THE ＧＬＯＢＡＬＩＺＡＴＩＯＮ ＆ ＧＯVＥＲＮＡＮＣＥ ＰＲＯＪＥCＴ， ＨＯＫＫＡＩＤＯ ＵＮＩＶＥＲＳＩＴＹＷＯＲＫＩＮＧ ＰＡＰＥＲ ＳＥＲＩＥＳ

Ｆ－04

Policy Formation under the Democratic Party of Japan
Change and Continuity in Reform
Jiro Yamaguchi, Hokkaido University

jyam@juris.hokudai.ac.jp
Not for citation＊

Paper for the SEIJI-KENKYU No.58

March 2011,

Seiji-Kenkyukai, Kyusyu University (originally in Japanese).

Policy Formation under the Democratic
Party of Japan
Change and Continuity in Reform

Jiro Yamaguchi
Hokkaido University, Faculty of Law

jyam@juris.hokudai.ac.jp
Not for citation

Policy Formation under the Democratic Party of Japan
Change and Continuity in Reform
Introduction
The transfer of power to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in
September 2009 has been described as a historic event that widely
engendered high expectations among the Japanese people. However, oncein power, the performance of the DPJ administration has left a good part ofthe public feeling betrayed. In this paper, I examine the various reasonsfor the failure of the DPJ, the most important among which are poor
political preparation and lack of experience and maturity in government
and political management. In addition to such problems that are rooted in
the political skills and capabilities as the ruling party, I consider thevarious limitations inherent in public opinion favoring a change ofgovernment and the discussions that were carried out by the media and by
opinion leaders. Finally, calling to mind the often-repeated call of politicalscientists for the establishment of a “form of party politics that makeschanges in government possible,” I will examine the limitations of the role
performed by political scientists.
1. Why Were Hopes for Political Reform Betrayed?
1-1 “Change” – A Comparison of Japan and the United States
In the spring of 2010, the Hatoyama Administration was becoming
seriously bogged down in the problem of the relocation of Okinawa’s
Futenma military base. It was at this point that public opinion and the
media were suddenly inundated with expressions of doubt, “Is this what
we were supposed to get from a change of government?” In both Japan andthe United States, new administrations had come to power with very highpublic expectations, but the perception that their respective newadministrations were quickly losing momentum was now spreading almost
simultaneously in Japan and the United States. In the 2008 presidential
elections, the American public had opted for change. Following closely on
this, Japan went through its own change of government in 2009. In bothcountries, a tremendous amount of hope was placed in the politicalpossibilities that lied ahead. But neither the Obama Administration nor
the DPJ Administration was able to deliver on its promised policies.
Consequently, both parties suffered major defeats in the second round ofelections, the DPJ in the election of the House of Councillors and the
Obama Administration in the mid-term election. Given the outcome ofthese two elections, America now faces a “divided government,” while
Japan is confronted with the challenges of a “divided parliament.”

The setbacks suffered by the new administrations in Japan and the UnitedStates share certain similarities, some of which have been very eloquently
described by economists who should have served the new administrations
as their top economic advisers. To jump ahead to the conclusion, what the
DPJ and President Obama had in common was the failure to develop a
clear roadmap for economic policies that should have been carefully
worked out with the preceding government.
Regarding the failings of the Obama Administration, Joseph Stiglitz in his
book, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World
Economy, makes the following arguments in criticizing theadministration’s economic and financial policies. The financial crisis, which
initially had been triggered by the subprime loan problem, exploded in2008 in the form of the Lehman Shock, sending the entire world into
financial turmoil and uncertainty. This was mainly due to recklessinvestments made by investment banks in complex financial products
structured on high-risk subprime loans. Therefore, in seeking to quell thecrisis, the Obama Administration should have sternly rebuked theirresponsible behavior of investment banks and investigated the cause offinancial collapse. As its next step, in order to protect the financial systemand to save the economy from recession, the Obama Administration shouldhave pursued the following dual strategy. First, it should have provided
very large-scale fiscal support and infusions of government funds, andsecond, it should have held management accountable for its actions.
Instead, President Obama gave its continued support to one of the persons
responsible for the financial collapse, Chairman Bernanke of the Federal
Reserve Board, and did not force a change in personnel. As the second step,
President Obama proposed the establishment of (Public-Private
Investment Program for Legacy Assets (PPIP). Stiglitz has blasted this
proposal as follows.
“In effect, the Obama team had finally settled on a slight variation of theoriginal cash-for-trash idea. It was as if it had decided to use a private
garbage-hauling service, which would buy the garbage in bulk, sort
through it, pick out anything of value, and dump the remaining junk on
the taxpayer. And the program was designed to give the garbage collectors
hefty profits – only certain members of the Wall Street club would beallowed to ‘compete,’ only having been carefully selected by the Treasury.” 1[原書を引用]The Lehman Shock occurred toward the end of the presidential race,
making it difficult for the new administration to fully prepare its economic
policies in time. On the other hand, Obama’s political strategies preferredconciliation and contained certain factors and tendencies that would standin the way of any effort to develop a full-blown political confrontation on
the financial crisis. Due to the awareness of his position as the first
African-American president, Obama consciously endeavored not to touch

