Generational Gap in Japanese Politics

A Longitudinal Study of Political Attitudes and Behaviour

Willy Jou, Masahisa Endo

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137503404
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137503428
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

After decades of stable and seemingly semi-permanent single-party dominance, Japanese politics have gone through fundamental changes since the early 1990s. Government ministries have been reorganised, prime ministerial powers strengthened, and rules for electing the lower house of parliament overhauled. Furthermore, frequent formation, merger, splintering and disappearance of new parties have continued for more than two decades.

How do citizens make sense of politics amidst such rapid shifts? The authors address this question by focusing on attitudinal and behavioural changes and continuities with respect to political ideology. They explore what issues citizens associate with ideological terms, where they perceive various parties on a conservative-progressive dimension, and to what extent ideology affects their vote choice. Results of new surveys are also presented to shed light on distinctions between different ideological labels and profiles of radicalright supporters. In addition, all topics are discussed with an eye to identifying divergent patterns between older and younger generations.

 

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Willy Jou and Masahisa EndoGenerational Gap in Japanese Politics10.1057/978-1-137-50342-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Willy Jou¹ and Masahisa Endo²

(1)

School of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan

(2)

Faculty of Humanities and Economics, Kochi University, Kochi City, Kochi, Japan

Abstract

Japanese politics, known for its seemingly immutable stability through most of the latter half of the twentieth century, have witnessed dramatic changes in recent years, most visibly through landslide election results and power alternations, but also with respect to the dynamics of party competition and policy making. Each of these developments represents a significant break with patterns to which politicians, voters, the media, and scholars had long become accustomed during nearly four decades of continuous dominance by a single party (1955–1993).

End Abstract

1.1 Japanese Politics in Flux

Japanese politics, known for its seemingly immutable stability through most of the latter half of the twentieth century, have witnessed dramatic changes in recent years, most visibly through landslide election results and power alternations, but also with respect to the dynamics of party competition and policy making. Each of these developments represents a significant break with patterns to which politicians, voters, the media, and scholars had long become accustomed during nearly four decades of continuous dominance by a single party (1955–1993).

Japan used to have one of the most stable party systems in the world, often referred to as the ‘1955 system’. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), founded in 1955, maintained a parliamentary majority and held the reins of power for 38 consecutive years. The durable ‘1955 system’ finally came to an end in 1993 when the LDP lost its legislative majority and was relegated to the opposition by an eight-party non-LDP coalition. The giant conservative party suffered from an internal split, with defectors establishing two new parties ¹ that played a central role in giving birth to the non-LDP coalition. Although the LDP quickly maneuvered back into office in 1994, this was made possible only by accepting a prime minister from the much smaller Japan Socialist Party (JSP), its main competitor and persistent critic under the ‘1955 system’.

The end of the ‘1955 system’, and in particular an overhaul of the electoral system enacted by the non-LDP coalition, made coalition rather than single-party government the norm. Despite being the largest party in parliament for 15 years (1994–2009), the LDP was compelled to cooperate with a series of small parties, initially JSP and Sakigake, later Komeito and other small conservative parties, ² in order to secure its hold on government. When the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power in 2009, it did so with two small coalition partners. ³ And the LDP’s return to government in 2012 meant a resumption of its coalition with Komeito.

The aforementioned electoral reform represents a watershed in Japanese political history. The previous single non-transferable voting (SNTV) system, first introduced before World War II, decisively shaped election campaigning, legislative behavior, and policy-making process (Ramseyer and Rosenbluth 1993; Kohno 1997; Tatebayashi 2004; Scheiner 2005). For example, having a district magnitude of three to five led candidates (especially those from the LDP) to run candidate- (not party-) centered campaigns, rely on factions rather than party leaders, and seek support from particularistic interests in their constituencies. Critics pointed to these factors as causes of corruption. A parallel mixed system (also known as mixed-member majoritarian system) was adopted in 1994 with the aims of facilitating party-centered elections and a two-party system under which the main parties could alternate in power. ⁴

In the two decades since its enactment, electoral reform has had substantial ramifications. LDP factions have weakened as party leadership gained increasing control and imposed tighter discipline on backbenchers, and elections today are more genuine national competitions rather than an agglomeration of local contests (Krauss and Nyblade 2005; McElwain 2012; Reed et al. 2012). The wide swings of the electoral pendulum in terms of parties’ legislative seat shares seen in the 2005, 2009, and 2012 general elections testify to the powerful effect of the new electoral system.

Since the early 1990s, the Japanese party system has been in constant flux. With the exception of the Japan Communist Party (JCP), all parties experienced splits and mergers. A number of new parties appeared, but most did not remain long on the political stage. The JSP, by far the largest opposition party under the ‘1955 system’, is now a shadow of its former self, occupying only a small number of seats. In the 1990s, the New Frontier Party (NFP) briefly sought to fulfill the role of the main contender for power against the LDP. After its implosion, the DPJ, established in 1996, assumed this mettle by absorbing a right-wing group from the Social Democratic Party (SDP; formerly JSP), a number of ex-NFP members, and the Liberal Party. The DPJ gained office in 2009, but was widely seen as having mismanaged its three years in power. Its poor record not only brought the LDP back to power, but also encouraged internal splits ⁶ and the growth of so-called third forces (e.g. Your Party, YP; Japan Restoration Party, JRP).

