March 24, 2006; Volume 02, Number 12
of the
Japan Considered Podcast
[Listen to the audio file by clicking here]
Clink Links Below for Today's Topics
Good Morning from the beautiful campus of the University of South Carolina. Today is Friday, March 24 th, 2006. And you are listening to Volume 02, Number 12, of the Japan Considered Podcast.
Thanks for tuning in again this week. Both those of you who subscribe for regular delivery of the program. And those of you who download the program sound file or the transcript. You can find both at the Japan Considered Project website. That’s at www.JapanConsidered.org.
Japan Considered Project Interviews & Occasional Papers
Speaking of the Japan Considered Project, go on over to the Website and click on the Interviews section. There you’ll find an interview with John Campbell of the University of Michigan that I just completed. Very interesting material. John also contributed a paper to the Project’s Occasional Papers series. It’s entitled “Fragmentation and Power: Reconceptualizing the Japanese Decision-Making System.” So have a read. The paper’s much more interesting than the title makes it sound!
While you’re there, look through the other interviews. We now have thirteen. In addition to John Campbell, there are, in alphabetic order, Eric Gangloff, Ellis Krause, Robin LeBlanc, Edward Lincoln, James Morley, Skipp Orr, T.J. Pempel, Leonard Schoppa, Nathaniel Thayer, Cecil Uyehara, Ezra Vogel, and Dennis Yasutomo. I add an average of one a month to the list, as time permits. Drop me a line with suggestions of people you’d like to see added to the collection. The only requirement is that it be someone who’s made a significant contribution to the study of Japan’s domestic politics and/or international relations in English. And, of course, that they are willing to do a recorded telephone interview. Send the suggestions to JapanConsidered@gmail.com. [Return to Topics]
Lots going on in Japan this week that’s of interest to us. But in deference to time limitations, I’ll go directly to our main topic. T hat’s the second part of our consideration of the LDP presidential race and its significance for Japan’s domestic politics and international relations. Last week we covered the formal rules that govern the competition. Then we looked at the top two candidates – top at least for now. And finally we reviewed the 2001 LDP presidential race for hints of what may happen this September. That, of course, was the race that unexpectedly brought Junichiro Koizumi to the Party presidency and the premiership.
Conditions have changed since that contest played out across Japan. So, this week we’ll try to identify the most critical of those changes . Then we’ll consider how the new conditions will affect the intense competition among the current crop of candidates. I’ll end with presentation of what I see as two competing visions of what the LDP should be, and how it should be run. For lack of better names, I’ve labeled them “Factionists” and “Populists.” The struggle between these two groups for the soul of the LDP may have greater long-term importance for the Party than the winner of the race to succeed Koizumi. [Return to Topics]
First, overall timing. Koizumi continues to insist that he’ll step down from the Party presidency, and the premiership, at the end of this, his second full two-year term. That is, he won’t ask the Party to grant him an additional year in office. As mentioned last week, Party rules give presidents two full two-year terms, with the option of one additional year IF two-thirds of the LDP Members of the Lower and Upper Houses of the Diet agree.
Most commentators in Japan are taking Koizumi at his word. A few mention the possibility he might ask – or be forced – to serve an additional year. But nothing I have read or heard suggests that as likely. So, we too can assume that Koizumi’s term in office will end in September. That’s important. The competition would be far different today were Koizumi to hint even once that he might be persuaded to remain in office for another year. [Return to Topics]
We’re Still Watching a “Non-Race”
Next, keep in mind, we’re still watching “the preliminaries.” That too affects the current competition we’re seeing. Shinzo Abe has been dubbed the “front-runner” by the media. But he now serves in the Koizumi Cabinet. Two of the other three leading contestants also serve in the Cabinet. It would be unseemly for any of them to begin to openly campaign to succeed their boss while serving in his cabinet. How could they answer questions about how their policies would be different from Koizumi’s? And that, of course, would be the first question they’d face from the press. An impossible position. Yasuo Fukuda, crowned by the press as runner-up , is not now a member of the Koizumi Cabinet. But he too considers it too early to make anything like a formal announcement. So, for the next few months, we’re fated to observe a “preliminary non-race. ”
Everyone , of course, realizes the race actually has begun . Electoral strategies are being tested and re-tested. The media is in on the show. The “likely candidates” and their supporters all are working hard , and watching how the media reflects their efforts.
Front-runner Abe is doing his best to portray himself as both “young” and “mature.” And that without appearing to be just “young ” and “dull. ” The globe-trotting Fukuda is busy cultivating an image of actually being old enough to be prime minister, and yet still energetic. He’ll turn 70 in the midst of the campaign . On July 16 th , in fact. It will be interesting to see if the Japanese translation of “septuagenarian ” finds a place in his campaign literature after that 70 th birthday. Maybe not.