on his own origins as a member of a minority. Rather, he emphasized theunity of the people and strived to put himself at the forefront as therepresentative of this unity. Consequently, partisanship and confrontation
were left out of the political arena.
The decision to cope with the financial crisis and economic recession fromthis position hampered efforts to identify the sources of the problem anddiluted any discussions of who was responsible for the crisis. As a result,nothing was done shortly after the bailout when it became known that the
top executives of financial institutions were drawing large bonuses. The
Lehman Shock had triggered a “once-in-a-century” economic crisis.
Because of the enormous scale of the crisis, the emphasis in the discussionsof the Obama policies was placed on “saving the country” and not on
political confrontation.2
Public anger with the greed and profligacy of financial institution
executives remained within bounds. On the other hand, President Obama’s
national health insurance plan, on which he had toiled so hard and long,drew widespread grassroots opposition. The reforms were attacked as
symbolic of socialism on the one hand and rejected for fear of increasing
the burden on the already insured on the other hand. In terms of cost, thebailout of financial institutions would cost significantly more that thenational health insurance, but that never seemed to enter the popular
calculus. In any case, these grassroots movements provided much of thedriving force behind the Republican victory in the mid-term elections.
Because of the president’s avoidance of a confrontational framework, thepublic anger that could have been mobilized for re-orienting financial
policies instead turned on the Obama Administration itself.
1-2 DPJ Unable to Take Confrontational Positions
For an insightful analysis of the DPJ Administration, we can turn to theeconomist, Mitsuharu Itoh. The policy speeches delivered to the parliamentby Prime Minister Hatoyama contained numerous references to breaking
away from neo-liberalism and were filled with enthusiasm for creating a
new paradigm for both domestic and foreign affairs.
For Hatoyama, the fateful moment arrived when he committed himself tothe lofty goal of moving the Futenma military base abroad or to anotherpart of Japan. But taking a stand and betting his political life on this issue
would ultimately lead to the collapse of the Hatoyama Cabinet. Thisoutcome has served as a cautionary tale and has rendered the politicians of
the DPJ extremely cautious and even timid on all matters related to policychange and political confrontation.
In particular, since the start of the Kan Administration, the socialdemocratic tendencies that originally characterized the DPJ haveregressed and become less visible. It can be said that the DPJ has moved topositions that are not significantly different from those of the preceding
Liberal-Democratic (LDP) administrations. This convergence isparticularly noticeable in the area of foreign affairs and national security.
This trend can be observed in such developments as the replacement of“basic defense force” with the new concept of “dynamic defense force”
following the review of the National Defense Program Guidelines, and thesignificant easing of the three-point ban on weapons exports. We are seeing
the DPJ do things that the LDP could never even have hoped to accomplish.
The tendency exists in domestic affairs as well, examples of which include
the 5 percent cut in corporate income tax rates, and the prime minister’sfrequent use of the term “growth strategies.” These provide evidence thatthe DPJ has come under the spell of the economic policies and way of
thinking of the previous LDP administrations. 3 The Kan Administration
has ignored the hopes of those who voted for the DPJ and instead is
working toward realizing the hopes and intensions of people who havenever voted for the DPJ and who never wanted a change of government in
the first place. So, the question arises: Whom does the DPJ represent? On
this critical point, one cannot help but conclude that even the leaders of theparty lack a clear self-awareness or a consciousness of the role that they
are to play.
The DPJ did enact a number of policy changes that were in keeping withits basic policy of “putting people’s lives first.” These include theintroduction of the child allowance system, free high-school education, andthe farming household income support system. However, the DPJ has apersistent and nagging problem when it comes to explaining and fully
convincing the public of the principles that underlie the changes in policythat it has sponsored. Opposition parties and some elements of the media
have criticized these policies for being dole-out measures, but the DPJ has
not been able to effectively rebut these attacks. As a result, the public has
not been able to properly evaluate the significance of these new policies.
The root of this problem is that, in reality, the DPJ itself does not fully
understand the significance of these policies. On the subject of childallowances, there was considerable debate within the ruling parties onwhether or not to adopt a means test. A universal welfare state introducing
child allowances would not think of adopting an income ceiling or someother means test. Instead, its normal policy course would be to use
progressive income taxation to adjust for the transfers made to wealthierhouseholds. However, while the DPJ politicians did use the payment ofcash benefits to appeal to the public, they did not necessarily understandthe underlying principle of universalism.4
It is this lack of confidence in principles that is the most important reason
for the DPJ’s vacillation and hesitation in taking a clear stand andadopting confrontational positions. I myself have on various occasions
argued that the crisis in the DPJ originates in the absence of well-definedprinciples. However, one must stop and consider whether a political partysuch as the DPJ is capable of adopting principles in the first place. A casecan be made that the DPJ is actually incapable of formulating a clear set ofprinciples or a conceptual framework. In order to examine the question of
the DPJ and its principles, let us go back a little to analyze the reasons
why a change of government occurred in the first place. The question ofprinciples can be effectively handled in tandem with this analysis.
2. Why did Change of Government Occur?
2-1 Change of Government as Meta-Politics
If we define politics as a set of activities aimed at “redistributing value
through the use of power,” the change of government that occurred inJapan in 2009 can be seen to have had two separate aspects: change inmeta-politics, and change in real politics. Meta-politics refers to activities
and competition that relate to the procedures that constitute the premiseof the reallocation of resources. On the hand, real politics refers tocompetition and battles joined for the control of the tax system andeconomic policies. Broadly defined, real politics involves the allocation ofmaterial interests.
In a sense, the 2009 change of government was the end result of the seriesof political reforms that began in the 1990s, particularly the revisions
made in Japan’s election systems. Specifically, the change of government
took 15 years to materialize from the 1994 election reform of the House ofRepresentatives, which introduced single-seat electoral districts andabolished multiple-seat districts. This reform provided a bonus to theruling party but was originally justified on the grounds that it would
facilitate change of government by making it easier to win a majority inthe lower house. However, creating a united front to oppose the LDP forces
turned out to be much harder than what the politicians of that period
anticipated. Ultimately, the process of building up a new system of politicalparties proved very time consuming. The New Frontier Party disintegrated
three years after its birth. Even after the DPJ was formed in 1998, it took
considerable time for it to take root and to grow.
In this context, the longevity of the DPJ can be cited as a key causal factor
in the change of government that finally arrived. Considering the quick
collapse of the New Frontier Party, the importance of longevity can beclearly seen. Furthermore, the survival of the DPJ benefited from thecreation of single-seat electoral districts. The system allowed theemergence of a non-LDP party capable of placing candidates in all districts
and ready to take the helm of government whenever the LDP stumbled orcollapsed. Change of government was the consequence of the collapse of the
LDP, and the DPJ cannot deny that the helm of government was handed toit on a plate. This change of government was the outcome of the dynamics
of the system in the sense that the rules of political competition had

