THE ＧＬＯＢＡＬＩＺＡＴＩＯＮ ＆ ＧＯVＥＲＮＡＮＣＥ ＰＲＯＪＥCＴ， ＨＯＫＫＡＩＤＯ ＵＮＩＶＥＲＳＩＴＹＷＯＲＫＩＮＧ ＰＡＰＥＲ ＳＥＲＩＥＳ

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The Failings and Potential of the DPJ Administration
Jiro Yamaguchi, Hokkaido University

jyam@juris.hokudai.ac.jp＊

Translated from an original article in Japanese written forJapan Echo Web. [July 2010].

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THE FAILINGS AND POTENTIAL OF THE DPJ ADMINISTRATION
Yamaguchi Jiro
It would be impossible to overstate the momentous nature of the September 2009 changeof government as a milestone in Japan’s political history. The advent of an administration
led by the Democratic Party of Japan made possible the disclosure of previously hidden
information and a number of changes in existing policies. Some of the new developments
would have been inconceivable under the Liberal Democratic Party, including the
expansion of social welfare and the budget-screening review of existing programs, which
cut into bureaucrats’ established interests. I would reiterate that these policy changes areof tremendous significance.
Needless to say, there is also disappointment in the lost opportunities resulting from theweakness in leadership of the administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama,
including frailty among the politicians making it up and the lack of strategy in its actions.
What is required now, however, is not the wringing of hands over the administration’s
failings and the poor quality of its leadership. We need to reflect once again on what the
DPJ should have been aiming to accomplish by taking power and take a long hard look at
the reasons why it has not been able to meet its proper objectives.
What Should the Change in Administration Have Been About?
The ideals that the DPJ should properly have been pursuing could be described as three“posts.” The first of these is post–Cold War. This would include the reconsideration ofJapan’s subservience to America’s unilateral military actions and the creation of peace inAsia. The Hatoyama administration did point its agenda in that direction, with an active
stance on nuclear disarmament, support for the creation of an East Asian community, andefforts to get the US Marine base in Futenma moved overseas.
The second “post” is post-materialism. This consists of noting the limits to growth andshifting to an economic paradigm for which the key is sustainability. Prime Minister
Hatoyama pledged to move in this direction, setting forth a commitment to cutting
Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. In addition, Hatoyama championed the ideathat the economy should be for the people.

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The third “post” is post-authoritarianism. This consists of strengthening the role ofcitizens and building an open and multicultural society. In this connection, the DPJ has
declared its support for married couples being allowed to keep their own names and for
citizen activism.
As has been briefly shown here, the DPJ initially showed a proper sense of direction withrespect to these ideals. Prime Minister Hatoyama set forth this sort of thinking in his
policy speeches to the National Diet, delivering a message that was quite different fromthat of previous prime ministers. The fact that the people had such great expectations of
the Hatoyama administration probably came from the fact that this new thinking
resonated with them. At the same time, there was strong resistance from those who yearn
for the days of the Cold War and authoritarianism, inasmuch as this vision broke with thepatterns of the old era. It is in the face of this sort of resistance that the resolve of thehead of the ruling party is tested.
In the world of political science, there is something called the “median voter theory.”
Assuming that the horizontal axis is the normal distribution of public opinion, the theoryis that the gap between political parties disappears as the parties and candidates insingle-seat electoral districts draw closer to the preferences of the median voters who
account for the largest number of voices. However, this hypothesis did not hold true forthe 2009 change of government. This could be because the theory is based on theworkings of the political world in Europe, where there are changes in government every
decade. In Japan, bringing down the long-entrenched LDP amounted to a regime change
and the DPJ, in calling for a change of government, was able to propose policies thatwould have been absolutely impossible for the LDP. Some of the policies stressed by the
DPJ, including its positions on the base at Futenma and on environmental issues, werein acute contrast to those of the LDP.
It is easy to set forth new ideals when making speeches. The true value of politicians andan administration can be seen in whether, on receiving criticism and coming under attackfrom the opposition, they can they respond with appropriate rebuttals and push ahead
with their own policies. Unfortunately, in this respect as well, the DPJ’s resolve has been
inadequate, and when it has run into opposition, it has wavered noticeably. It has havealso been lacking in the knowledge and strategies for turning its ideals into concrete
policies. I would like to analyze these limitations.

