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August 2008
Jun Saito is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University. This essay is based on his presentation at the FPRI Asia Program’s conference on Elections, Political Transitions and Foreign Policy in East Asia held in Philadelphia on April 14, 2008. For conference videotapes and reports, see www.fpri.org/research/asia/electionseastasia.
While conservatives have regained control of the executive branch in South Korea and Taiwan, in Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the conservative political force that has held steady control for more than five decades, is gradually losing ground. Shinzo Abe, a young hope of the LDP, stepped down abruptly in September 2007, a few months after the party’s historic defeat in the 2007 upper-house election, in which the LDP-Komei coalition lost control to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
In the LDP party presidential election held after Abe’s resignation, Yasuo Fukuda attracted wide support and recorded a landslide victory. It was expected that Fukuda, unlike the inexperienced Abe, could handle the difficult situation, given his moderate policy stance and well-rounded personality. Fukuda initially attempted to engineer a grand coalition with the DPJ, but to no avail. The DPJ has instead pursued a strategy of using its upper-house veto power. The prolonged policy gridlock is frustrating an increasing number of Japanese, and Fukuda’s approval rate has plummeted.
The stalemate can best be understood as an adjustment process to the 1994 lower-house electoral reform, which has increased electoral volatility and party-centered competition. This essay examines the likely consequences for Japan’s foreign policy.
The 1994 electoral reform marked a transition from a centrifugal system to a centripetal one. The old single non-transferable vote (SNTV) rule with multimember districts (MMD) gave political parties incentives to distance themselves from each other along the left-right spectrum.[1] Electoral rules based on the new single-member district (SMD), on the other hand, nudge major parties toward the center. This benchmark prediction is helpful in making sense of a gradual but steady change that has taken place in Japan’s political landscape over the past decade.
Under the old SNTV system, the largest opposition party was the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), which had a strong support base in labor unions. Its platform was highly ideological, and its foreign policy stance was far from pragmatic. For instance, it recognized the North Korean government as the only legitimate political entity on the Korean peninsula, and long argued in favor of non-nuclear neutralism. It regarded the Self Defense Force as unconstitutional. On occasion, centrist voters ended up casting protest votes for the JSP, even when they knew that the party’s policy position was far from their ideal.[2]
Unlike the JSP in the SNTV period, the DPJ is a moderate centrist party that is simply an alternative to the LDP. The DPJ has absorbed members from various parties, and although it is on average more liberal than the LDP, it is difficult to characterize it as leftist. In fact, Ichiro Ozawa, the current head of the DPJ, was formerly the LDP’s Secretary General.
Not only is the major opposition party centrist, but leftist parties are effectively disappearing from the political scene. The JCP has given up on its strategy of fielding candidates in all 300 SMDs. Since JCP supporters are unlikely to vote LDP, these former JCP voters will either abstain or vote for DPJ candidates, who, while generally much more conservative than JCP voters, are still ideologically closer to the JCP voters than LDP candidates are. More importantly, the JCP is in tough competition at the local level for support from low-income voters with the Komei Party, a political proxy of the Buddhist religious sect Soka Gakkai. Since Komei has forged a coalition with the LDP at the party-center level, the political logic of “the enemy of the enemy is my friend” is working in the electoral arena.
Coalition politics also determine the government’s policymaking. Since the LDP's recent electioneering efforts largely require Komei's organizational backing, government policies cannot deviate from Komei’s centrist preferences. Komei has advertised itself as the party for peace and situated itself in the center during the single non-transferable vote period. Although the conventional wisdom is that Komei is a strongly disciplined party where decisions made by the party leadership can penetrate into the lower tiers of the local organizations within a few days, the party has its internal governance issues.[3] Once the LDP government either pursues its conservative agenda or becomes tainted by corruption scandals, the morale of Komei activists will be crushed, which in turn will affect LDP's vote-getting capability (as evidenced by the miserable electoral defeat of the governing coalition in the 2007 upper house election).