changed. That is to say, a change had occurred on the level of metapolitics. 5
To win in single-seat electoral districts, the non-LDP parties had to unite.
This political reality acted as the strongest binding agent for the DPJ.
Principles and political credos aside, the most compelling objective was tohammer together a majority that would unseat the LDP. Faced with thisobjective, the politicians that joined the DPJ were willing not only to put
aside minor differences, but were also quite happy to put aside other
differences of medium and major importance. It would be a fair assessment
to state that this amalgamation of convenience stood at the core of the DPJ.
Typical of this process of amalgamation was the merger of the DPJ and theLiberal Party in October 2003.
As the party grew in numbers, it became increasingly diverse as people ofwidely varying creeds and beliefs were brought into the fold, which soon
became a seemingly untenable mix of water and oil. For this reason, theDPJ has been constantly criticized for its lack of consistency andintegration. Ultimately, the only way the party could hope to define its own
identity was to state what it was not. But members understood that all
they needed to do was to remain united and bear the constant criticism of
being a haphazard collection of politicians. Ultimately, at some point in
time, their patience would be rewarded and they would march into thehalls of power. All they had to do was to wait for the LDP to exhaust its
useful life. Insofar as its most important common goal was to achieve achange of government, the raison d’être of the DPJ existed on thedimension of meta-politics. Viewed from this vantage point, it can be said
that the DPJ finished accomplishing its most important objective within
ten years of its creation.
2-2 Changes in the Socio-Economic Environment and Political Transition
However, in the realm of real politics, the question of making materialchanges in the allocation of resources remains. Putting aside its quality asa political document, the DPJ Manifesto of 2009 did at least underscore theparty’s position that it intended to opt for a social-democratic
redistribution of resources under the slogan of “putting people’s lives first.”
This leftward shift also symbolized the DPJ’s resistance to the neo-liberalpolicies pursued by the Koizumi Cabinet in the early years of the decade.
Before proceeding, it would be helpful to confirm some of the quantifiablechanges that have occurred in Japan’s socio-economic environment. Figure
1 depicts recent trends in corporate earnings and employee income. At
some time around the year 2000, the assumption that higher corporate
earnings would result in higher employee income was clearly overturned,
an assumption that represented conventional wisdom for persons in their
40s and above. On the other hand, beginning in 2000, the two trend linesstart to diverge, showing that employee income declined notwithstanding
the growth in corporate earnings. During the period between 2002 and2007, which immediately preceded the Lehman Shock, Japan experienced
an uninterrupted period of economic expansion that exceeded the length of
the 57-month “Izanagi boom” of the mid-1960s. The problem with thisexpansionary phase was that the general public hardly felt any of its
salutary effects. Instead, during this period, the nation was seen moving
deeper into the trouble zones of economic disparity and poverty. This was
the result of the ongoing changes in economic structure that had effectively
decoupled economic growth on a national scale from improvements in the
average living standards of the people and of employees. What were themost significant factors contributing to this change? On the top of the list
are changes in employment practices, greater flexibility in the labormarkets, and economic liberalization and deregulation that combined tocreate a massive increase in the number of people working on irregularbase and at low wage levels. In other words, Figure 1 reflects theaftermath of the collapse of the long-standing Japanese system of
employment.
Figure 2 summarizes the results of a survey on poverty conducted byProfessor Kohei Komamura of Keio University. The debate on economic
disparity emerged in 2006, just as the Koizumi Cabinet was approachingits end. The critical question was whether Japan was really experiencing
greater income disparity. For example, Professor Fumio Otake of Osaka
University and others argued that Japan’s Gini coefficient was risingbecause of the increase in the ranks of the low-income elderly, and that nosubstantial change had actually occurred in income distribution. Prime
Minister Koizumi and his minister in charge of economic and fiscal policies,
Heizo Takenaka, supported this position and initially argued that“disparity was a non issue.” However, the findings of Professor Komamura
clearly point to the fact that the poverty rate was rising for almost all age
groups during the first half of the 2000s. As such, the argument that theGini coefficient was rising due to the aging of society is not supported byempirical evidence. One may also go as far as to say that this was a
fallacious argument had been presented with the intent of covering up theincrease in poverty and inequality. Particularly noteworthy is the increasein the percentage of households in their 20s and 30s living below thepoverty line. There is no other way to interpret this increase but to admit
to the deleterious effects of growing employment instability and low-wagejobs among the younger generations. The postwar myth of Japan as anequal society had collapsed.
While this story provides only anecdotal evidence, my own field studies
conducted in Hokkaido point to ongoing changes that seriously affected theconservative political base in Japan’s outlying areas during the first decadeof the century. A respondent working in the construction industry andsupporting the political campaigns of Muneo Suzuki complained to me thatthe impoverishment of local economies was allowed to proceed uncheckedduring the years of the Koizumi Cabinet and that LDP politicians were nolonger doing anything for their constituencies. There is no question thatthe volume of public works has declined precipitously. After peaking in1998 at approximately 15 trillion yen, public works spending had fallen to
as low as 6.7 trillion yen a decade later in 2008.6 In light of these figures,the political positions taken by Muneo Suzuki begin to make good politicalsense. Following his arrest and indictment on bribery charges, Suzuki
resigned from the LDP. Then, following his political resurrection, Suzuki
joined forces with the DPJ and started advocating for the weak and theimpoverished regions of Japan. There is no question that a very
fundamental change had occurred in the politics of influence peddling andpork-barrel spending that had long sustained the LDP, and it is quite clearthat segments of society that demanded a shift in policies went on to votefor the DPJ, which subscribed to the line of redistribution advocated by
Ichiro Ozawa.
Next, in order to get a clearer view of the main characteristics of DPJ
policies, let us review the socio-economic changes of the first decade of the
century in the context of the postwar developments in Japan’s social andeconomic policies. Figure 3 is a schematic diagram that I frequently use
when explaining the changes that have occurred in the social and economic
policies of Japan’s postwar politics. The vertical axis plots the risks that
any individual may experience during a lifetime, such as poverty, illness,aging, childrearing, employment, independence, etc. according to whether
the individual takes responsibility for the risk, or whether the public sector
takes it on itself as a problem affecting the whole of society. Amongdeveloped countries, the United States has opted for the individualizationof risks. On the other hand, while differences in degree do exist, Western
Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia and others have chosen to constructtheir societies based on the socialization of risks. The horizontal axis of the
diagram plots the methods and measures adopted for the implementationof related policies. In this context, “rule orientation” refers to the deliveryof benefits in the form of goods and services based on certain fair andtransparent systems and rules. Based on a set of given rules, the same
benefits are equitably provided to persons experiencing the same problem.
As opposed to this, “discretionary” refers to the general absence of rules
and the distribution of goods and services based on the discretion of
government offices with the authority and funds or the judgment ofgovernment administrators. Because this process lacks transparency andis not bound by explicit standards, it inevitably opens up a space forintervention by politicians and leads to competition for using the system to
one’s own best advantage.
The social and economic policies that characterized the long years of LDP
rule extending from the period of Japan’s accelerated economic growth up
through the bubble economy can be placed squarely in the second quadrantof the diagram. That is, discretionary policies were used for thesocialization of risks. This represents the “first way” taken by postwar

Japan. Between the 1960s and 1980s when the LDP was enjoying its
golden years, such discretionary tools as government subsidies,administrative guidance and collusion were used to pursue thesocialization of risks. Specifically, the business community was protectedby the discretionary distribution of public investment works and “escorted
convoy” approach to industrial policy. On the other hand, collusive
practices served to maintain employment and to reduce inter-regional
economic disparity. The use of these tools and policies allowed Japan tobuild a level society characterized by such expressions as “universal middle
class” and “balanced development of the national land.” Whatever
expression is used, it is certain that the policies adopted by the LDP
facilitated the emergence of a society with equal distribution. 7
However, beginning in the 1990s, the system rapidly lost momentum.
While various reasons can be given, the three principal contributing factors
were the extended period of economic stagnation that followed the collapseof the bubble economy, the penetration of free market principles as a resultof globalization, and repeated incidents of corruption and malfeasance ingovernment administration. Firstly, economic stagnation implied
shrinkage in tax revenues and the onset of fiscal crisis, conditions whichconspired to obstruct the continued socialization of risks. Secondly,
globalization smashed the “escorted convoy” structure of Japanese industry
and injected an element of merciless competition in many industries. As aresult, it became increasingly difficult to absorb risks through a system oflong-term stable employment. Thirdly, as the other unavoidable face of
discretionary policies, the long string of corruption and malfeasance thatmarred the 1990s showed politicians and bureaucrats in the worst possible
light and stoked the public’s demand for reform.
Japan’s “second way” emerged as the neo-liberalism of the Koizumi
Cabinet and the pursuit of structural reforms. Against the backdrop of
globalization, this path shifted the direction of Japanese policies toward
the individualization of risks. The main pillars of the Koizumi structurereform program were the restriction of social security expenditures, thereduction of local grant taxes and spending on public works, and thethorough deregulation of the labor markets. Each of these policies had theeffect of transferring risks from society to the individual.8 Notwithstanding
the frequently repeated slogan of “reforms that leave no sanctuary
untouched,” the reforms of the Koizumi Cabinet are placed in the third
quadrant because in reality a considerable range of vested interests were
preserved. Moreover, in some instances, new vested interests were fosteredthrough the processes of privatization and deregulation. The DPJ’s budget
screening process has rendered it very clear that the special interests andvested interests that are part and parcel of the far-reaching amakudari
system had not been upset in the least by the Koizumi reforms. On a moreinsidious note, it has been reported that the highly opaque disposal of postprivatization assets benefited the companies that were owned or operated
by executives who were part of the Koizumi brain trust. 9 In any case, thegeneral direction of the “second way” can be summarized as follows. A
policy package intended to shift the burden of risks to the individual was
implemented under the name of reform, and these policies left someextremely serious scars on the lives of people.
After Japanese society had been laid to waste by the reforms of neoliberalism, the DPJ came along with its promises of returning to thesocialization of risks. But it is important to understand that this was not a
return to pork-barrel politics that had been perfected under the alliance
between the LDP and the bureaucracy. Rather, the DPJ was aiming at
instituting rule-oriented redistribution as exemplified by their proposals
for child allowances and farming household income supports. I haverepeatedly pointed out to the DPJ that this constitutes the core of what the
party should be aiming to achieve in “putting people’s lives first.”
This policy shift introduced by the DPJ could not have been made possible
without the leadership of Ichiro Ozawa. Since the founding of the first
Democratic Party of Japan in September 1996, I have sought out various
opportunities to present my proposals and recommendations to various
politicians of this party. In doing so, I was motivated by a desire tocontribute to the creation in Japanese politics of a center-left political force
on the European model. While the DPJ is not completely devoid of suchsocial-democratic elements and tendencies, what I was seeking to create
has not gone beyond being one of several contending forces that exist
within the party today.
In September 2005, the LDP garnered an overwhelming victory in thegeneral election that followed the dissolution of the Diet on the issue of theprivatization of the postal system. Ironically, this victory provided the best
possible opportunity for the DPJ to adopt center-left positions for the
eventual realization of a change of government. The LDP had clearly opted
for neo-liberal and small-government positions, and had gone as far as tostifle and cut off internal opposition to these philosophies. So, where did
this leave the DPJ? If it were to aim for a successful change of government,
the DPJ had only one way left, and that was for it to adopt socialdemocratic values and directions.10 Any attempt to compete against the
LDP’s small government from the positions of neo-liberalism would havebeen tantamount to political suicide.
Seiji Maehara, the leader of the DPJ at the time, failed to fully appreciate
this aspect of DPJ strategy. But when Maehara resigned to takeresponsibility for the “fake email incident,” the path opened up for new
directions when Ichiro Ozawa assumed leadership of the party in thespring of 2006. This proved to be a most fortuitous development for the
DPJ. The slogan, “putting people’s lives first,” was adopted under theleadership of Ozawa and points to an extremely significant strategic step.
Ozawa should be given full credit for steering the DPJ toward center-leftpolicies, a feat that he only could have accomplished.

