Dynasties and Democracy

The Inherited Incumbency Advantage in Japan

Daniel M. Smith

• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781503606401
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Campagnes politiques et élections

Although democracy is, in principle, the antithesis of dynastic rule, families with multiple members in elective office continue to be common around the world. In most democracies, the proportion of such "democratic dynasties" declines over time, and rarely exceeds ten percent of all legislators. Japan is a startling exception, with over a quarter of all legislators in recent years being dynastic. In Dynasties and Democracy, Daniel M. Smith sets out to explain when and why dynasties persist in democracies, and why their numbers are only now beginning to wane in Japan—questions that have long perplexed regional experts.

Smith introduces a compelling comparative theory to explain variation in the presence of dynasties across democracies and political parties. Drawing on extensive legislator-level data from twelve democracies and detailed candidate-level data from Japan, he examines the inherited advantage that members of dynasties reap throughout their political careers—from candidate selection, to election, to promotion into cabinet. Smith shows how the nature and extent of this advantage, as well as its consequences for representation, vary significantly with the institutional context of electoral rules and features of party organization. His findings extend far beyond Japan, shedding light on the causes and consequences of dynastic politics for democracies around the world.

ONE

Introduction

Dynasties in Democracies

At the antipodes of the monarchical principle, in theory, stands democracy, denying the right of one over others. In abstracto, it makes all citizens equal before the law. It gives to each one of them the possibility of ascending to the top of the social scale, and thus facilitates the way for the rights of the community, annulling before the law all privileges of birth, and desiring that in human society the struggle for preëminence should be decided solely in accordance with individual capacity.

—Robert Michels (1915, p. 1)

On April 1, 2000, Prime Minister Obuchi Keizō of the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan suffered a sudden stroke at the age of sixty-two and later died following a monthlong coma.¹ As prime minister, Obuchi had been described as having “all the pizazz of a cold pizza” because of his bland personality and style.² However, as a candidate for the House of Representatives, the lower and more powerful chamber of Japan’s bicameral parliament, the National Diet, he had been extremely successful. Obuchi’s father had been a member of parliament (MP) in the House of Representatives for Gunma Prefecture’s 3rd District until his death in 1958. In 1963, at the age of twenty-six, Obuchi ran for his father’s old seat and won his first election. He went on to win eleven consecutive reelection victories, and earned more than 70 percent of the vote against two challengers in his final election attempt in 1996.

In the June 25, 2000, general election held shortly after his death, the LDP nominated Obuchi’s twenty-six-year-old daughter, Yūko, as his replacement. Yūko had quit her job at the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) television network to become her father’s personal secretary when he became prime minister in 1998. In her first election attempt, she defeated three other candidates with 76 percent of the vote. Since then, she has consistently won between 68 percent and 77 percent of the vote in her district and has faced only weak challengers from minor parties. The LDP’s main opposition from 1998 to 2016, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), fielded a candidate against her only in the 2005 general election: a thirty-six-year-old party employee with no prior electoral experience.³ He managed to win only a quarter of the vote in the district.

A young and politically inexperienced woman like Obuchi Yūko would normally be considered a weak candidate in Japan, where the average age of first-time candidates is forty-seven, and female candidates are rare (Obuchi was one of just five women nominated in a district race by the LDP in the 2000 election). Yet by virtue of her family background, and no doubt aided by sympathy votes after her father’s death, she enjoyed an incredible electoral advantage in her first election—both in terms of her name recognition with voters and in terms of the lack of high-quality challengers—and this advantage continued in subsequent elections. In 2008, after just three election victories, she became the youngest cabinet minister in postwar Japanese history when she was appointed minister of state in charge of the declining birthrate and gender equality in the cabinet of Prime Minister Asō Tarō. Few other LDP MPs have advanced to positions of power in the cabinet as quickly.