Abe restricts himself to sober expressions of support for the Koizumi Cabinet policies, domestic and international. But that’s about all he can do without resigning his position as Chief Cabinet Secretary. That position includes the thankless job of Chief Government Spokesman. Fukuda, on the other hand, has been going out of his way to appear more cooperative, or conciliatory, on foreign policy. Especially as related to China and South Korea. Last year he joined the group of Diet Members urging establishment of a new national war memorial, an alternative to Yasukuni. In public statements he suggests ways for prime ministers to express their respect for Japan’s war dead without visiting Yasukuni Shrine. All music to the ears of the LDP’s anti-Koizumi contingent.
So, all told, as a potential LDP presidential candidate, Yasuo Fukuda has been more interesting to watch than Shinzo Abe over the past few months. Most recently, Fukuda joined former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and other members of the Japan-South Korea Cooperation Committee , for a visit to South Korea. There they held meetings with their counterpart Korean organization. Fukuda and Nakasone then met with South Korean President Roh.
Press reports of that meeting gave Roh another opportunity to criticize Prime Minister Koizumi’s Yasukuni Shrine visits. Fukuda gravely replied that “revolutionary efforts” at the top are required to improve strained relations between the two countries. Fukuda is scheduled to visit several other countries during the next few months to enhance his foreign relations credibility. This is no random choice, of course. Foreign relations is an area in which Japan’s press has been describing Koizumi and his supporters as vulnerable.
Of course, the campaigns and the nature of the race will change significantly once we have formally announced candidates to watch. [Return to Topics]
Whither the LDP? “Factionists” vs “Populists”
Now a look at the LDP’s “Factionists” and “Populists.” Most observers agree that since its creation, the LDP has been a highly adaptable party. During the past five decades, it has survived dramatic changes in its domestic and international environments. Survived, and prospered! There’s no reason to believe this won’t continue for some time. Especially given the limited challenge the Opposition parties seem able to present. At least for now.
The LDP’s leaders have lived through all or most of the environmental changes the Party has experienced since 1955. They realize the importance of adapting to change. Disagreements among them occur over how best to accomplish that adaptation , without sacrificing their own, personal interests. Each leader’s ideas or specific proposals , then, represent a balance between efforts to maintain or enhance their own interests, and efforts to benefit the Party.
So, today, I see a competition between two general approaches to how the LDP should manage its affairs in the years to come. These contending approaches have been brought into sharper relief by the LDP presidential “pre-campaign” we’re watching now. For lack of better terms, I call them the “ factionists” and the “ populists.”
In the simplest terms, the “factionists” believe that the traditionally influential, personalistic factions about which so much has been written should continue to dominate LDP affairs. Especially the selection of the LDP president and members of the Cabinet. These factions produce leaders with the experience and associations necessary to manage the Party. And to do so effectively insulated from impulsive, and often ill-informed, popular opinion.
“Populists,” in contrast, believe the LDP can no longer afford to leave control of the Party in the hands of the elderly faction leaders and their lieutenants. Reliance on factions sends the wrong message to Japan’s voters – especially floating, or unaffiliated voters – they argue. Those voters, by definition, don’t belong to one of the enormously expensive koenkai maintained by politicians who themselves are usually members of one of the factions.
And, as the last general election demonstrated, appeals to those floating voters can win elections! Better to recruit candidates who can run credible campaigns that rely heavily on the media to reach voters, especially television. Most such candidates are relatively young, at least when compared to LDP faction leaders, and capable of debating political issues in public. Of course, Koizumi and his “assassins” in the last election are the best examples of such candidates, and of the Populists’ strategy.
The debate over factions is nearly as old as the LDP itself. Factions have been blamed for nearly every political ill known to Japan’s media. Political corruption, lack of decisionmaking transparency, cronyism … Did I mention corruption? The list goes on. Countless prime ministers committed to reform have entered office promising to abolish the LDP’s factions. Indeed, announcements of faction dissolution stacked vertically would constitute a small book. So, it’s rare to see reconstitution of factions, or expansion of factions’ roles, presented as progressive measures. How did that happen?
Junichiro Koizumi entered office committed to weakening, if not eliminating, the power of the LDP’s factions. He is the first prime minister in my memory to make good on his commitment. He employed the Populist strategy to gain office, and since April 2001 has applied the Populist strategy in pursuit of his administrative and political reform agenda. It has worked pretty well for him.
Now with Koizumi about to leave office, some senior LDP Factionists have seized the opportunity to strengthen their factions by making common cause with opponents of Koizumi’s domestic reform agenda or foreign policies. This alliance of convenience has resulted in discovery of some unexpected bedfellows. [Return to Topics]
The LDP’s Changing Environments
I believe that changes in the LDP’s domestic and international environments over the past decade or so tend to favor the approach of the Populists over the Factionists, at least for now.
Internationally , the Cold War is over. Japan now faces new challenges. The military alliance with the United States continues . But the quality of that alliance has changed. Japan has become more independent of Washington in many ways. American expectations of Japan, and Japanese popular expectations related to international affairs, both have changed. Japan’s political system now must produce top-level political leadership capable of responding to those changing expectations. This requires greater centralization of decisionmaking power within the central political executive . It also requires a prime minister able to respond more nimbly, and independently, to changes in the international environment. It seems likely that the Populist strategy, and its consequences for the central political executive, is more likely to produce that sort of leadership.