This certainly was not a choice made on the level of meta-politics. This wasa change occurring in the realm of real politics and potentially affecting
the allocation of real resources. Politics in its most elemental form spells
the change in the existing patterns of resource allocation. There is little
doubt that the new slogan of “putting people’s lives first” came with asubtext that said, “All those who profited from the Koizumi policies will
now be left out in the cold.” Reallocation of resources can come in various
forms. The redistribution of tax revenues is one form, but so is theestablishment of new market rules. In this context, the Koizumi Cabinet
effected a change in the allocation of resources by reducing the scope ofmarket rules and allowing the strong to act freely. The outcome of this new
direction was the divergence in corporate earnings and employee income
depicted in Figure 1 above. The DPJ was now announcing that it intended
to change in the allocation of resources in the opposite direction. This is avector that already existed in the DPJ before it came to power.
The conclusion that I draw from the foregoing analysis is that the changeof government contained a mixture of elements of meta-politics and realpolitics. The inconsistencies that existed on these two levels have acted todefine the DPJ after it came to power and have obstructed effective policy
implementation. These themes will be examined in the following section.
3. Why Has the DPJ Strayed Off Course?
3-1 The Spirit of Reform in the DPJ
Since its founding, change of government and political reform stood at thecore of the DPJ’s identity. However, the program for reform contained anumber of dissonant elements.
The first element was reform on the meta-political level. These werereforms affecting the general rules and procedures of party politics, such as
election systems and the mechanisms of parliamentary deliberation. The
DPJ’s call for “politics led by politicians” falls under this category. The
questions of how to reset the division of functions and authority between
elected members of parliament and the powers of the bureaucracy areclearly issues of reform on the meta-political level. For example, DPJ
Secretary General Katsuya Okada has written a book entitled Seiken
Kotai (Change of government: Kodansha, 2008), and Finance Minister
Yoshihiko Noda has written a book entitled Seiken Kotai no Taigi (Changeof government as Righteous Cause: Shinchosha, 2008). What the two books
have in common is the meta-political level discussion of why “change ofgovernment is necessary for democracy.” So, how did the DPJ intend tochange Japanese society when it came to power? The vision and concepts
presented by the party were extremely ambiguous. What the DPJ did have
was a consistent and unchanging narrative on the meta-political level, anarrative emphasizing that the monopolization of power by a single party
was unhealthy and unsound, and that a change of government was animperative. Being an amalgamation of politicians of highly divergent
backgrounds, probably this was as far as the DPJ could go.
Turning next to its real-level reforms of the DPJ, a closer examination of
the conceptual framework reveals that reforms were being consideredalong two divergent vectors.
The first category of real-level reforms is represented by such slogans as“anti-bureaucracy” and “anti-government.” The concept of antibureaucracy originates on the meta-political level. But if the intention is to
reduce the scope of government activities, this line of thinking must
eventually break into the real level. The membership of the DPJ does
contain some politicians who subscribe to anti-bureaucracy, even while
rejecting the public sector and advocating the expansion of market
principles. “Market” and “citizens” are words that are prone to confusion.
Arguments that the “bureaucracy is to blame” and the “government sector
is inefficient” are attractive not only to advocates of market principles but
also to the average citizen. Popular empathy for these positions wascertainly one of the main sources of support for the Koizumi Cabinet, andit was on this account that the DPJ was initially taken by surprise by the
Koizumi reforms and showed signs of supporting them. This current wasrepresented by the current mayor of Nagoya and founder of the Tax
Reduction Party, Takashi Kawamura, who was previously a DPJ memberof the House of Representatives.
The second category of real-level reforms pertains to the transition from an
LDP-style of “vested interest welfare” to a authentic welfare state. This isrepresented in Figure 3 as the transition from “discretionary” to “ruleoriented” policies, and a commitment to fair and equitable redistribution.
These two categories of reforms are jammed into a confusing mixture
within the DPJ, and the party remains unable to properly separate andorganize them. It should be borne in mind that the Ozawa’s slogan of“putting people’s lives first” was adopted in 2006 at a time when the party
was at its lowest point following the 2005 landslide defeat in the lower
house elections and the resignation of DPJ President Maehara brought onby the “fake email” incident. It is fair to say that at this point, the majorityof DPJ politicians did not have much hope for change of government andeven for the future of the party. The entire party had sunken into a state ofshock and stupor, and as much as he tried, DPJ President Ozawa was freefrom debate within the ranks. The prevailing feeling at this time was thatmatters could not be made any worse and that it would not hurt to allow
Ozawa try to pull the party together and rebuild some momentum.
3-2 Significance and Limitations of Ozawa Strategies