Given this configuration of Japan’s political landscape, there are four possibilities for the two chambers to settle the current legislative stalemate. First, the LDP and DPJ could form a coalition to produce a majority in both chambers, but this has already been tried and did not work, lacking public support. Polls indicated that voters wanted to settle the difference by elections (Asahi Shimbun, November 5, 2007).
Second, the lower house could use the constitutional prerogative that a two-thirds lower house majority can override an upper house decision. This would be risky: overriding upper house decisions can attract criticism that the ruling coalition is ignoring the most recent Diet election results. If TV stations broadcast scenes of the ruling coalition ramming an unpopular bill through the lower house, there will be a large negative effect in the next general election.
Third, the prime minister could call a lower house election, but this would not resolve the problem of partisanship in the upper house. If the DPJ wins a lower house majority, there would be unified DPJ control of the legislature, which would yield a more efficient and effective policy making. No LDP incumbent prime minister would call an election if the DPJ’s victory is certain, but an early election probably would not yield a DPJ majority in the lower house. In order for the DPJ to seize control of the lower house majority and hence the cabinet, the party will need about three times the size of the national swing the LDP enjoyed in the 2005 election, which was a landslide LDP victory. Thus it is still premature to predict a new DPJ government, despite the low popularity of the Fukuda cabinet and weakening of the LDP’s local party organization. The LDP’s retaining a lower house majority is certain, but it is likely to lose its two-thirds majority. It is in the best interests of Fukuda (or his successor if any) to let the current term expire. Given the fixed term length of six years and the constitutional stipulation that only half of its members are up for election every three years, the DPJ’s control over the upper house will thus persist at least until 2010 and likely until 2013. This bicameral division of the legislature will immobilize the policy process and yield rigidity in policy making.
Fourth, if the DPJ successfully topples the LDP, there would be a unified control over both chambers. There may be an unprecedented tectonic break insidiously taking place in the Japanese political landscape. Rural voters who have suffered from Koizumi’s economic reform packages are beginning to discard their long-time partisan inclination toward the LDP. Pensioners have also been upset by the government’s mishandling of their past payment record as well as rising health care costs. As some of the LDP’s core supporters become potential swing voters in the upcoming lower-house election, which must happen by September 2009 at the latest, the DPJ may finally rise to power--recent public opinion polls indicate that the LDP-Komei coalition is trailing the DPJ. In the event the DPJ indeed controls the cabinet, however, the most likely result is an adherence to the status quo, given the nature of the party as a centrist pragmatist. What this series of considerations implies is that the status quo is likely to persist, whether or not divided bicameral control continues.
In the existing external environment, the current electoral institution predisposes politicians to make choices that will please centrist voters. Although electoral incentives and their change provide benchmark predictions about the direction of Japan’s foreign policy, not all aspects of a country’s foreign policy can be interpreted through this single lens. Many important changes are taking place both inside and outside Japan that are affecting the voters’ as well as political elites’ perceptions of security threats and their foreign policy preferences.
We can now observe the policy consequences of the 1994 reform in banking regulation and international finance[4] and on Japan’s trade policy, in particular protectionism in the agricultural sector.
First, the redrawing of district borders has magnified the voices of urban consumers and big businesses who could gain from free trade. Because the LDP must maintain a lower-house majority to sustain its power, it has adjusted its distributive policy programs to please urban swing voters, thus throwing away its loyal long-term supporters, in particular rice farmers. Dissatisfied farmers are beginning to cast protest votes for the DPJ, and in the upper house, rural farm votes are still significantly overrepresented.
Second, multimember district electoral systems provide the political elite with an incentive to cultivate support from special interests by providing thinly sliced benefits.[5] One would expect the new single-member district system to produce policies that favor public goods over special interests, and Japan's recent farm policy reform is most likely a reflection of shifting electoral incentives. Under the single non-transferable vote rule, the LDP sustained a significant boost from part-time rice farmers by providing subsidies and patronage jobs. Once the SMD rule took effect, the political benefits farmers could reap was no longer proportional to their mobilization efforts. Policy benefits were increasingly targeted to marginal districts, in particular urban districts where election results were more uncertain. The result was a cutback in protection for farmers, in particular the protection of small-sized rice farms. This tendency seems to be robust and is likely to continue; however, a new demand for agricultural protectionism may originate from the consumer side.
