, the prime minister deserves credit for bringing a staunch opponent into his cabinet, but the real credit will be earned when we see the impact Masuzoe has on the Abe government. Is he being brought into the government to be silenced, or will his presence actually serve to make the government more responsible to the voters, more honest about its mistakes, and more amenable to compromise and moderation? In other words, will Masuzoe have more impact on the Abe cabinet than the Abe cabinet has on him?