Is there any hope for Japan’s politics to change despite the continuing rule of the ironically hated Liberal Democratic Party? Well there is hope and several reasons that would support an affirmative answer but then again, realistically speaking, the wanted change in Japan’s politics would not surface in the near future. I would divide my blog into two parts, the first part why it could be said that the political change could happen and the second part why there is still pessimism for this change to happen.
Yes
Internationally Speaking
It could be said that the policies of the former Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Yasuo Fukuda aim to build strong ties with the United Sates of America through aiding the Bush administration in their attack against terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Koizumi deployed Japan Self-Defense Forces to Iraq and in October 2001 they were given greater scope to operate outside of the country. In relation to that, Fukuda pressed on with his promise to continue the mission of allowing Japanese oil tankers to provide fuel for American ships involved in military operations by using the LDP's 2/3 majority in the lower house to win successful passage for the bill despite the opposition and rejection of the upper house. The course of politics in Japan was changing in those instances because it showed the rest of the world that Japan was not only focusing on its domestic problems anymore but also engaging in international crisis specifically terrorism. Adding on, the main factor that could have made Japan address international problems through the use of their strong military capabilities was the expansion of Korea’s and China’s military funding. Japan was placed in a position wherein being a pacifist country had to be amended because it could actually endanger the state since her neighbors were growing militarily stronger.
Show Off
It is good to note that two candidates who won as Prime Minister were showing their personalities in public which was something not usual for the Japanese society. The former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi did not hide his huge interest on Elvis Presley and even visited his museum in Graceland together with Elvis’ ex-wife and daughter. The current Prime Minister Taro Aso showed his great liking for manga and even implemented a policy to give awards to manga artists. This showed that the Japanese politics was starting to be liberal and open minded to the outside world and politicians were starting to be open about themselves. This was good because this allowed the citizens to feel a connection with the people running their country rather than a distant feeling.
Self Destroyer
The long rule of the LDP could be broken through its own self because whenever their candidate wins as prime minister and does some drastic change, they leave him alone and the party breaks into two; those who support the prime minister and those who do not. The former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe was left alone after he appointed some people who destroyed the credibility of his rule. Despite the fact that Abe was a safe choice of the LDP compared to Koizumi, the party once again left him and found someone better to replace him with. The LDP could be said to be an ambitious party because it seems that all they care is to prolong its name to be untainted. They are good in choosing quality leaders however they are also good in dropping them when the leaders are placed in state crisis.
The Younger Generation
Whenever the younger generation is asked about their opinion about their country’s politics, they would say that they are getting sick of the long rule of the LDP because nothing seems to change in their country. These younger generation wants a better change especially since their lifestyles are becoming more materialistic and liberal so the problem of unemployment in the country definitely hits their nerve. Since the younger generation is starting to rage on the long rule of the LDP then it is possible that they are the hope for a new party’s candidate to sit as prime minister.
No
Blind Spot
For some reason Japan does not want to identify the problem in their society thus they could not fix it. The reason for Japan’s society not wanting to see the problem could be attributed to their strong pride and high belief about their nationality. They believe that they are the descendants of the Sun goddess thus they are perfect individuals living in a perfect Japan. The politics in Japan could not change if people do not want to accept that the party ruling the society for a long time is a big problem. Adding on, whenever the prime ministers had successfully identified problems in the society and would want to pass on bills that would resolve the problems, their popularity in the society decreases. It is totally absurd but true. When it also comes to voting candidates, the people highly prefer those candidates who do not address deep issues of the society such as corruption and international concern but prefer those candidates whose concern are only to make Japan look perfect. So how can there be a change in Japan politics when the people turn blind to accept that there is a big problem in it?
Playing It Safe
Voters want to play it safe when choosing their leaders so despite the imposition of the Two Party System wherein they are given the right to vote their own choice of candidate as prime minister, there is a great number of people voting the party to choose the candidate. This works to the LDP’s advantage because the people believe that the party has a better candidate compared to other’s. Japanese voters do not want to think for themselves because they believe that those in higher positions have better choices despite it not being true all the time.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Long Developing Party
It seems like a great conspiracy that the Liberal Democratic Party more commonly knows as the LDP is winning even though a majority of voters do not like or better yet hate t. Believe it or not, it is surprising to know that the LDP only has a one digit numbered supporters since 1963. So the great question is how come the LDP continues to garner a great number of seats despite of the voter’s hatred toward the LDP? The first thought that came to my mind was the possibility of an election cheat however Japan was not like the Philippines therefore all votes actually came from the voters and not what we call in the Philippines as the “ghost voters”. This is what we call as an “uncommon democracy” wherein a party continues to win despite low support from the people. There are two main important reasons why this happens to the LDP wherein this reasons really do justify the “great conspiracy.
Quality Please
The LDP wins not because people vote for the party but because of the candidate they are voting. The new election institution introduced in 1994 wherein there would be a mix member system meaning that the voter would be given two ballots each, one ballot for candidate one ballot for the party is an advantage to the LDP because they have strong candidates compared to the opposing party who has weak candidates. LDP has “quality candidates” meaning that people are more likely to vote candidates who already had an experience in government or what Jacobson labels as the “quality candidate”. This candidate could have acquired their experiences from local offices, being a former member of upper house of parliament, being a former bureaucrat, or being a mayor or governor. Quality also extends to the name recognition of the candidate wherein he/she could have been a newscaster or inherited a seat from the family member. I could understand why the voters would want a quality candidate because like the Japanese voters, I want to vote for someone who already knows how things are done inside the government. A candidate who already had an experience serving the people would have been already honed as a good government official. He or she is passed the stage of trial and error so that candidate could be assured when given the chance to serve the people once more, the candidate would have lesser failures compared to the new candidate. However, this is not always true because there are candidates who never had a chance to work inside the government but would definitely serve the people better than those “quality candidates.” Well, even though this is sometimes the case, a known candidate despite his or weakness would still win simply because we all feel more assured to trust someone known.
