My eldest son currently lives in Japan (teaches English there for now) and is duly impressed by the atypical political engagement of the populus. I quote from his election eve blog for feedback.
(A link can be provided, but as it is my son’s blog I feel little odd about doing that. I’d want his permission first.)
No one knows, and by “no one” I’m including the DPJ. I hope so, though I’m as interested in the effect of losing on the LDP. I’m not a big fan of a lot of the DPJ’s election manifesto (more promised public spending in a country that already has an absolutely staggering debt problem) but I think they’ll manage to at least weaken the hold of the bureaucracy which would be a very good thing.
The extent of the DPJ victory can be laid at the feet of the LDP. They were like a patient who refuses to go to the doctor even though he knows he has a problem because he doesn’t want to accept reality. They should have held an election years ago… they would have lost, but nowhere near this badly.
You might find this blog post interesting (with the disclaimer that the author is very much pro-DPJ).
Up to now there have been five major parties: LDP, DPJ, New Komeito Party (right-wing, Buddhist-theocratic), Japanese Communist Party, and Social Democratic Party. I was speculating about which of these would join the DPJ in a new governing coalition – but it appears the LDP has won 300 of 480 seats in the House of Representatives and therefore will have no need of coalition partners. Quite an upset!
No matter how well or badly the DPJ governs, this is certainly a good thing for democracy in Japan, as the end of the one-party rule of the PRI was a good thing for democracy in Mexico.
Based on that, the biggest change will be the DPJ’s top priority: Administrative reform, which means shifting the balance of power away from the bureaucrats and toward the politicians. I’m of two minds on that based on America’s recent experiences – but Japan, being a very bureaucratic country historically, probably needs that particular shake-up badly.
That’s pretty risky though given how much power Japanese bureaucrats have, how dependent the entire economic-politico system is on them, and how little experience any of them have in actual governing.
The DPJ is still going to form a coalition with the SDP and the PNP. Presumably this is with an on the future, when electoral fortunes may shift; after 2005 the LDP maintained their coalition with the Komeito despite having a majority. That said, this will fortunately lower their influence to an extent. With the prospect of having to actually govern looming, the DPJ became a bit more pragmatic on topics such as the US-Japan alliance. There were some concerns that, if dependent on their partners, they’d wouldn’t have that freedom of action.
The US has never been as bureaucratically-dominated as Japan is now (even though bureaucratic influence in Japan is currently at an all-time low). The central plank of the DPJ’s administrative reform platform is to make it so that the prime minister controls the formulation of the budget; something that is a given in any other modern, industrialized country would be revolutionary in Japan. And I wouldn’t be too concerned about the willingness of the bureaucracy to say no to the government… it’s something that they were more than willing to do, even to their allies in the LDP.
“Eldest son” mentioned in the OP here.
That’s the DPJ, by the way, which will now hold a ruling majority in the upper Diet. Aso Taro donned a black tie–reserved for funerals and other dark issues–and announced his stepping down in a speech that has been airing all night on NHK. Meanwhile Hatoyama is preparing to take power. Can’t wait to see this hairstyle on the news every day. The historic election’s now over and I am back in the office of my sr. high school on this Monday morning. Nobody is chatting at all about the election. All business until the enkai next week, I guess.
One LDP politician said that this election is more about emotions than about policy. I think that is a totally accurate assessment. The DPJ built a pretty absurd platform, vowing to spend a fortune on administrative reforms, while also cutting back costs in a crusade against pork, for example doing away with the extremely high tolls for the nation’s highways, which brings in a LOT of money. It’s true that the 80’s Boom mantra of “BUILD BUILD BUILD” left a lot of pork flowing into the system, but the economy is already aching and it’s gonna be harder than they imagine to cut back costs.
At the same time, Hatoyama has named the US as a declining power, and blames under-regulated free markets largely for the economic downturn. The DPJ vows to bring more regulation into the already-choked Japanese markets, and protect Japanese agriculture from free trade.
On the plus side, he views Japan-Asian relations as a high priority and plans to make official apologies for Japan’s wars in Korea and China for the first time. This was really exciting to me because I have been continuously horrified to learn that these wars are not even taught in public schools, while at the same time they study the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in great detail and proceed to take class trips to these countries with absolutely no historical framework. I mean many of my Japanese friends don’t even know who Hitler was.
Washington might be seeing this as a big “screw you guys, we are gonna hitch a ride with China.” It all goes back to this old-school notion of “What we say in Japanese is not meant to be translated and broadcast across the world.” that still exists in Japanese politics, responsible for quotes like these.