The DPJ suddenly began to regain strength as the 2007 upper houseelections approached. It was at this point that “putting people’s lives first”
emerged as the battle cry for change of government. Unfortunately,
however, the DPJ failed to engage in thorough debate on the principles
that it would espouse if it ever came to power. Nor did it invest the timeand effort necessary to arrive at a shared understanding of where theparty was headed. In the final analysis, Ozawa’s greatest strength lied inwinning elections. Therefore, it came as not surprise that as party
president, Ozawa would concentrate his powers on shoring up the DPJ in
the peripheral regions of Japan where it was weakest and most vulnerable.
This strategy was highly compatible with the line of “putting people’s lives
first.” Going to the peripheral regions of Japan meant paying close
attention to local organizations. In reality, the DPJ had only one nationalorganization that it could depend on for support, and that was the Japan
Trade Union Confederation (Rengo). In the peripheral regions of thecountry where private-sector unions hardly exist, the local chapters ofRengo draw most of their support from the All-Japan Prefectural andMunicipal Workers’ Union (Jichiro), plus some support from elements of
the Japan Teachers Union (Nikkyoso). Given these conditions, the Ozawa
strategies of “putting people’s lives first” and approaching the politicalforces of the center-left made very good sense as election tactics. However,the problem was that the DPJ had approached the leftwing in a de facto
move. 11 In other words, this was not a political strategy that had emerged
from thorough policy debate. In this sense, Ozawa’s center left agenda wasquick-fix for DPJ.
The question arises at this point: Did the DPJ adopt a systematic approachin drafting its manifesto? The answer would have to be that the DPJ wasseriously remiss on this matter. The party never got around to appointing
a taskforce for making systematic preparations for the drafting of the
manifesto. Of course, this is not to deny that specific policy issues wereextensively discussed in the subcommittees of the Political Affairs
Research Council. However, the party did not create a mechanism forcomprehensive and systematic deliberation on complex issues. For instance,
no systematic effort was made to carry the conclusions reached in thedebate on tax burdens over to deliberations on the party’s vision of therestructuring of social security.
While Ozawa occupied the post of DPJ president, I occasionally had theopportunity to meet and speak to him directly. However, the far morecommon practice was for me to meet with Shigeki Aso, Ozawa’s trusted
aide-de-camp. Aso would later convey the contents of our discussions to
Ozawa. After the DPJ victory in the upper house election of 2007, ourdiscussions frequently centered on what the DPJ would have to do if it
succeeded in bringing about a change of government. The tone of our
discussions was that the party should hurry up and engage in some serious

simulations to figure out how it would go about the business of formulating
policies and drafting budgets. However, these suggestions always met witha cold reception. Ozawa’s standard response was that it was too early to
discuss policies when the party had not even taken the lower house. I
imagine that Ozawa felt that it was unacceptably presumptuous to discuss
policies while the party still had its biggest electoral test before it.
Messages that the DPJ was preparing to launch earnest and detailed
discussions of policy matters began to arrive in February 2009. However,in the following month, Ozawa’s former secretary was arrested on charges
related to mishandling of political funds. This turn of events effectively
scuttled the “Ozawa policy team” before it ever had a chance to belaunched.
Ozawa was more than happy to sell the details of the party platform to the
public, such as child allowances and the income support system forfarming households. But the whole process of planning for sources offinancing never matured and discussions of how a DPJ administration
would implement its policies remained underdeveloped. Herein lies thecause of much of the confusion that followed the transfer of power to the
DPJ. Once having accomplished its goal, the party seemed to sink into thepolitical version of the “new school-year blues.”
Perhaps the DPJ’s most serious failure can be traced to the two-week
vacuum that occurred between the lower house election of August 30 andthe birth of the Hatoyama Cabinet on September 16. Normally, one would
have expected the DPJ to use this time to finalize a broad range of mattersrelated to appointments, policies, the system of government administration,
procedures and the entire package of its actual policy objectives. Thisshould have all been taken care of before forming the Hatoyama Cabinet.
What happened instead was that the party was quickly overwhelmed by
confusion over some very elementary aspects of systems design, such as
the position of the proposed National Strategy Bureau and what to do with
the Policy Research Council. It is reported that in the end, Ozawa steppedin as DPJ Secretary General to make all the decisions and clear theimpasse. In other words, the DPJ was unprepared for the strategic
management of government.
Because the DPJ was entranced by the prospects of meta-political reforms,
there was an extremely strong position within the party that changing theprocedural aspects of government administration was vitally important,and that in fact such procedural changes represented the very purpose of
the change of government and constituted the core of any reform effort. In
order to eliminate the power of the bureaucracy over the political process,the first actions taken by the DPJ included the abolition of the
Administrative Vice-Ministers’ Conference and the concentration of power
and authority in the hands of the “political triumvirate” (minister, senior
vice-minister, and parliamentary secretary) appointed to each ministry.
Viewed from the perspective of policy implementation and ensuring stablegovernment management, both of these institutional revisions were
terribly off the mark.
The belief that members of these political triumvirates could eliminate thebureaucrats from the political process and make all the necessary decisions
by themselves was nothing short of delusional. The DPJ politicians
currently serving on these political triumvirates are so much busier thantheir LDP predecessors had ever been and spend long hours every day attheir respective ministries. One may be tempted to applaud this earnest
commitment to work by highly talented politicians, but the unfortunate
truth is that this extremely heavy workload has not been translated into
successful policy development and implementation. Stories abound of themembers of the political triumvirates working around the clock to draft
their own documents and to prepare the necessary reference materials,
tasks that obviously should be left to the administrative staff.
In other words, the DPJ administration came to town with no clear idea of
how politicians and bureaucrats were going to divide the work andresponsibilities of running the government ministries. What part of thework was going to be controlled by the politicians and where would they
exercise the exclusive right of decision-making? Conversely, what part of
the work was to be considered routine and delegated entirely to theadministrative staff? With no clear vision of how to answer these questions,the political triumvirates overloaded themselves to the point where theentire system became seriously dysfunctional. This was the outcome of theinstitutional reforms implemented by the DPJ. The policymaking process
was equally marred. There were no programs, procedures or roadmaps
that would guide the deliberative process culminating in a policy decision.
In the absence of these essential props, the DPJ fell into the trap of
becoming excessively dependent and driven by its manifesto.
3-3 The Face of DPJ Leadership
The experiences of more than one year of DPJ government prompts theobserver to question whether the DPJ came to power with any realcompetence in policymaking.
A concrete example will provide a good starting point. In November 2010, I
was invited to speak at a symposium organized by Weather Network, anenvironmental NGO, on the subject of the “Policymaking Process After the
Change of Government.”12 It was at this symposium that I heard an
extremely interesting story from a NGO activist who used to be very close
to the DPJ in its days as an opposition party and had been engaged inextensive policy debate with members of the party over a number of years.
The subjects discussed related to global warming and promoting the use ofrenewable energy sources. Apparently, the activist had presented the DPJ
with a wide range of ideas and suggestions for Japan, such as increasingwind power generation, introducing feed-in tariff systems, andtransitioning from gasoline taxes to carbon or environmental taxes tofinance new environmental policies. DPJ politicians with an interest inenvironmental problems continued these discussions with the NPO andhad gone as far as to prepare a draft bill for submission to the Diet.
Normally, one would expect that a group of experts assisting an opposition
party in developing policy options would be excited with the prospect of
being able to translate former suggestions into policy when the DPJ came
to power. However, the environmental policymaking process took acompletely different turn. The NPO activists have now come to feel totallyalienated from the DPJ and are deeply dissatisfied that all the input thatthey had given to the DPJ as an opposition party has come to naught. For
example, all the recommendations concerning the development of
renewable energy sources have been vetoed by the interests of the powerindustry, an obvious response of an industry bent on preserving its vested
interests and prepared to delay and derail new initiatives.
Actually, this is exactly where the commitment to “politics led bypoliticians” meets its real world test. There is mounting evidence that the
implication of this slogan has been misunderstood by most DPJ politicians.
The Constitution renders the Diet the sole law-making and budget-making
organ of the State. Therefore, from a constitutional perspective, no part ofthe bureaucracy can obstruct the policies that the elected representativesof the people seek to implement. The proliferation of “government by thebureaucracy” under the long years of LDP rule can be seen as a reflectionof the ruling party’s failure to arrive at a consensus and to develop aunified political platform. Politicians were lured into the turf wars of thegovernment ministries and transformed into the protectors of ministerialinterests. It is for this reason that major policy changes affecting multiple
ministries and agencies proved so difficult to realize. The limits tocomprehensive policy transition were particularly strongly felt whenever
the proposed changes directly challenged the budgetary powers andauthority vested in the bureaucracy. Good examples of this would include
all initiatives aimed at the decentralization of political power and spending
cutbacks. Resistance is similarly strong when a proposed reform poses afundamental challenge to the material interests of an industry, an example
of which would be the proposal to integrate kindergartens and nurseryschool facilities.
“Politics led by politicians” failed not because the bureaucracy was too
powerful, but rather because of some very basic problems that existed on
the side of politicians. The change of government and the arrival of the
DPJ in the halls of power did nothing to rectify the situation, and as aresult, the fundamental defects of an earlier period where passed on to the
new administration. When it comes to environmental policies andcountermeasures to global warming, the DPJ talks the talk but is unable
to muster up the strength and leadership to do battle with the bureaucrats