The Puzzle of Dynasties in Democracies

This book is about the causes and political consequences of dynasties in democracies. It examines the factors that contribute to their development over time and across space, and the advantages that members of dynasties, such as Obuchi Yūko, enjoy throughout their political careers—from candidate selection, to election, to promotion into higher offices in cabinet. It also considers the potential consequences of dynastic politics for the functioning of modern representative democracy. More specifically, the research design employed in this book takes advantage of institutional change in the country of Japan to help shed comparative light on the phenomenon of dynasties across democracies more generally. The aim is to improve our understanding about how dynastic politics have evolved over time in Japan, as well as how Japan’s experience might provide insight or lessons for understanding dynastic politics in other democracies around the world.

How might we conceptualize “dynasties” in democracies? Dynasties are, of course, common at the executive level in nondemocratic regimes such as monarchies or personal dictatorships. An autocratic ruler can often successfully anoint a family member as his (it is almost always “his”) successor when the party system or leadership selection mechanisms are weak, and the extant power distributions among the broader elite are sustained (Brownlee, 2007).⁴ An example is North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, who came into power in 2011 as the “Great Successor” to his deceased father, Kim Jong-il, who himself became supreme leader following the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994. Another example is Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who inherited his position in 2000 from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria in a personal dictatorship since 1971.

But that similar dynasties should continue to exist in democracies seems to run counter to widely held normative visions of democratic opportunity and fairness—even given the fact that members of dynasties must ultimately be popularly elected. The democratic ideal that “all men are created equal” should presumably extend to the equality of opportunity to participate in elective office, such that no individual is more privileged simply by birth to enter into politics. We might therefore expect democratization to catalyze an end to dynasties, as all real democracies eventually provide for the legal equality of all citizens to run for public office, barring minor restrictions based on place of birth, residence, age, or law-abiding conduct. Even before full democratic reform, modernization and the rise of capitalism should contribute to the decay of the traditional patrimonial state, such that historically dominant families should begin to “fade from macropolitics” (Adams, 2005, p. 29).

And yet throughout the modern democratized world, it is still possible to find powerful political dynasties—families who have returned multiple individuals to public office, sometimes consecutively, and sometimes spanning several generations. It is not uncommon for parties and voters to turn to “favored sons,” “democratic scions,” or the “People’s Dukes” for political representation, despite the availability of less “blue-blooded” candidates.⁵ Recent prominent examples from outside of Japan include President George W. Bush and Senator Hillary Clinton in the United States, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Canada, Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband in the United Kingdom, President Park Geun-hye in South Korea, Marine Le Pen and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen in France, Prime Minister Enda Kenny in Ireland, President Benigno Aquino III in the Philippines, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in India, Alessandra Mussolini in Italy, and Tzipi Livni in Israel.

Defining what exactly constitutes a dynasty can be complicated given the variety of family relationships and levels of government in which family members might serve. In this book, a legacy candidate is defined as any candidate for national office who is related by blood or marriage to a politician who had previously served in national legislative or executive office (presidency or cabinet). If a legacy candidate is elected, he or she becomes a legacy MP and creates a democratic dynasty, which is defined as any family that has supplied two or more members to national-level political office.⁶ This definition of what constitutes a dynasty is more liberal than that used by Stephen Hess (1966, p. 2), who defines a dynasty in the American context as “any family that has had at least four members, in the same name, elected to federal office.” The definition used here is not limited to dynasties with continuity in surname. In addition, only two family members are necessary to constitute a dynasty, rather than four members, which would limit the scope of the analysis to countries, such as the United States, with a longer democratic history. The definition also does not require that a legacy candidate be a member of the same party as his or her predecessor, or run in the same electoral district, although both conditions generally tend to be the case. Family members can serve consecutively or simultaneously, with the exception that two family members first elected at the same time would not constitute a democratic dynasty.