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Failings in Methods of Government
One can point to the twin factors of mistakes in the systems for operating theadministration and the ruling party and weakness in political ideals as the reasons for thestalling of the DPJ administration.
I would like to start by examining the situation from the errors in the operating system of
the administration and the ruling party. The first thing that needs to be pointed to is thelack of political leadership. The DPJ stressed that it would end domination by thebureaucracy and implement political leadership. But the Democrats had failed to think
through the significance of what they were proposing, either in terms of bureaucratic
domination or in terms of political leadership.
What exactly is “bureaucratic domination” supposed to mean? It cannot refer to asituation where bureaucrats stand up to the government and forcibly block the policies
that politicians are trying to implement, since that is simply not possible under theConstitution of Japan. The Diet alone can pass laws and set the budget. If a majority ofDiet members declare their will, bureaucrats cannot say no to them. If bureaucrats
sometimes seem to take the upper hand, it is in areas like the decentralization of power
and the reordering of spending priorities, where they take no action to change the statusquo—and where politicians cannot form a consensus. In other words, if the politicians in
the ruling party could pull their opinions together, they could immediately end
bureaucratic domination and exert political leadership.
If one thinks about it, “political leadership” is a strange expression. The idea is thatpoliticians lead, but there is no indication of what they lead. Even if politicians cry outthat they make the decisions, there is no actual political leadership unless there isagreement among the politicians of the ruling party about what is to be decided.
The second problem is the illusion that surrounds the unification of the government andruling party. After it took power last year, the DPJ abolished its Policy ResearchCommittee in the name of government-party unity. At the root of this was criticism of thefact that when the LDP was in power, Diet members in special interest groups used thatparty’s Policy Research Council to advance their own arguments, at times in opposition
to the government, throwing policy decisions into a deadlock. However, abolition of the
DPJ’s PRC resulted in major problems for the administration. Because the Democrats-3-tpsapaper.doc

had not analyzed the reasons why the LDP policy study groups had brought about thecompartmentalization and decay of the policy-making process, the organizationalchanges that were implemented were irrelevant. The fact that the LDP’s council became ahotbed of special-interest politics and bureaucratic domination was because all thedivision-level discussions were in the hands of bureaucrats. If the DPJ had been able toturn its PRC into a forum for politicians to have policy discussions on their own initiative,
it would have enhanced the ability of ruling-party legislators to form policies, and this
could have become an organ promoting the political leadership that the DPJ was seeking
to implement.
However, with the abolition of the Policy Research Committee, the vast majority of DPJ
lawmakers—all but the few with cabinet-level or other senior posts within thegovernment—lost the opportunity to play a role. In addition, it became impossible forelected politicians to receive information feedback and grasp the needs of regions andvarious organizations and groups.
In terms of actually formulating policies, it is vital both to receive input on outside needs
and to make adjustments that involve the ruling party as a whole. In its belated realizationof this, the DPJ moved towards unified feedback and adjustment through the secretary
general’s office. However, this resulted in something of a dictatorial system under
Secretary General Ozawa Ichirô.
In addition, even after the change in government, the fact that it was stillbusiness-as-usual in terms of deliberations in the Diet was one of the reasons for thewilting of expectations with regard to the DPJ. When the Democrats were in opposition,
they criticized the fact that the LDP at the time did not respond to legitimate debate andwould simply use its numerical strength to enact bills. However, on coming into powerthemselves, the Democrats did nothing more than continue like the LDP, operating theDiet in a way they had formerly criticized. The negative effects of this became noticeable
when suspicions about money in politics into a political controversy. When public
criticism grew concerning doubts about the political funding of both Prime Minister
Hatoyama and Secretary General Ozawa, the DPJ ignored the demands of the oppositionand did not respond to questions or follow-ups at the Diet. If the DPJ truly wants to bringabout a renewal in Japan’s democratic politics, it should not cover up its own scandals,
and should accept criticism while promoting information disclosure.