Did the DPJ make a lot of ridiculous promises to win votes? Yes. Are they perfect? Not in the slightest. But the truth is it’s a step up from the unquestionably corrupt LDP, and looks at least a little bit like democracy. Now that the ball is rolling, people may be less inclined to put up with corruption and mismanagement of their resources. To me, the DPJ win is very promising. It shows that the Japanese population is taking some degree of ownership. The landslide victory element is not surprising in this culture which likes to make decisions unanimously. As soon as the notion of throwing out the LDP began to pick up momentum in the major media outlets, the group think machine took over.
Welcome number one son!
It does seem, BG that aligning both to the right and the left, and needing neither, gives them some freedom to position themselves as they perceive real world needs dictate.
The question remains: what “change” will they actually implement? Apparently nothing that business is afraid of given that the markets are expected to react positively. Seems odd to me since they have promised less free market and more regulation. But I know not the ways of Japan.
Good post, but this part isn’t accurate. Official apologies have been made, most notably by Prime Minister Murayama in his famous 50th anniversary speech. And while the wars may not be taught well, they are part of the curriculum and are taught (in the 2nd year of junior high school, IIRC).
Well that is refreshing to hear indeed. I didn’t know about that speech in 1995. That being said, Japan has not followed up in the 14 years following to prioritize fostering any real relationships with China and Korea, and regardless of whether they have a unit on it in Jr. High School, my high academic senior HS students, as well as most of my adult friends, seem to know very little about this history, and definitely don’t care to discuss it. The students took a class trip to China and came back saying that the Chinese were somewhat cold to them and couldn’t understand why.
Sorry for above unrelated banter.
It’s hard to say if the DPJ majority will affect real changes, and if they do, whether or not they will be advantageous.
What has been stated is…
-More market regulation
-Mention of a free trade deal with the US, but protecting agriculture
-Mention of a unified currency in Asia, modeled after the EU.
-Kicking out (presumed) corrupt local bureaucrats and giving more power to politicians
-Less funding for education. Hard to believe it could get worse D:
One should not look at Japanese politics through the same reference of view that one views other countries, especially mature democracies such as the US or the UK. Certain change could be the much more likely outcome of a landslide election in many other countries, but it would be extremely difficult to guess what will happen here.
First, and foremost, it must be remembered that the basis of the DJP goes back to 1992 and the disgust of the public of the corruption within the LDP. One of the events that year was the discovery of $100 million in cash and gold in the safe of Kaneko, a predominant party leader. In the resultant mess, a number of short-lived parties came and went as many Diet members defected from the LDP, forming various new parties, which were combined with others.
Among the defectors was Ozawa, a kingmaker and one of the two heirs-apparent (is this a real word?) to the Takeshita faction when it’s leader Kaneko was arrested. Ozawa, as a leader in one of the more corrupt factions of the LDP (more because of better opportunity as a champions of road and dam construction, with greater potential for kickbacks than any fewer scruples than other factions which had the misfortune of relatively fewer sources of as much cash) is nothing but a shrew politician. Waving the banner of reform and along with co-leader Hata, he bolted from the LDP taking a 40 plus change of lawmakers to form the Shinsei-to.
During at period, it seemed that parties were being formed daily. None, of which were really distinguishable ideologically from each other. Those fun days. There were the Japan New Party, with its new candidates and Sakigake another group of LDP renegades, among others, and the spectacular collapse of the Socialist Party, the traditional ineffective and permanent oppositional party.
It’s been said that that it would make more sense to realign lawmakers from the various parties into ideological differences instead of the hodgepodge of essentially independent versions of the traditional factions of the LDP, but that’s not going to happen.
There really isn’t a competition of ideas and ideologies in Japanese politics. You don’t see a debate over more or less government or alternative solutions to the declining economy. You have to remember that there isn’t a history or tradition here of real democracy, and I’ve never gotten a sense of any sort of political awareness during the 20 plus years I’ve leaved here.
I’d be interested to see if they can really pull off any fundamental changes, but I’m not holding my breath.
Ditto what TokyoPlayer says.
I think the Japanese media needs to change before the government does, otherwise it’s still a system entirely independent of the oversight of the general populace. If the government can do anything to change the future of Japan for the better, giving the media all the access that the US has to the government and governmental organizations (like the police) would be the biggest thing they could do towards real democracy.
I highly doubt that any such thing is in the making.
I gave my English conversation group the assignment of coming up with a few ideological differences between the LDP, DPJ, Happiness Realization Party, and a few others. It’ll be interesting to see if they can uncover anything.