By this definition, Japan stands out among democracies for its high proportion of legacy MPs. Figure 1.1 shows the average percentage of legacy MPs among all MPs elected in the past two decades (1995–2016) in twenty-four democracies for which data are available. Since the 1996 general election, more than a quarter of all MPs in the Japanese House of Representatives have been members of a democratic dynasty, a fact that puts Japan, along with Ireland and Iceland, in the company of economically developing and younger democracies like Taiwan, the Philippines, and Thailand (the most dynastic country for which data are available). Greece, Belgium, and India occupy what might be considered the middle stratum of dynastic politics, with between 10 percent and 15 percent of members in recent years coming from democratic dynasties.⁷ In most other democracies, legacy MPs tend to account for between 5 percent and 10 percent of parliament. This level of dynastic politics might thus be considered a “normal” level for healthy democracies. Among the democracies for which comparative data are available, Germany appears to be the least prone to dynastic politics, with less than 2 percent of members of the German Bundestag in recent years counting as legacy MPs.

FIGURE 1.1 Prevalence of democratic dynasties around the world

SOURCES: Thailand (2011): Thananithichot and Satidporn (2016); Philippines (1995–2010): Querubín (2016); Iceland (1995–2013): biographical archive of the Althingi; Taiwan (2001–2012): Batto (2015); Greece (2000–2012): Patrikios and Chatzikonstantinou (2015); Belgium (1995–2012): biographical archive of the Chamber of Representatives and online biographies; India (2004–2009): Chandra, Bohlken, and Chauchard (2014); Denmark (2011): Ekstra Bladet newspaper; Portugal (2005–2011): compiled from online biographies and local and national newspaper reports; United Kingdom (1997–2010): van Coppenolle (2017) and House of Commons Library; South Korea (1996–2012): National Assembly Museum and website; Argentina (1995 only): Rossi (2017); all other data are part of the Dynasties in Democracies Dataset (see Appendix B).

NOTE: Bar values represent the average percentage of legacy MPs in each country (lower chamber only) elected between 1995 and 2016 (as noted in sources). Observations across elections are pooled, so individuals who served multiple terms are counted multiple times. Data for the Philippines are based on a proxy measure matching names. Data for India do not include relations to members of the upper house (Rajya Sabha). All other data are based on verified biographical information.

What accounts for this variation across democracies, and for the high level of dynastic politics in Japan? It is perhaps unsurprising that dynasties might abound in nascent and developing democracies, where the economic rents from political office are often greater than the opportunities for riches outside of public office. If access to political decision-making authority enables politicians to live considerably better than their constituents, then this should provide greater incentives for such elites to seek to maintain their grip on power. The pool of elites who are interested, eligible, and qualified for public office may also be shallower in new and developing democracies. Members of the elite ruling class may be among the few with the education, wealth, and other technical skills and resources necessary to be effective candidates and policymakers.

Similarly, a lower supply of high-quality non-legacy candidates might help to explain a high proportion of dynasties in small democracies such as Iceland. The Icelandic Althingi contains just sixty-three seats and represents a population of only about 320,000 people (more than half of whom live in and around the capital of Reykjavík). A smaller-sized parliament also means that even a small increase or decrease in the raw number of legacy MPs can mathematically have a big effect on the overall proportion in parliament.⁸ We might expect to find similarly high proportions of dynasties in other small countries, such as the island democracies of the Pacific and Caribbean. For example, President Tommy Remengesau Jr. of Palau is the son of a former president, and Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga of Tuvalu is the brother of a former prime minister.

