Questions on Kabuki Democracy

8/12/2019 Questions on Kabuki Democracy

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Questions on

KabukiDemocracy:

The

JapaneseElectoral

SystemPOS 272.2: Government and Politics of Japan

2 August 2014


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Taisho democracy


3/19

The National Diet

Two Houses:

House of Representatives (

Shgiin)

House of Councillors (Sangiin)


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Which is Japans?

House of Representatives (Shgiin)

480 members, elected for a four-year term.

300 members from single-memberconstituencies

180 members (since 2000 elections, from the

original 200 of the 1993 reforms) from 11

multi-member constituencies via party-listsystem of proportional representation

Minimun age requirement is 25 years old

241 seats are required for majority.


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Which is Japans?

House of Councillors (Sangiin)

242 members with 6-year terms

Minimum age at least 30 years old

Cannot be dissolved

121 members per election cycle:

73 from the 47 prefectural districts (SNTV);

48 from open-list proportional representation


6/19

Which is Japans?

New Japanese Electoral System(Christensen 1996) Hybrid of Plurality and PR systems

Legal Barriers to Smaller Parties a party that won only 3 percent of the vote in [a]

district would win one seat but party would not beeligible to win any PR seats unless it first received 3percent of the total nationwide PR vote

Dual Candidacies and Identical Rankings Redistricting was fixed to avoid gerrymanders

Campaign finance reforms forbidcontributions to individual candidates


7/19

Foreseen Issues (Christensen

1996) Nature of Political Parties: electoral reforms

increase the likelihood that coalitiongovernments will become common partyrealignment that has occurred will makecoalition governments much more common in

Japan (52) Reforms have little effect on money politics

and corruption

Women representation may actually be

stunted by dual-listing Ticket-splitting

Primacy of party organizations: runningindependent more difficult

Issue-based electoral competitions morelikely


8/19

Questions on Party Dynamics

(Curtis 2004) Modern political party ideal does not reflect

real electoral competition: catch all partiesbecomes the norm

It is not the electoral system but rather basicchanges in Japanese society and inJapanese peoples attitudes and values thatare driving changes in voting behavior (7-8).

the problem with a lot of the reforms that areregularly proposed to improve Japanese

politics is that they deny politics itself. In theend, the model of political behavior thatseems to be so popular in Japan is the modelof an idealized bureaucratic state (11).


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Hence, kabuki democracy.


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Major Parties

Party

Diet Representation

Party LeaderRepresentatives

Councillors

Liberal Democratic Party(LDP)Jiy Minshu-t

,

or Jimin-t

295 115ShinzAbe PM Reps.

Democratic Party of Japan(DPJ)Minshu-t("Democratic Party")

57 59BanriKaieda Reps.

Japan Restoration Party(JRP)Nippon Ishin no Kai 53 9

ShintarIshihara Reps.TruHashimoto (Mayor of Osaka)

New Komeito(NKP)Kmeit

("Clean Government", "Fairness" or"Justice Party")

31 20NatsuoYamaguchiCoun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Restoration_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Komeitohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Komeitohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Restoration_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democratic_Party_(Japan)


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Other parties in the Diet

Party

Diet Representation

Party Leader(s)

Representativ

es

Councillor

s

Your Party(YP)

Minna no T

("Everybody's Party")

18 18Yoshimi Watanabe

Reps.

Japanese Communist Party(JCP)

Nihon Kysan-t

8

11

Kazuo Shii Reps.

People's Life Party(PLP)Seikatsu no T

7

2

IchirOzawa Reps.

Social Democratic Party(SDP)

Shakai Minshu-t

2 3Tadatomo Yoshida

Coun.

Green Wind

Midori no Kaze

2

0

Kuniko Tanioka Coun.

New Party DaichiTrue Democrats

Shint Daichi Shinminshu

1

0

Muneo Suzuki

New Renaissance Party(NRP)

Shint Kaikaku

("New Reform Party")

0 1 Hiroyuki Arai Coun.

Okinawa Socialist Masses Party(OSMP)

Okinawa Shakai Taisht

0 1 Keiko Itokazu Coun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Communist_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Life_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(Japan)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Windhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Renaissance_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Social_Mass_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Social_Mass_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Renaissance_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Party_Daichi_%E2%80%93_True_Democratshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Windhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(Japan)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Life_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Communist_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Diet_of_Japanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Party


12/19

Is the PM becoming

presidential?


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HoR composition (46th, 2012)


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HoC composition (23rd, 2013)


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Participation was already an

issue.


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The 2012 HoR elections

Reed et. al., 2012: voter turnout declined from a record high (for

the current electoral system) of 69%nationally in 2009 to a record low of 59.3% in

2012 Factors for DPJ loss: incumbentDPJ became enormously unpopular;

turnout declined precipitously, and hurt

the DPJ disproportionatelyafter all, its 2009triumph had required the votes of a lot ofunattached voters;

[s]ince no other party assumed [mantle of non-LDPvote]with the exception of the JRP in the areas

around Osakathe non-LDP vote was scattered,and the LDP reaped the benefits,


17/19

Current Questions

The subsequent majority victory of the LDP-Komeito coalition in the HoC last 2013suggests a Diet firmly in the hands of LDP,fueling claims of continuity & stability. Butdoes policy makeup suggest the same?

Is religious affiliation really a growingmobilizer in party politics (and subsequently,elections)?

What do we say of the rightward swing?

What does it pose for Japanese domesticand international affairs?

Coalition politics is supposedly becomingmore and more normal. How does it play toan increasingly anti-political electorate?


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Activity

Given 50 minutes of researching thecurrent policy proposals and strengths

of all the existing parties in light of

Japans political situation, make anattempt to predict likely electoral

behavior by 2016.


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For further reading

Raymond V. Christensen, The NewJapanese Election System, in Pacific

Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Spring, 1996),

pp. 49-70.

Gerald Curtis, Japanese Political

Parties: Ideals and Reality, RIETIDiscussion Paper Series 04-E-005.

2004. pp. 1-17.

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