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Also, when the schedule for deliberations became clogged up due to poor management ofDiet affairs, the passing of bills by railroading at the end of the session emerged as atechnique. This too was widely criticized by the DPJ when in opposition. The voters who
had been expecting a change ended up with a sense of déjà vu. They could only conclude
that despite the change in government, there had been no progress at all in parliamentary
politics.
Not a Manifesto But a Manifest
I would next like to look at the causes for the new administration’s failures on the policyside.
The biggest problem is the defective nature of the DPJ’s 2009 electoral manifesto. The
DPJ repeatedly emphasized that it would develop the policies of the new administration
based on its manifesto. But, there were serious flaws with this document. It was not reallya “manifesto”—a political statement to inspire people based on ideals and ideology, suchas the Communist Manifesto—but rather a “manifest,” a list of items in a ship’s cargo.
The DPJ’s manifesto lists all kinds of topics, but there is no unifying thread to them. It
includes conflicting measures, such as the large-scale pursuit of global warming
countermeasures on the one hand and the reduction in gasoline taxes and the abolition of
expressway tolls on the other. If one tracks back the causes for such contradictions, one
comes up against the reality of the lack of a philosophy that would inform a coherent setof policies and provide a basis for setting priorities among them.
There are many mid-level DPJ politicians who see themselves as policy experts. They
were broken up into teams and drafted policies in a variety of fields. The manifesto isnothing more than these individual policies stapled together. If you look at these policies,
each is probably meaningful in its own way, but they do not convey the aims andphilosophies that would indicate overall what kind of society the DPJ is looking to build.
This point became evident in the budget-drafting and tax-reform processes under the DPJ
administration and was a source of political confusion. Many citizens were impressed
when Prime Minister Hatoyama announced the target of cutting greenhouse gas
emissions 25% by 2020, but there was a backlash from the business community, which isimmersed in the existing economic framework. In terms of opening up a
post-materialistic paradigm, the DPJ administration should have leveraged the Hatoyama-5-tpsapaper.doc

initiative for a systematic modification of policy in the areas of transportation, energy,
industry, and agriculture. Had it done so, there would have been no room for the
emergence of measures that promote consumption of fossil fuels, such as a reduction ingasoline taxes. There was also a need for the administration’s leaders to come up with aresounding rebuttal based on their own ideals in the face of naysaying from the businessworld. Additionally, when measures like the child allowance and tuition-free seniorhigh school education were heavily criticized as handouts, the DPJ leaders should haveclearly laid out their philosophy, and they should have been able to convince the people
by setting forth the values they were aiming for through such policies.
The 2009 DPJ manifesto was lacking in both philosophy and values, and turning into akind of gospel resulted in incoherent politics. Since the leaders of the government andruling party did not have a shared set of convictions with respect to values, the debatesover policy seemed to show inconstancy.
This is in stark contrast with the administration of Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichirô(2001–6). In the case of the Koizumi administration, whether one agrees or disagrees
with the content of its policies, there was a strong commitment to the line of privatizationand neoliberalism, and a powerful central mechanism was established in the form of theCouncil on Economic and Fiscal Policy to promote this, along with thorough information
management and media measures by the prime minister’s office. Takenaka Heizô, who
directed the CEFP, and Iijima Isao, who served as private secretary to the prime minister,
received clear guidance and support from Koizumi and were pivotal in policy making andimplementation. However popular the prime minister was, he could not have done
anything on his own. It is because staff and inner circle members who share the prime
minister’s convictions put the systems in place that policies can be implemented. In the
April 2001 election for the LDP presidency, the impression and expectation of a change
from the old-fashioned LDP faction-led politics to a new “Koizumi” politics caught theimagination of the public, even though it was not quite genuine. Koizumi made full useof the momentum that derived from the change of administration to create a system forpromoting policy change. In terms of the privatization of the postal system, which was
the Koizumi administration’s biggest project, public opinion, which initially did not fully
grasp the meaning of the initiative, gradually came to support it strongly.
In September 2009, it seemed that the DPJ could have obtained a similar mandate. But
the DPJ was unable to transform the people’s support into a mandate concerning its-6-