of the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry and the captains of theelectric power industry. Without such a battle, policies for the expansion ofrenewable energy sources cannot be implemented. Thus, the DPJ may
have been able to realize meta-political changes in the system, but it lacks
the leadership it takes to make real-level changes in resource allocation, atask that requires the ability to overwhelm the opposition of vested
interests. In this sense, all the preparation that went into drafting a Dietmember sponsored bill prior to coming to power turned out to be a“tabletop exercise.” In the final analysis, the DPJ was ill prepared to battlewith vested interests and to implement real policy changes.
This particular point relates to the weaknesses that the DPJ has withrespect to political principles and philosophy. The yelling of slogans in the
media is not what principles are about. Rather, it is when a party comes
face to face with vested interests and voices of opposition to change andattempts to win these over to its own position that principles make adifference. When Prime Minister Hatoyama went to the United Nations
and made a very powerful statement on Japan’s intent to counter global
warming, public opinion sided with him. However, to transform this pledge
into reality, someone has to cope with the Nippon Keidanren and othervested interests that are ready to fight to the last to preserve existingenergy policies and tax systems. The tragedy of the DPJ is that it did notcome armed with the necessary power of principle to overcome this
opposition. 13
The same can be said of the DPJ’s new set of policies, in particular the
introduction of child allowances and free high school education. The party
sadly lacked the commitment to explaining its principles to the public andwinning their understanding and support. Because the financing of these
two initiatives had not been properly sorted out, fiscal conservatism easily
reared its head as the Ministry of Finance mounted its counter-attack. If
its conceptual framework had been solid and its principles robust, the DPJ
could have appealed to the public to accept the additional burden of these
programs. But there was too much ambiguity and too little determinationon the part of the DPJ to attempt this breach. Ironically, the outcome ofthe entire incident was that it strengthened the party’s dependence on thebureaucrats of the Ministry of Finance. The same form of ambiguity can beobserved in the DPJ’s budget screening process, where it has been argued
that a return to market principles and small government are being sold tothe public under the guise of “anti-bureaucracy.” While the spectacle offighting the bureaucrats makes for good political drama, the most essential
policy debate of how to define the limits of the public sector was completely
absent in the budget screening process.
We have observed how the DPJ had a very clear vision of what change ofgovernment meant on the meta-political level, but was sadly lacking in theprinciples and leadership that are absolute requirements in achieving achange of government on the level of real politics.14 The confusion in policy

coordination that followed the change of government can be seen as an
avoidable result of this weakness.
4. Change of Government and Political Science
4-1 Non-Partisan Discussions and the DPJ
In the final section of this paper, I would like to review the role thatpolitical scientists played and should have played in this change ofgovernment.
In the world of Japanese political scientists, the influence of scholars
writing for or otherwise affiliated with the journal Leviathan has been
gradually increasing since the mid-1980s. The Leviathan group has been
generally critical of the tendency of political scientists to write politicalcritiques that share a certain direction or subscribe to certain positions. Of
course, no one will deny the importance of steadily accumulating a body of
empirical research and the role of such research in promoting thedevelopment of political science. Nevertheless, the essential social functionof political science is to critique the real developments in politics from anacademic perspective and to provide politicians, journalists and the generalpublic with the conceptual framework and perspective to examine and tobetter understand politics. The corruption and failures of the LDP systemand the bureaucracy, which were supposed to be the subject of objective
analysis, had been thoroughly exposed and their transformation had
become a national issue in the 1990s. Especially at such times, it isimperative for political science to perform this social function.
As public opinion became increasingly focused on the need for political
reform after the early 1990s, politicians themselves became engaged inintense debates on political reform. This environment gave rise to a newforum of discussion as represented by the “Ad Hoc Council on Politics,”
later renamed the “21st Century Ad Hoc Council” (formally, the National
Congress for Creating a New Japan). This movement can be seen to have
two unique features. Firstly, its participants are drawn from various
quarters of society, including well-known scholars such as Takeshi Sasaki,
as well as leaders of the media, business community and labor unions.
Secondly, this highly diverse group has come together to produce a seriesof non-partisan proposals and recommendations. These documents address
the basic rules of politics and administration, including such matters as
Japan’s election system, the parliamentary system, the relation between
government and the bureaucracy, decentralization and the manifestos ofpolitical parties.
These two features of this movement are closely linked to both its
strengths and limitations. By creating a non-partisan gathering of leaders
drawn from various segments of society, this movement has been able togreatly enhance its influence through the media. For example, consider therecommendations made by the Ad Hoc Council on Politics during the 1990son the subject of electoral reform. It is generally understood that theserecommendations had an extremely strong impact on the reforms that
followed. Turning to its limitations, by including both business and labor
leaders, the movement has rendered itself unable to formulate unified
proposals concerning substantive policies that pertain to the labor laws
and social security. Given the structure of the movement, concentration on
the rules of politics and government administration is a necessary
condition for producing non-partisan proposals.
In this sense, the new forums and movements and the political science that
supports them is clearly oriented toward meta-politics. These tendencies
have dovetailed with the meta-political orientation of the DPJ, which I
believe is one of the reasons for the confusion in DPJ politics that has
followed the change of government. The 21st Century Ad Hoc Council’s
recommendations for “manifesto-based elections” can seen as a “nonpartisan sermon” delivered to all political parties. The problem with thistype of sermonizing is that the whole point of the sermon is quickly lostwhen political parties scramble to put together some form of manifesto.
When manifestos become standard fare for all parties, the focus of thesermon must be shifted to questions that relate to the content andstructure of the manifesto.
In Japan, the concept of manifesto has been heavily influenced by its
principal advocate, Professor Masayasu Kitagawa, and has been accepted
into society under certain uniquely Japanese interpretations. Thus, inJapan, the inclusion of numerical targets and timetables for the
implementation of specific policies has been overemphasized. These arematters that pertain to the meta-political aspects of the manifesto. That is
to say, while the format of the manifesto has been discussed, there has
been no discussion of what concrete issues should be contained inmanifestos and the direction in which these appeals should be presented.
These problems came to the fore when the 21st Century Ad Hoc Council
hosted an “evaluation conference” of political-party manifestos held
immediately prior to the 2009 election. The event featured the grading of
the DPJ and LDP manifestos by various think tanks and organizations
that had been invited to participate in the evaluation. It must be said thatanyone who participates in such discussions must be woefully unaware of
the difference between vector and scalar quantities. Essentially, amanifesto presents a vector, which is an expression of both direction andmagnitude. If an evaluator is to evaluate a manifesto, the first order ofbusiness would require the evaluator to clarify his own personal vector.
Otherwise, the exercise would be rendered meaningless. A neo-liberal
evaluator would assign a failing grade to a social-democratic manifesto
regardless of the sophistication of the document. The same would hold truein the reverse situation as well. Similarly, what meaning is there inscoring scalar values and arguing whether a manifesto deserves “65 points
or 63 points?” We are treated to this comedy because the discussions aretaking place in a non-partisan framework.
The 21st Century Ad Hoc Council was also advocating a system of politicalparties that would make change of government possible. But this position
was focused on a meta-political level of change of government that did not
go beyond advocating that other viable ruling parties needed to emergethat could replace the LDP. When change of government is discussed in a
non-partisan framework, it becomes impossible to link a change ofgovernment with a transition in real policies. For instance, consider adiscussion on change of government whose participants include interest
groups that have benefited from the LDP policies of small government orJapan-US cooperation. To pursue change of government in such a forum,
there is no choice but to sever all links between change of government andchanges in real policies. This peculiar dynamic has led to an unusualoutcome. That is, the most powerful actor in the realm of public opinion
enthusiastically welcomed change of government, but maintained a very
cool or even indifferent or uninterested stance toward important policychanges advocated by the new government.
Corresponding to this lack of interest in real politics on the part of critics
and opinion leaders, we were soon made painfully aware of the naiveté ofthe DPJ on matters related to the politics of public opinion. It should havebeen easily foreseen that any effort to overturn the policies that hadremained in place over the long years of LDP rule would meet with strong
opposition. Overcoming the forces of opposition directed at the new
government from all directions would require the full powers of discourseand persuasion. However, the amazing thing about the DPJ in its position
as ruling party is that it completely lacks the structures and mechanisms
for developing a compelling narrative, nor is it equipped to gather new
ideas and opinions and transform them into an effective driving force. No
doubt, this is a reflection of the fact that the DPJ itself is not deeplyinterested in this type of discourse, opinion and ultimately ideology.
Consequently, there seems to be very little motivation in the party to makeeffective use of these tools.
Here is where the DPJ differs completely from the Koizumi Cabinet, aperiod of time when every possible forum was mobilized to take themessage to the public. Starting with Heizo Takenaka, Prime Minister
Koizumi gathered together a long list of capable advocates in the Council
on Economic and Fiscal Policy and the Council for Regulatory Reform.
These became sources of a constant stream of information and advocates ofan overarching narrative that gradually began to move public opinion. It
was in this setting that the policies of privatization and spending cuts were
implemented.