Unlike the foreign economic policy, where the utility calculation can be approximated by economic interests, other dimensions of foreign policymaking, in particular national security policy, involve perceived threats and national identity. Public opinion on Article 9 of the Constitution, the “peace clause,” is one useful indicator of popular preferences toward Japan’s increasing involvement in international security. Article 9 has effectively constrained Japan’s security policy, and the possibility of a constitutional revision has long been debated. Constitutional revision must be approved by a two-thirds majority in both chambers, and the amendment must be approved by majority of voters in a national referendum. Public support for constitutional revision increased in the 1990s as the political discourse began to focus less on pork barrel politics and more on Japan’s security policy and other public goods oriented issues.
The Diet since the early 1990s has spent significant amount of time deliberating how to cope with regional threats and conflicts, and in 2003 the potential dispatch of SDF troops to Iraq was also a topic for heated discussion. That debate culminated in June 2003 with enactment of the Emergency Contingency Bills, and the SDF was deployed to Iraq in December 2003. The Defense Agency was promoted to the status of Ministry of Defense in January 2007. By discussing these issues in public, the LDP-led coalition was able to reveal the heterogeneity of policy positions among DPJ legislators , damaging the reputation of the DPJ as a credible and cohesive alternative to the LDP.
The LDP-led government has achieved important security policy legislation by adopting a very liberal interpretation of Article 9. Ironically, since the LDP government was able to accomplish its security policy agenda without revising the Constitution, the momentum for a constitutional revision was gradually lost. The Japanese public already knows that the government can now pursue a wide variety of measures for “international contribution” even without constitutional revision, and since 2004, public support for constitutional revision has steadily declined. At least for the time being, the Japanese public opinion is reverting to the centrist position.
While Japanese public opinion favored constitutional revision, many Japan observers were concerned about the possible resurgence of nationalism and mistrust among East Asian countries. Comic books bashing Korea and China sold well, and Prime Minister Koizumi’s periodic visit to the Yasukuni Shrine also irritated Japan’s neighbors.[6] The question is whether these symptoms are sufficient evidence to warrant a revival of nationalism.
In a 2007 opinion poll, 78 percent of respondents identified themselves as patriotic (Asahi Shimbun, January 26, 2007). When asked whether they were ready to fight against foreign aggressors, only 33 percent answered yes. Another 33 percent answered that they would evacuate to other countries, and 22 percent that they would rather surrender. Comparative international opinion surveys also indicate that the Japanese are not particularly nationalistic or patriotic, and that, contrary to a widely held impression, a vast majority of the Japanese are sorry for Japan’s aggression to Asia before and during WW II.[7]
Nonetheless, political leaders with nationalist aspirations (e.g., Nakasone and Koizumi) have recorded decent approval rates over a long period of time. While acknowledging their own historical liability, the Japanese are also informed about the history that is taught in neighboring countries. It is possible that apology fatigue is already prevalent in Japan. The public at large is afraid of an apology’s generating endless cycles of apology, which could weaken Japan’s bargaining leverage.
When it comes to bilateral relations with important regional actors, the Japanese Cabinet Office has conducted opinion polls since the mid 1970s that typically asked if the respondents feel affinity (shinkinkan) toward Japan’s important diplomatic partners. Affinity for the United States has remained positive notwithstanding periodic tensions in U.S.-Japan relations relating to military misconduct or basing sites. Both the LDP-Komei coalition and the DPJ regard the stability of the U.S. security alliance as the cornerstone of Japan’s security policy.