Japan’s domestic political environment also has changed in ways that favor the Populists. Most significant, perhaps, has been urbanization. This is nothing new. But the accumulated effect of the shift from village to city has important consequences for political organization and voter mobilization strategies.
It’s hard to organize young, socially and geographically mobile, urban residents into traditional koenkai-like voting blocs. Those urban “floating voters” require a different sort of appeal. If the LDP doesn’t provide that appeal, they’ll be available to vote for the candidates of other parties. And they will provide it. It’s important to recall that the LDP did remarkably well with these “floating voters” during last September’s general election. That demonstrated the “floating vote” does not belong exclusively to non-LDP parties.
The 1994 change in the electoral law also led to important changes in the LDP’s domestic political environment. The 1994 national election law was passed in a period of political reform passion. It replaced the larger multi-member districts with a combination of smaller single-member districts and proportional representation. Fairly generous state funding of campaigns was added too. This was done to reduce the need for candidates to accept illegal political funding.
The shift to single-member districts and the availability of government funding for campaigns both have weakened the LDP’s factions. Without their combined influence, it is unlikely that Junichiro Koizumi could have waged his anti-faction campaign so successfully. And five years of the anti-faction Koizumi premiership hasn’t helped the Factionists either.
Yesterday I telephoned Professor Nat Thayer and tried to get him to comment on the future of LDP factions. You can read a late 2005 interview with him on the Japan Considered website. He’s observed the factions from close-up for decades, and I suppose has written more about them in English than anyone else. He flatly refused to comment for the record. Said he didn’t have enough information.
Well! If Nat Thayer doesn’t have enough information, you can imagine the state I’m in! But he did say during our conversation that although the factions have been weakened, they are not going to disappear. They will continue to play an important role in running the Party, and even in selecting the next Party president. Though that role may be played more behind the scenes than it has been in the past. That will make it harder to know just what’s going on. [Return to Topics]
Here’s an example. One obvious indication of the resilience of factions can be seen in recent efforts to reconstitute the “Kochikai.” This is the LDP faction created by former Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda in the early 1960s. It has been somewhat more progressive than other factions in the Party. Leaders of the three splinter factions that once constituted the Kochikai recently agreed to form an “Asian Study Group.” They describe it as an effort to improve relations with China and South Korea.
It may be that. But it’s also a blatant effort to bring the three splinter factions together and reconstitute the old Kochikai. The leaders of this effort intend to support an LDP presidential candidate who has a chance of opposing Shinzo Abe. If, indeed, he turns out to be the one who carries the Koizumi Reform torch into the arena. And to oppose the anti-faction Koizumi reforms. Japan’s press has paid a lot of attention to the meetings of these three splinter factions. A reconstituted Kochikai would have around 77 or 78 members within the LDP, second only to the Mori Faction, of which Shinzo Abe is a member.
The Asian Study Group may, through opposition to any party presidential candidate pledged to continue Koizumi’s reforms, reconstitute the celebrated Kochikai. The degree to which the group will be able to influence LDP behavior, and selection of leadership, even if reconstituted, is another question again. [Return to Topics]
LDP Candidates Face Two Constituencies
A final point on the competition between Factionists and Populists for the soul of the Liberal Democratic Party. That involves how LDP presidents are selected. In practice, LDP presidential candidates must run two separate races: one to appeal to LDP Diet members; and one to appeal to the prefectural members and friends of the party.
Factionists have the advantage in the collection of Diet members’ votes. Its their primary reason for existing! And the Populists have the advantage in the prefectural branch elections. However, as noted last week, the prefectural branch elections must occur first.
By the time the LDP Lower and Upper House caucuses gather to cast their votes, one candidate is likely to stand as a clear winner of the prefectural branch elections. And be considered the “popular choice.” If that candidate wins in the prefectural branch elections as decisively as did Koizumi in 2001, it will be very difficult for the LDP Diet Members then to go against “the people’s choice” in favor of “the faction bosses’ choice.” The waters will be muddied if more than one candidate does well in the prefectural branch voting. [Return to Topics]
So there you have it. The LDP presidential race has significance for the LDP, and for Japanese politics overall, well beyond the selection of a new LDP president. This election represents the arena within which the Factionists and the Populists will compete to control the future of the LDP. To me it appears that the Factionists represent the past. A proud tradition, but the past. And the Populists represent a brighter future. For the LDP, and for Japanese politics as a whole. The outcome will affect how all LDP candidates for the Lower and Upper Houses of the Diet run their campaigns in the next general election, and the sort of political leadership Japan will have for a while to come.
Thanks for listening. Next week we’ll return to the standard format, focusing on the larger political significance of three or four events in the news during the week. Send your comments and suggestions to me at JapanConsidered@gmail.com. And go to the Japan Considered website for show notes, a copy of the audio file, and a transcript of this show. All available free of charge, of course.
Let’s go out this week with a few more bars if inspirational bluegrass from Tony Rice. Here he begins “Summer Wages,” recorded for Rounder in 1989. Enjoy.
[bluegrass clip]
Goodbye all. Until next week. [Return to Topics]
