(If we’ve talked about this before, I failed to find it.)
I noticed, while searching www.rulers.org, that the nations of Italy and Japan, compared to the rest of the First-World, had a large number of Prime Ministers.
With Italy, I understand it, because, while the Christian Democratic Party always had the most seats, they rarely had a majority, forcing a coalition.
With Japan, on the other hand, the Liberal Democratic Party (which has organized the Japanese government for all but 18 months in the last 55 years) rarely had to govern by coalition.
That being the case, why are Japanese Prime Ministers and Cabinet members usually (though not always) forced to leave office after serving relatively brief periods of time?
Here’s a PDF document showing all the Prime Ministers from 1945 to today, along with major poltical events during their tenure. As you can see, scandals and party infighting brought a number of them down.
Also, Japan seems traditional to step down to take “responsibility” for scandals. Remember the PM may not be the actual power guy pulling the strings behind the scenes.
“Sophisticated theories that see LDP cliques as de facto political parties vying with each other for influences in political decision-making are wrong. Habatsu (cliques) compete with each other for the prime ministership and for unmediated access to the bureaucracy in order to deliver on pork-barrel pormises… It is a power game, entirely bereft of meaningful political discussion, and one over which the voters exercise no influence at all…”
“The habatsu are a source of never-ending friction, and sometimes of such severe tension that the LDP appears on the verge of disintegration.”
So essentially it (lke virtually anything else in Japanese politics) comes down to pork-barrel money.
Both Japan and Italy have PR (Proportional Representation) electoral systems. It is a voting system that assures that the overall results are proportional to the distribution of votes. If a party receives 30% of the vote it will get approximately 30% representation. In that type of system your vote is always important. This system, whilst being very representative of the will of the people and very democratic, is notorious for producing very small majorities in their respective ‘houses’. Therefore it is hard for an administration (executive branch) to easily pass legislation and act as a strong government. Because it can produce such small majorities in the houses it can also lead to coalition governments where two parties unite together to gain power, this, therefore, causes the two power sharing parties to constantly negotiate and compromise with each other, this again causes relatively weak government.
As an example of a different system Britain uses the Plurality system (also known as First Past the Post). This is a majoritarian system which means the person with the most votes wins. A lot of votes can be wasted in this system but is can and does give large majorities and therefore stable government as legislation can be passed and the executive can function effectively.
E.g (UK) in one constituency if one person (Candidate A) got 18,000 votes and another (Candidate B) got 15,000 votes Candidate A would win and the 15,000 votes cast for Candidate B would be wasted. So, if one party managed to win each seat in the country by only a handful of votes the overall % of the votes could be pretty evenly divided between the two main parties but one party could control the vast majority of the seats because they just managed to win each time.
In the 2001 general election in the UK Labour (Tony Blair’s party) won 42% of the overall vote but holds 64% of the seats. This system rewards the winners and forgets the losers. The Liberal Democrats (3rd largest party in UK) won 19% of the overall vote but only holds 9% of the overall seats.
One problem with this is that the person who wins is the person with the most votes. So if one person wins 34% of the overall vote (in one area) and no one else can match that, that person will win the seat. But, that means 66% of the people didn’t want that person as their representative!!!
So, Britain has a history of stable government because it uses one electoral system that can greatly benefit one party. E.g Conservatives through the 1980’s (under Thatcher) and Labour in 1997 and 2001 elections. Many people want to see a different system in Britain, one more representative of the people. Many people (including the mentioned Liberal Democrat’s) want Proportional Representation. However, since the system rewards the largest party, therefore the party in power, the party in power really sees no need to change a system that benefits them.
So, Japan and Italy (notably both countries that had a huge political overhaul after World War Two) have “unstable” systems due to the PR.
(Okay, disclaimer bit. I may be wrong in some of what I have said and if so I apologise. However, I think that is all correct. If I am wrong please correct me. Also, I do not wish to sound patronising in what I say and to be honest I have written it in a simple style so I myself can get my head around it. I find some of it confusing. I have been studying Politics for one year; however my course mainly focuses on British (and next year) American politics).
Kris, only 180 of the 480 seats in the Japanese Parliament are elected by proportional representation. In addition, the LDP has, for the most part, been able to organize without a coalition.
Thank you Governor Quinn, As I stated in my post we don’t really cover other countries political systems in very much depth on the course I am currently studying. Also electoral systems was very early on in the course so I did it nearly a year ago. Thank you for correcting me.
Out of interest how are the other 300 seats elected?