The DPJ had come to power with an impressive group of economists,
including Professors Yoshiyasu Ono and Naohiko Jinno, who the party
touted as its “brains.” However, the DPJ simply did not have thestructures and mechanisms needed to translate the theories of thesescholars into actual policies and to move the wheels of public opinion. As
the faults lines in the political topology became increasingly well defined,
the DPJ suffered from a paucity of intellectuals and experts prepped andprepared to rally around the DPJ government by expressing their support
for a certain position or a certain policy. Take for example the changes
advocated by the Hatoyama Cabinet in such areas as the Japan-US
security system and universal social welfare. While voices in favor of thestatus quo were frequently heard, the DPJ was simply unable to organize
powerful enough rhetoric or discourse to counter the opposition. Many
scholars and critics who had readily expressed their enthusiastic support
for change of government on the meta-political level remained oddly silent
on matters pertaining to policy change on the real level.
We have seen how many political scientists were very interested in
discussing the issues of political and institutional reform on a metapolitical level. This proclivity, however, had very little to contribute toraising the level of political leadership. In the name of “politics led bypoliticians,” the DPJ increased the number of political appointments andloaded the ministries with parliamentary secretaries, ministers and viceministers. In the name of unifying the government and the ruling parties,
the DPJ temporarily dissolved its Political Affairs Research Council. For
the same purpose, the DPJ abolished the Administrative Vice-Ministers’
Conference, concentrated the coordination and decision-making functionsof all ministries in the hands of their respective “political triumvirates,”
and transferred the functions of comprehensive government coordination
to the Cabinet and to its various ministerial meetings. However, none ofthese institutional reforms served to raise the level of political leadership,
which brings up the irksome question of what political scientists have to
say about this failing.
In the final analysis, leadership is an intangible quality that makes its
presence best known when a nation is confronted with a specific challenge.
For the DPJ, examples of such challenges would include the US militarybase issue in Okinawa and questions related to fiscal and tax reform. In
each of these instances, the points of dispute were well known and thecomplex topology of positions in favor and in opposition was wellestablished. Thus, the stage was fully prepared for the entry of a leader
who would point in the direction of a resolution, quell the voices of
opposition and work toward conciliation. When conducted on the level ofmeta-politics, discussions of how to develop stronger political leadershipcan be compared to shadow boxing. Political discussions conducted in a
vacuum that is void of all real and specific issues cannot lead to the birth ofeffective leadership.

It seems to me that Sakae Osugi’s criticisms of Sakuzo Yoshino can beapplied directly to this state of political science. Osugi, the anarchist of theearly 20th century, criticized Yoshino’s theories of universal suffrage in thefollowing words. “The political science of Yoshino and his fellows is notablefor ignoring the essential and dwelling on what is purely secondary.” “Thepurpose of politics remains unknown. The ‘for what’ and ‘for whom’remains unstated. Yet glossing over these unanswered questions, they
presume to present the most effective method for achieving the ends ofpolitics. What can be more dubious than this?” 15 Herein is captured theessence of meta-politics: “Regardless of the objective, the most effective
method is this.” Osugi’s exclaims that all sense of direction in thediscussion is lost when one’s discourse is restricted to this level.
4-2 Should Political Science Enter the Policy Debate?
Certainly a case can be made and a rebuttal formulated to say thatpolitical science has no business interfering in specific policy matters. Thisis the position that claims that political science must strictly limit its
discourse to issues related to political parties, parliamentary politics andthe use and application of power, and that the resolution of specific socioeconomic problems comes under the responsibility of experts in such fields
as economic policy, social welfare policy and education policy.
To answer the question posed here, each individual scholar must return tohis or her own understanding of what constitutes the identity of politicalscience. In my case, I do not believe that democracy must be treated as amere set of procedures. Democracy adopts the premise that all citizens
must be able to maintain a certain minimum standard of living. I believethat the foundations of those social policies that make this premise areality are essential components of democracy.
This point of view is generally held in common by those who subscribe tosocial-democratic principles. For instance, Colin Crouch examines thisissue in his book Post-Democracy. Crouch considers such values andinstitutions as participation, civil liberty and multi-party representative
politics to lie at the base of democracy, but goes on to state that theassurance of minimum levels of equality and the establishment of thewelfare state achieved in the mid-20th century also constitute essential
components of democracy. This is because in order for people to participate
in politics on an equal footing, they must be able to enjoy a certain
minimum standard of living and be assured of access to certain
fundamental needs in terms of education, medical care and so on. Seenfrom this perspective, Crouch argues that democracy has been in decline
since the 1990s, and that the pace of decline has been accelerated since thestart of the century, bringing the world to its current stage of postdemocracy.