However, economic development in larger democracies should be expected to eventually lead to a decline in dynasties, in part because it should broaden the structure of political opportunity so that a more diverse range of citizens will be qualified and able to get involved in politics, including through direct participation in elective office. The development of competitive and programmatic political parties should further limit the power of dynasties and increase the opportunities for capable outsiders to enter politics. Indeed, in nearly all established democracies, the trend over time has been a decrease in dynasties since democratization.⁹ In the United Kingdom, for example, the proportion of legacy MPs in the House of Commons declined from more than 30 percent in the late 1800s to less than 10 percent in recent decades (van Coppenolle, 2017). The proportion in the Swiss National Council peaked at around 19 percent in 1908, then gradually dropped to less than 6 percent by the 2000s. In Italy, the proportion of legacy MPs in the Chamber of Deputies declined from roughly 13 percent in the immediate postwar period to less than 5 percent today. Dynastic membership in the Canadian House of Commons reached its zenith of 11 percent in 1896, and today is also less than 5 percent.

In the United States, despite several high-profile legacy candidates among presidential hopefuls in recent decades—such as Al Gore, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Rand Paul—the general trend in Congress has also been a decline in dynasties.¹⁰ In the early decades of American democracy, over 15 percent of members of the House of Representatives were related to a previous member of Congress (either chamber) or the president. However, in recent decades, members of such dynasties have accounted for only around 6 percent to 8 percent of members (Dal Bó, Dal Bó, and Snyder, 2009; Feinstein, 2010). Dynasties have elicited a considerable amount of attention in the US media in recent years, but their prevalence in Congress is actually comparable to the prevalence of dynasties in most other developed democracies.

In striking contrast, Japan witnessed a steady increase in dynasties for several decades following democratization. After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the US Occupation (1945–1952) introduced universal suffrage and equality of eligibility for public office, and enshrined these rights in the postwar Constitution of 1947.¹¹ Since then, despite rapid economic growth and the legal opportunity for all citizens to participate in politics, the proportion of legacy MPs in the Japanese House of Representatives subsequently crept upward, toward a zenith of over 30 percent by the late 1980s. Dynasties have been particularly prevalent within the conservative LDP, which has been the dominant party in Japan since its formation in 1955. Over time, the proportion of dynasties in the LDP swelled—from less than 20 percent of elected members in 1958, the first election after the party’s founding, to over 40 percent by the early 1980s. Moreover, nearly half of all new candidates for the LDP in the 1980s and early 1990s were legacies.

In contrast, the share of legacy MPs in the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), the LDP’s main opposition on the left until 1993, rarely exceeded 12 percent. In the third largest party, the religious party Kōmeitō, the average was just 5 percent. In the center-left DPJ, the proportion was initially over 25 percent, owing to the numerous former centrist members of the LDP who joined the party after it was founded in 1996. However, the DPJ subsequently recruited fewer new legacy candidates, and the proportion of legacy MPs in the party declined to around 16 percent. As a result, when the DPJ won a landslide victory over the LDP in 2009, the proportion of legacy MPs in the House of Representatives dropped to 22 percent—still high by comparative standards but the lowest proportion in Japan since the 1960s. In the 2014 House of Representatives election, 156 out of 1,191 candidates were legacy candidates (13 percent); however, 125 of these legacy candidates won, so legacy MPs accounted for 26 percent of the 475 MPs in the chamber. Ninety-eight (78 percent) of these legacy MPs were members of the LDP.

Such a disproportionately large presence of dynasties in a long-established and economically advanced democracy like Japan runs counter to our expectations for how the nature of political representation develops over time in democracies, as well as widely held normative visions of democratic opportunity and participation—particularly when the trend over time is toward more dynasties rather than fewer. Elections in Japan are free and fair, and the country does not suffer from the severe economic inequality or lack of social mobility and access to higher education that may pose barriers to greater participation of non-legacy candidates in developing democracies. With a population of over 120 million people, it is also difficult to believe that there are simply not enough willing or qualified non-legacy candidates available to run for public office.

How have dynasties managed to persist and multiply, particularly within the LDP, despite the lack of formal barriers to candidacy for all eligible citizens? What is it about democratic dynasties like the Obuchi family that allows them to thrive across multiple generations in an advanced industrialized democracy like Japan? Do legacy candidates possess special advantages, such as name recognition, familiarity with politics, or financial resources above and beyond those o...