Women and Political Inequality in Japan

Gender Imbalanced Democracy

Mikiko Eto

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000283204
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Governo americano

Why are there so few Japanese women involved in the political system? In 2019, Japanese women made up 10% of the national Lower House, 21% of the Upper House, and 14% of local assemblies. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, this places Japan 164th out of 193 countries when it comes to women's representation in the legislature. The percentage of women in the Lower House has only increased by fewer than two percentage points since women gained full suffrage and the right to stand for election in Japan in 1946. Eto analyses the various factors that have led to women's low presence in the Japanese legislature. She evaluates ways in which it might be possible for Japan to catch up and, in doing so, examines how Japanese society continues to perpetuate gender-rigid expectations of people.

This text is a valuable study for scholars of Japanese politics and society, and for readers with an interest in the broader issue of the representation of women in politics.

1Introduction

Japanese women were granted the right to vote and stand for elections on December 17, 1945. Suffrage was won by women 20 years after universal men’s suffrage had been established. Subsequently, the 22nd general election of April 10, 1946 gave them the initial occasion not only to cast their ballots but also to engage in their own election campaigns. In the election, female candidates numbered 79. Of them, unexpectedly, 39 women were elected, accounting for 8.4% of all Lower House members. Thereafter, however, women’s presence in the chamber has stagnated severely. The current proportion is 10.1% (as of the 2017 election). The proportion of women Lower House members increased by a mere 1.7 percentage points for seven decades. This book focuses on the low number of women in the Japanese legislature. Notably, it aims to determine the causes of gender inequality in Japan’s democratic politics.

The proportion of women among all (national) parliamentarians in a country is an important measure of the democratic extent of politics. The underrepresentation of women is often considered a “democratic deficit” by international supervisory agencies, such as the Commission on the Status of Women in the United Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (Sawer, Tremblay, and Trimble 2006: 1). These agencies regularly monitor the proportion of women legislators in each country and create world rankings to draw attention to the status of women parliamentarians. The UN Commission on Women, specifically, puts pressure on member governments to improve gender equality in legislatures immediately and significantly. Male-dominated Japanese politics, at this point, is a blot on democracy.

Previous studies have evaluated Japanese democracy from a policymaking standpoint. Bradley Richardson (1997: 248–251), in his examination of Japanese politics between 1955 and 1993, defined it as “bargained distributive democracy,” where policy is made through interacting negotiations among individual legislators, political parties, interest groups, central governmental ministries, and local governments. Takashi Inoguchi and Purnendra Jain (2011) called Japanese politics in the first half of the 2000s, when Junichiro Koizumi served as prime minister, “kabuki democracy.” Kabuki, which emerged in the early 17th century in Japan, is a traditional performance art with extravagant shows composed of dramas and dances.¹ The kabuki performance, according to Inoguchi and Jain (2011: 1), developed as a form of public entertainment “not for the narrow elite but broadly for the hoi polloi,” striking “a deep emotional chord with audiences.” Prime Minister Koizumi, meanwhile, made an emotional connection with Japanese voters to gain their support for his policies. Inoguchi and Jain thus compared Koizumi’s decision-making style to the kabuki performance.

My evaluation of Japanese democracy, rather than policymaking styles of legislators, highlights the membership of Japanese legislatures, particularly its gender balance. I observe the state of women in legislative bodies with a crucial scale of gauging the extent to which democracy in Japan is mature. Through discussing the representation of women, I attempt to assess the democratic degree of Japan’s political institutions and society. In this introductory chapter, I first examine the state of Japan’s democratic politics. The second section discusses women’s representation, seen from a recent feminist discourse in which political representation is not limited to legislatures as it holds a wider possibility for women’s political influence. The third section gives overviews of previous studies relevant to the goal of this book. Finally, I present a brief introduction to each subsequent chapter.

Women are not the sole disadvantaged group in politics. Men who are members of racial and ethnic minorities, and men with disabilities, as well as sexual minorities, are also marginalized in politics. Like women, they must often put up with having their voices go unheard. However, women, who make up half of the population, have more visible legislative disadvantages than do members of these other groups. Elucidating women’s second-class status in legislatures makes reference to the experience of other politically marginalized people. Many of women’s representational problems are translated into those of other marginalized people; improving women’s underrepresentation thus transforms liberal democracy into a more inclusive and diverse regime. My case study of women’s representation, in this respect, will suggest that Japan’s democratic politics do not work for socio-cultural or physical minorities either.