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policies. The only conclusion, therefore, is that the DPJ was crippled by its obsession
with ousting the LDP and taking power—what we may call its“change-of-government-first approach.”
The change-of-government-first approach also ties in directly to the “elections-first”
approach promoted by Secretary General Ozawa. The impression is that from themoment the government was formed, Ozawa made suffocating the LDP his supreme
mission. With this in mind, he made full use of the power of the ruling party toorchestrate the overthrow of the support base of the LDP in preparation for the elections
to the House of Councillors scheduled for July 2010. In drafting the budget for fiscal
2010 (April 2010–March 2011), information concerning the allocation of public works
subsidies was circulated nationwide via the DPJ’s regional organizations; this was a wayof showing off the authority of the DPJ administration, and it could be seen as a message
that, in the future, proper deference should be shown to the DPJ. In addition, starting with
the Japan Dental Association, Ozawa put pressure on the various professionalorganizations that had in the past supported the LDP, looking to have them change their
allegiance.
In the face of such scheming, the public simply grew disenchanted. “Change ofgovernment” revealed two distinct aspects. The first was the takeover by the DPJ of thepower structure that the LDP had built and maintained over half a century. That was thechange that Ozawa was after. The second aspect was the fundamental shake-up of thepolitical system. There were glimpses of this in the disclosure of information and thebudget screening review of government programs. Naturally, that is the kind of changethat the people were expecting. The Hatoyama administration was drawn into theinconsistency of these two aspects and found itself gridlocked. When the DPJ, underOzawa’s management, began to be seen as just another LDP, it was natural for approvalrates for the prime minister and the party to plummet.
The Lack of Political Power of the Hatoyama Administration
One could also say that the change-of-government-first approach held together the DPJ,
which is a hodgepodge of a party, and was necessary to carry it into power. I personallyhave continued to suggest that the DPJ should aim for the path of the center-left or liberalparty as a functional equivalent to the Labour Party in Britain and the Democratic Partyin the United States. Under Ozawa Ichirô, the DPJ opted for a moderate left-wing line.
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However, the DPJ is of a much broader nature than the corresponding parties in Britain
and the United States, and its leaders have had a hard time holding the party together.
Upon assuming the DPJ presidency in April 2006, Ozawa shelved the issue of amending
the Constitution in order to preserve party cohesion. Also, in order to make clear thecontrast between the DPJ and the LDP, he adopted a center-left path and wrapped this up
in a symbol that nobody would oppose, under the slogan “Putting People’s Lives First.”
Up to that point, this was a judicious political decision. However, once the DPJ came into
power, such an opaque tactic proved unsustainable. If the Democrats hoped to keep theadministration going at cruising speed on this track, they should have put in place apolicy-making organ on a par with the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy anddeployed social democratic brains standing at the polar opposite from Takenaka Heizô,
who headed the CEFP under Koizumi, along with staff to take charge of political andmedia affairs. It would also have been necessary to hand over concrete topics like social
security and employment to the main politicians of the ruling party, creating a space forpolicy debate in which the political leadership would strive for policy change. If the DPJ
lawmakers had been asked to set aside their individual opinions and to demonstrate theircapabilities by tackling issues assigned to them by the prime minister, they would
probably have exerted themselves in this direction as politicians in power for the firsttime.
However, the tactic that was actually adopted by the DPJ was to truss up the party byturning the manifesto into a kind of gospel. But, as mentioned before, when the
Democrats tried to implement at face value a manifesto that gave short shrift tophilosophy, inconsistencies between the policies became obvious and inevitably led topolitical conflict. In order to resolve such conflict and adopt a single steady direction in
managing the government, it would have been necessary to hold a debate on basic
philosophy and direction and achieve minimal agreement concerning the administration’s
mission.
In coming into power, the DPJ was faced for the first time with the issue of dealing, as
the ruling party, with partisan opposition to its value axis. As mentioned previously, theagenda presented by the DPJ included items that were certain to provoke severe
opposition from a partisan perspective. In actual fact, right-wing media organs like themonthly Seiron made attacks concerning the reconsideration of the US-Japan security
arrangements and the expansion of social welfare, pinning the “socialist” label on the-8-tpsapaper.doc