Pipe It Up
Since the LDP had acquired the majority of seats from the central government, it assures them seats from the local to the national level of government, thus the opposing party finds it impossible to acquire their “quality candidates. So how does this thing works? First, it starts with clientelism wherein the voters are greatly influenced by their Japanese culture of being idealistic. Japanese voters prefer a representative who addresses safe issues such as water line improvement, construction of dam, and so on. They do not want candidates who address heavy controversies because the Japanese see their state as a perfect one so any tinge of negativity from the part of the candidate regarding Japan would definitely lose him a great number of votes. As a result the government officials spend a large amount of money building projects to create a perfect looking society. In fact, the local government spends more than the allotted allowance for projects. The next question is where do the candidates get the money to build their projects? In Japan, there is what they call a financially centralized systems wherein the local government because of their over expenditure could acquire the needed money from the central government. However, not every local government official could get the money, not unless they have powerful a connection which is their political party. This is what they call as the “piping effect” or “pipu effect” for the Japanese. A great number of seats already belong to the LDP which means that LDP local government officials get a great deal of projects done but those who are not LDP don’t. This in effect makes LDP more and more appealing to the voters because fiscal dependence is important to local elections. Of course, voters would vote a candidate who has the ability to actually make the projects he or she preached which is why a well connected candidate, wins. This is a vicious cycle because this doesn’t give the non-LDP candidates a chance to have an advantage over the LDP candidates.
Future Mayhem
In conclusion, does the opposing party have any chance to win over LDP? Well maybe in some parts of Japan such as the rural area but when it comes to the urban areas, then it’s a different case. Rural areas tend to be more conservative to the Japanese culture and they greatly need more projects. So the LDP is more appealing because from the voter’s point of view, LDP could change the society for the better. However for the voters from the urban areas, they could see the real world and that change could occur even though LDP wouldn’t lead the country. Maybe in the future, the opposing party could top of LDP but that would take more years to come because idealism and conservatism is still paramount in Japan which makes LDP very attractive even though despiteful.
Quality Please
The LDP wins not because people vote for the party but because of the candidate they are voting. The new election institution introduced in 1994 wherein there would be a mix member system meaning that the voter would be given two ballots each, one ballot for candidate one ballot for the party is an advantage to the LDP because they have strong candidates compared to the opposing party who has weak candidates. LDP has “quality candidates” meaning that people are more likely to vote candidates who already had an experience in government or what Jacobson labels as the “quality candidate”. This candidate could have acquired their experiences from local offices, being a former member of upper house of parliament, being a former bureaucrat, or being a mayor or governor. Quality also extends to the name recognition of the candidate wherein he/she could have been a newscaster or inherited a seat from the family member. I could understand why the voters would want a quality candidate because like the Japanese voters, I want to vote for someone who already knows how things are done inside the government. A candidate who already had an experience serving the people would have been already honed as a good government official. He or she is passed the stage of trial and error so that candidate could be assured when given the chance to serve the people once more, the candidate would have lesser failures compared to the new candidate. However, this is not always true because there are candidates who never had a chance to work inside the government but would definitely serve the people better than those “quality candidates.” Well, even though this is sometimes the case, a known candidate despite his or weakness would still win simply because we all feel more assured to trust someone known.
Pipe It Up
Since the LDP had acquired the majority of seats from the central government, it assures them seats from the local to the national level of government, thus the opposing party finds it impossible to acquire their “quality candidates. So how does this thing works? First, it starts with clientelism wherein the voters are greatly influenced by their Japanese culture of being idealistic. Japanese voters prefer a representative who addresses safe issues such as water line improvement, construction of dam, and so on. They do not want candidates who address heavy controversies because the Japanese see their state as a perfect one so any tinge of negativity from the part of the candidate regarding Japan would definitely lose him a great number of votes. As a result the government officials spend a large amount of money building projects to create a perfect looking society. In fact, the local government spends more than the allotted allowance for projects. The next question is where do the candidates get the money to build their projects? In Japan, there is what they call a financially centralized systems wherein the local government because of their over expenditure could acquire the needed money from the central government. However, not every local government official could get the money, not unless they have powerful a connection which is their political party. This is what they call as the “piping effect” or “pipu effect” for the Japanese. A great number of seats already belong to the LDP which means that LDP local government officials get a great deal of projects done but those who are not LDP don’t. This in effect makes LDP more and more appealing to the voters because fiscal dependence is important to local elections. Of course, voters would vote a candidate who has the ability to actually make the projects he or she preached which is why a well connected candidate, wins. This is a vicious cycle because this doesn’t give the non-LDP candidates a chance to have an advantage over the LDP candidates.
Future Mayhem
In conclusion, does the opposing party have any chance to win over LDP? Well maybe in some parts of Japan such as the rural area but when it comes to the urban areas, then it’s a different case. Rural areas tend to be more conservative to the Japanese culture and they greatly need more projects. So the LDP is more appealing because from the voter’s point of view, LDP could change the society for the better. However for the voters from the urban areas, they could see the real world and that change could occur even though LDP wouldn’t lead the country. Maybe in the future, the opposing party could top of LDP but that would take more years to come because idealism and conservatism is still paramount in Japan which makes LDP very attractive even though despiteful.
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