Level of democracy in Japan

Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers on August 14, 1945. In consequence, the General Headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (the so-called GHQ), was set up in Tokyo on October 2, 1945 to demilitarize the country. The GHQ, led by the United States of America, launched Japan’s transformation into a democratic regime. Since then, democracy has been integrated into post-war Japanese society and is established in today’s Japan. Pippa Norris (2004: 26–29) categorized Japan as an older democracy. However, Japanese people do not always appear to be confident of the quality of democracy in their country; for example, an opinion poll on democracy, conducted by a civic group called the Genron NPO (translated as “non-profit organization of speeches”) between May 19 and June 3, 2018, showed that 43.2% of the respondents answered that democracy is functioning in Japan, whereas 33.4% responded that it is not.² The respondents who conceived of Japan’s democracy as dysfunctional provided various reasons by choosing multiple options out of 15 examples. Of these items, the top five choices were the prime minister’s less democratic stance (42.2%), distrust of dysfunctional political parties (39.5%), superficial discussions in the Diet—Japan’s national parliament, composed of two houses, the Lower House, or House of Representatives, and the Upper House, or House of Councilors—(34.4%), low levels of voter turnout (32%), and voters’ indifference to politics (28.1%).

The Democracy Index (DI), reported by the Economist Intelligence Unit, provides more objective information on the status of Japan’s democracy.³ The DI assesses the levels of democracy in 165 countries and two territories (Taiwan and Hong Kong) based on five indicators: the electoral process and pluralism, functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture, and civil liberties. Each indicator is scored on a 10-point scale, with the highest score being 10 and the lowest, 0. A country’s overall score is expressed by the average of these five indicators. The DI divides a country’s democratic degree into four types, according to the overall score of a state or territory. States or territories with a score of more than 8 points are categorized as full democracies; those with a score between 8 and 6.01 are flawed democracies; those with a score between 6 and 4.01 are hybrid regimes; and those with a score of 4 or less are authoritarian regimes. The numbers of countries or territories within each category are 19, 57, 39, and 52, respectively.

Japan ranks 23rd with 7.88 points (overall score); it is thus defined as a flawed democracy (as of 2017). Table 1.1 shows the changes in Japan’s ranking over the last decade. The table reveals three characteristics. First, the score for democratic political culture⁴ decreased to 7.5 after 2010. The level of Japanese public trust in democracy decreased, corresponding to the results of the abovementioned poll. Second, the score for civil liberties remained at 9.41 until 2014, but dropped to 8.82 in 2016 and 2017. One reason for this drop is that the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets (SDS) was enacted in 2013 and came into effect in 2014.⁵ This regulation caused public anxiety about civil rights violations. On November 20, 2014, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government sent a document to five nationwide commercial broadcasting stations, requesting them to report equal, neutral, and fair news about the coming general election (Asahi Shimbun November 29, 2014: 16). The document naturally met with fierce opposition from the stations. Since then, there has often been tension between the LDP and some media that are critical of the party. Japan’s freedom of the press has become fragile, thereby downgrading its score for democratic political culture.

Table 1.1 Changes in Japan’s scores of Democracy Index

		2017	2016	2014	2012	2010	2008	2006
Overall score		7.88	7.99	8.08	8.08	8.08	8.25	8.15
	Electoral process and pluralism	8.75	8.75	9.17	9.17	9.17	8.75	9.17
	Functioning of government	8.21	8.21	8.21	8.21	8.21	8.21	7.86
	Political participation	6.11	6.67	6.11	6.11	6.11	6.11	5.56
	Democratic political culture	7.5	7.5	7.5	7.5	7.5	8.75	8.75
	Civil liberties	8.82	8.82	9.41	9.41	9.41	9.41	9.41

Source: Data on 2016 index, available at: www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex2016; data on 2014 index, available at: www.sudestada.com.uy/Content/Articles/421a313a-d58f-462e-9b24-2504a37f6b56/Democracy-index-2014.pdf; data on 2012 index, available at: https://civitanaorg.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/democracy-index-2012.pdf; data on 2010 index, available at: https://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf; data on 2008 index, available at: http://graphics.eiu.com/pdf/democracy%20index%202008.pdf; data on 2006 index, available at: www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_TABLE_2007_v3.pdf.

Lastly, the score for political participation remained lower than any other: it did not reach seven points. The indicator of political participation is composed of the following nine items: (1) turnout for national elections, (2) degree of autonomy of socio-cultural minorities, (3) proportion of women in national parliament, (4) membership of political parties and other citizens’ political organizations, (5) citizens’ engagement with politics, (6) preparedness of populations to participate in lawful demonstration, (7) adult literacy, (8) scope of adult populations interested in and following political news, and (9) serious effort by the authorities to promote political participation. Among these, the seventh item (adult literacy) alone gives the country a high score.⁶ Japan cannot take pride in the other items. Voter turnout and women’s presence in national parliament, particularly, lower Japan’s political participation score. Tables 1.2 and 1.3 show Japanese voter turnout in the Diet elections and the proportions of women elected, respectively.

Table 1.2 Proportion of turnout and women legislators in Lower House elections, Japan

Year	Turnout (%)	Elected women (%)
2005	67.5	9
2009	69.3	11.3
2012	59.4	7.9
2014	52.7	9.5
2017	53.4	10.1

Source: Data on elections, Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications, available at www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/index.html.

Table 1.3 Proportion of turnout and women legislat...