Hatoyama administration. This was similar to the criticism directed at President Barack
Obama by the Republicans in the United States. The big difference between Obama andHatoyama lay in their possession or lack of the courage and political ability to makedirect rebuttals against such partisan attacks on their agenda and to set forth their own
ideals.
Issues Facing the Kan Administration
Having proved unable to exert leadership, Hatoyama announced his resignation on June 2,
and Kan Naoto was chosen to succeed him. Upon this, the DPJ and the government saw asudden surge in support, pulling the DPJ out of the danger zone. The reason for this sharp
recovery in support is that, despite the disillusionment with Hatoyama himself, the same
directions and expectations remained in place concerning the change in government.
The two issues facing the DPJ under Kan are the clarification of philosophy regarding
policies and the establishment of proper governance for the administration and rulingparty. I have discussed the specifics above and will not repeat them here. But on boththese issues there is a need for a proper summing up of the Hatoyama administration’s
shortcomings and an analysis of the reasons for its failure.
What is most notable in terms of policy is the mention by Prime Minister Kan of the needto increase the public financial burden in the near future. The coolness of the public
reaction to the DPJ’s headline policies, such as the child allowance, can be seen as
coming from serious concerns about the fiscal sustainability of such largesse. Even interms of setting up a certain level of welfare state in the future, discussions on aframework for the public financial burden need to start now. From that perspective, theKan administration’s path towards restoring fiscal health is in tune with the imperativesof the time. Instead of implementing policies simply because they were in the party
manifesto and sticking to the earlier promise not to hike the consumption tax, thisadministration needs to move forward by first drawing up a philosophy and social visionand discussing how to put together policies for fiscal income and outgo to achieve this.
There are also major changes afoot regarding the operational systems for the governmentand ruling party, such as the revival of the DPJ’s Policy Research Committee. The media
tend to explain this type of change with the simple term datsu-Ozawa, meaning “getting
away from [the legacy of former Secretary General] Ozawa.” With apologies to the-9-tpsapaper.doc

media, which loves to view the course of developments in terms of clashes, I believe that
Ozawa’s authority will weaken henceforth. This is because it derived from his position as
secretary general. The secretary general is the person who makes decisions on
distributing funds and endorsing candidates. That is why so many politicians deferred to
Ozawa. Now that he is no longer secretary general, he does not have these sources ofpower. In addition, under the single-seat constituency system, rather than maintaining
allegiance to an unpopular power broker, it makes more sense for politicians looking
ahead to the next election to go with the popular leader of the moment. This isfundamentally different from the golden age of the LDP factions, when politicians who
won in multiple-seat constituencies had personal connections to faction leaders.
The DPJ needs to organize the vast majority of its lawmakers who do not serve in thegovernment and put in place a framework for policy debate. In particular, with regard to
topics that must be tackled on a medium-term basis, such as tax reform, the ruling party
should spark debate and work toward building a popular consensus. The DPJ paid a hefty
penalty with the collapse of the Hatoyama administration. Now it must start deliveringresults from the change of government.
Translated from an original article in Japanese written for Japan Echo Web. [July 2010]
BIO
Yamaguchi Jirô
Graduated from the University of Tokyo, where he majored in law. Has been an associate
professor at Hokkaidô University; is now a professor. Author of Sengo seiji no shûen
(The End of Postwar Politics), Kiki no Nihon seiji (Japanese Politics in Crisis), and otherworks.

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