The institutional and party system changes summarized above have transformed the setting of Japanese politics. A large number of articles and books have described, analyzed, and attempted to forecast political changes, at the levels of both elites and ordinary citizens, with particular focus on how they have responded to vicissitudes in economic and geopolitical conditions, as well as the overhaul of the electoral system two decades ago (Reed et al. 2009; Kabashima and Steel 2010; Schoppa 2011). However, we lack sufficient knowledge about the extent to which voters have reacted to these political changes over time. Most individual-level studies are limited to only one or two electoral cycles and discuss trends across the entire electorate. While providing detailed information on salient issues at each given point in time, such an approach does not allow one to observe either long-term changes and continuities or differences within segments of the population. These are the vacuums that the present book seeks to fill.

1.2 Party Competition and Ideology

To set the scene, it is useful to provide a brief overview of how dimensions of party competition have evolved. Under the ‘1955 system’, the main axis of contestation pitted the conservative (hosyu) LDP against the progressive (kakushin) JSP. This conservative–progressive axis mainly revolved around security and constitution issues, including highly charged debates over the US–Japan security treaty (Kabashima and Takenaka 1996, 2012; Otake 1999). Conservatives pushed for closer cooperation between the two countries, while the progressive camp advocated neutrality and revocation of the treaty. This is intricately tied to stances on constitutional revision. Whereas the LDP advocated the revisions of the post-war constitution, in particular Article Nine (the so-called no-war clause), which prohibits the nation from maintaining a military and engaging in wars, the JSP presented as its guardian.

Compared with these issues, economic questions that structure the ideological space in many other democracies played relatively little role in shaping the ideological paradigm in Japan (Otake 1999). The LDP was supported by both agricultural and corporate sectors, and sometimes resorted to borrowing from JSP policies, as typified by the expansion of welfare provisions in the 1970s (Kalder 1991). While the JSP was backed by labor unions, the LDP gradually became a catchall party supported by farmers, medium-sized companies, as well as big business. During the 1970s the JSP sought to attain power by constructing an anti-LDP alliance along with two smaller opposition parties, Komeito and the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP). ⁷ In several major cities, the progressive camp managed to win gubernatorial and mayoral elections, but by the end of the 1970s its unity had fractured, with Komeito and the DSP gradually shifting toward the conservative side and seeking cooperation with the LDP.

The end of Cold War in the early 1990s shook the post-war ideological paradigm to its foundations. Moreover, the almost simultaneous end of the ‘bubble economy’ presented a serious challenge. Corruption and bribery scandals in the early 1990s raised calls for reforming the electoral system, a cause seized by some LDP members as justification for their defection.

After the 1993 general election, new parties jumped into the political arena, rendering voters less sure about relative party stances. This was partly responsible for a marked increase in independent or floating voters, which came to encompass half the electorate. The pillars of post-war party politics were collapsing. The unexpected JSP–LDP coalition government sent a clear signal to the public that the ‘1955 system’ had come to an end, but no new axis of party competition emerged. Since the late 1990s, the DPJ has succeeded in presenting as an alternative ballot choice against the LDP. But the inclusion of both ex-Socialists and conservative groups within its ranks prevents this party from projecting a clear message to voters on what it stands for.

To explore how Japanese voters have reacted to these changes, this volume focuses on the themes of ideology and generational differences. The ideological schema constitutes a map through which voters try to make sense of the political world, understand where parties stand on various issues, and make choices at the ballot box accordingly. Voters can utilize simplified axis of party and policy competition to comprehend and summarize complicated details of politics. Thus, it is important to know whether and how ideology has played a role in the minds of voters and impacted their decisions.

The theme of generational differences warrants special attention when one investigates causes and consequences of changes in voter ideology. One might expect that different configurations of party competition and types of salient political issues before and after the end of the ‘1955 system’ would lead to diverging trends between voters who were socialized during each period. If citizens’ beliefs about the political system and perception of party stances are shaped by experiences in their formative years, then it is not unreasonable to hypothesize a generational gap between older and younger cohorts in Japan with respect to their attitudes and behavior as a consequence of drastically altered political contexts. The existence and magnitude of this generational gap will be the major subject of investigation in the following pages.

1.3 Organization of the Book

Utilizing public opinion data dating back to the early 1980s, the first part of this book investigates changes in attitude and behavior of voters over the course of more than a quarter-century. After the stable and long-lasting ‘1955 system’ came to an end, the 1990s and 2000s saw a party system in flux, with frequent emergence, split, merger, and disappearance of actors on the electoral stage. The rapidity of these developments, and the background of important and long-term economic and geopolitical shifts such as the advance of globalization against which they have taken place, would lead one to expec...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Understanding Ideological Semantics
• 3. Perceptions of Parties’ Ideological Locations and the Generation Gap
• 4. Ideological Voting: Generational and Educational Effects
• 5. Comparing Ideological Labels
• 6. Profiling Radical Right Support
• 7. Conclusion
• Backmatter