In contrast, Japanese perceptions of neighboring countries have oscillated widely in the last few decades. Prior to 1989, Japanese affinity for China was roughly comparable to affinity toward the U.S.; but after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the affinity level dropped from 69 percent to 52 percent, where it remained until August 2004, when the Japanese national soccer team was booed in the Asia Cup tournament games in Chongqing. The situation was exacerbated further by the series of anti-Japanese demonstrations in several Chinese cities in 2005. Japanese public opinion currently is sympathetic after the Sichuan earthquake in May and approves of the Chinese government’s decision to accept outside assistance, in particular the Japanese rescue team. But it is far from certain to stabilize. The Japanese news media has paid significant attention to the recent turmoil in Tibet as well as anti-China protests against the Olympic torch relays in various parts of the world. Although the Japanese media reported these incidents in a reserved way, skepticism toward China had been widespread. This was especially the case after several Japanese citizens fell ill after eating poisoned dumplings imported from China. While foreign policy issues have rarely affected the voting behavior of the Japanese public, the issue of food safety can have tangible effects on the approval rate of the current administration. Fukuda’s reticence on the poisoned dumplings has adversely affected his approval ratings, just as a few months earlier South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s approval ratings plummeted due to his reopening of the Korean market to beef imports form the U.S.
The Fukuda administration has adopted a pro-China policy, in sharp contrast to the policy of his recent predecessors. Both Koizumi and Abe distanced themselves from Asian nations and placed more emphasis on U.S. relations. In particular, Abe’s diplomatic strategy included an initiative for an “arch of freedom and prosperity” extending from the Pacific rim to Europe. Over the past year, this eloquent terminology has disappeared from the Japanese Diplomatic Bluebook. Japanese diplomacy had rarely been this idealistic, and this initiative in one sense was a historic watershed in Japan’s foreign policy. Seen from a different perspective, however, this initiative was little more than a containment strategy against China and North Korea.
The Japanese public has rarely shouted for freedom and human rights in foreign countries; rather, the policy discourse in Japan has been considerate of the diversity of historical development paths each country could pursue, and liberals have usually tended toward pro-China positions out of war guilt. This configuration may shift, however, toward a more principled orientation toward human rights and democracy. If so, business interests alone might not be enough to soothe widespread misgivings about China.
While the Japanese perception of China is deteriorating, there are signs of improving relations between Japan and South Korea. Although the percentage of respondents who have a friendly perception toward South Korea declined in 2005-06, in general there has been gradual improvement since the late 1990s. The 2002 joint sponsoring of the FIFA games improved the Japanese perception of South Korea briefly, and Korean-made soap operas have become increasingly popular in Japan. Although there are wide varieties of diplomatic issues between the two countries, ranging from the Dokdo/Takeshima disputes to the more recent Eastern Sea/Sea of Japan debate, polls indicate that soft-power diplomacy has probably been missing in international relations in East Asia for too long.
Among Japan’s neighbors, North Korea has long been at the center of Japan’s electoral politics, especially during the Koizumi administration. The sad story behind the abduction of Megumi Yokota, who disappeared from the coastal city of Niigata at the age of 15, has been a popular topic for news shows since the late 1990s. While the tragedy that befell this young woman and a dozen others cannot be overemphasized, it is also apparent that the Koizumi administration took advantage of this issue for electoral purposes. Although Koizumi’s negotiations with Kim Jong-Il on behalf of Japanese detainees and abductees achieved results Koizumi could claim credit for, his North Korea policy gradually lost track of the key security threat to Japan: nuclear weapons. These episodes epitomize how immediate electoral interests could overshadow long-term vital national security interests.
Public opinion in Japan indicates a pattern of stability, although exogenous shocks occasionally perturb the public perception toward Japan’s neighbors. Given the existing configuration of partisanship and institutional constraints, policymaking will be contained within a narrow, centrist band. This status quo will probably persist on many issues in the foreseeable future.
Despite changes in the external environment, policymaking in Japan is likely to exhibit robustness and rigidity. In the economic dimension, policymaking will emulate the liberal market model, although the pace of adjustment will be slow. And there seems to be little cause for concern about Japanese foreign policy following a wildly erratic path. Although Japan will pursue a more active role in the international system, the range of choices will stay limited and moderate.
Over the very long run, if Japan strictly respects the logic of balance of power, it will secure itself by going nuclear, as Kenneth Waltz predicted more than a decade ago. However, in the nearer future, Japan is highly unlikely to deviate from its status quo position. Even though it may pursue a normal country status, its basic policy stance will be nothing more than a willing alliance partner of the United States.
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