An interesting critique of Crouch is found in the works of Ralf Dahrendorf,
who counters that Crouch is not talking about liberal democracy but aboutegalitarian democracy. That is, Crouch’s discussions of post-democracy do
not apply to democracy in general, and that the process of decline has
affected only a specific form of democracy. Crouch provides the following
rebuttal to this contention.
“In politics with universal citizenship there are problems for all forms ofserious, principles politics if vast, socially defined groups within theelectorate become detached from engagement in public life and passively
allow their marginal political involvement to be shaped by small elites.
Neo-liberals in particular should be just as concerned as social democrats if
the economic action of government become distorted by lobbies withprivileged political access entering the vacuum which this passivity leaves,corrupting the markets in which they believe.”16
Given the increase in poverty that followed the small-government policiesof the early years of the 21st century, it is clear that democracy cannot be
reduced merely to a matter of procedure. If we go back in history to
examine how this problem was treated in Japan, we ultimately arrive at
the question of whether bourgeois democracy could have joined forces withthe proletarian parties at a critical stage in Japan’s prewar history as
democracy was sliding toward its demise. Professor Junji Banno assigns
special significance to the failure of cooperation between the proletarian
parties and the Constitutional Democratic Party during the final stages of
the collapse of prewar democracy. 17 The principal cause of failed
cooperation can be explained in the following terms. As a party ofbourgeois democracy, the Constitutional Democratic Party was very
comfortable with the concept of universal suffrage as a meta-political issue
in democracy, but could not warm up to the various real-level issues of
democracy, such as the alleviation of poverty and the resolution of thelabor problem. When the proletariat parties saw that real forms of
democratization would not be achieved, they were inevitably drawn toward
the promises of fascism.
In light of this historical experience and the emergence of a new age ofpoverty in the early 21st century, I would like to emphasize that it is highly
doubtful that democracy can be truly saved by advocating the preservationof formalistic democracy.
In closing, I would like to consider the following question: To what extent
is it possible for political parties in their contemporary form to engage inpolitical confrontation based on principles and policies? Professor Mamoru
Sorai argues that the pursuit of electoral victory in single-seatconstituencies has undermined the validity of the conventional politicalmodel that posits that political parties engage in policy-based competition
along very simply drawn lines of confrontation.18 What Sorai wants toemphasize is the impossibility of the simple model of elections (priorselection election) where political parties present contrasting policy
packages before an election and the winning party implements its policy
package. This is his way of severely criticizing the advocates of metapolitics who have naively pursued manifesto-based elections.
At the same time, one of the critically important points of Sorai’s argument
is that political scientists must realize and admit the difficulties inherent
in the model that posits that the public makes its choice from among
multiple parties competing on the basis of their policy platforms. However,as difficult as it may be for political parties to espouse consistent principles,
it is obviously necessary for political scientists who are making
policymaking recommendations to the parties to have a clearly defined setof principles of their own.
It is not necessarily a bad thing for political parties to be opportunistic in
their choice of policies. The origins of the DPJ can be traced back to thecriticism of special-interest politics that had been perfected by the TanakaTakeshita Faction of the LDP in the 1980s. In this sense, it cannot bedenied that, at the start of the 21st century, the DPJ shared a certain
degree of affinity with the line taken by Prime Minister Koizumi. However,once Koizumi’s neo-liberal structural reforms began to seriously
impoverish the Japanese society and economy, the DPJ made the best useof its freedom and agility as an opposition party to shift its direction
toward social-democratic lines. Insofar as a multi-party system cannot
hope to free itself from the clutches of the “supremacy of election results,”
possibilities of this type of opportunistic policy shift must be kept firmly inmind when considering the viability of change of government as a path topolicy change.
Even if political parties choose to shed their ideological identities andbaggage, the scholars who are recommending policy packages for adoption
by these parties certainly must not follow suit, for political sciencecleansed of ideology has no choice left but to seek subsistence in the realmof meta-politics.

Figure 1:
Divergence of Corporate Earnings and Employee Income
Unit: trillion yen (seasonally adjusted annual rate)
Ordinary profit (all industries)<right scale>
Employee compensation<left scale>

Sources: Cabinet Office, “Quarterly GDP Statistics;” Ministry of Finance,“Financial Statements Statistics of Corporations by Industry.”

Figure 2:
Poverty Rate
(Percentage of households with disposable
income below public assistance eligibility level)
Age groups

Source: Preface to “Research on Disparity and Social Welfare” (Project
leader: Kohei Komamura) funded by Fiscal 2008 Ministry of Health, Laborand Welfare Scientific Research Subsidy, Research for Promoting Policy
Sciences.

Figure 3:

Policy Categories and Political Forces
Socialization of risk
First Way Japanese Version of
Traditional LDP Third Way DPJ
Discretionary

Rule-oriented

Second Way
Koizumi reforms

Market-Based

Individualization of risk

1Joseph Stiglitz, Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World
Economy (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010), pp. 127-128.

2

Mitsuharu Itoh compares the Obama Administration to the post-Depression Franklin
D. Roosevelt Administration and states that while Roosevelt appointed progressive
scholars to his brain trusts, Obama focused on building a non-partisan politicalbase, as symbolized by his appointments of FRB Chairman Bernanke and Treasury
Secretary Geithner. He goes on to argue that the Obama Democrats remain under thespell of the “Reagan Revolution.” Mitsuharu Itoh, Seiken Kotai no Seiji Gaku
(Political science of change of government) (Iwanami Shoten, 2010), p. 158, p. 174.
3
On the issue of lowering corporate tax rates, Itoh states the following. “Today(2010), the Japanese economy is starting to recover led by external demand. It is
this relatively fortunate sector of the economy that is clamoring for a reduction
in corporate tax rate, while less successful sectors of the economy are unaffected.
The argument is that tax rates must be reduced in order for companies to remain in
Japan. The decision of where to locate is based on a multiplicity of factors,
including political stability and the level of infrastructure development. A 5
percent cut in corporate tax rates will have a minimal impact on such decisions.”
Ibid., p. 116.
4
Ibid., p. 70.
5Shinichiro Murakami, “Itto Yui Taisei no Hokkai” (Collapse of one-party
dominance) in Jiro Yamaguchi, ed. Minshuto Seiken ha Nani wo Nasu bekika (Whatshould the DPJ administration do) (Iwanami Shoten: 2010), pp. 34-35.
6
http://www.mof.go.jp/jouhou/syukei/sy014/sy014s.htm
7“Japanese equality” faces various limitations. The corporate sector’s longterm employment provides stability but also obstructs the independence of theworkers as individuals. People who slip through the cracks of company-unit social
security are forced to bear the burden of risks on their own. In other words,
Western universalism did not take root in postwar Japan. See Taro Miyamoto, Seikatu
Hosho (Livelihood security) (Iwanami Shoten: 2009), pp. 40-49.
8Kenji Hashimoto, Hinkon Rensa (Chain reaction of poverty) (Daiwa Shobo: 2009),
Chapter 5.
9
See Takashi Arimori, Koizumi Kisei Kaikaku wo Riyo Shita Otoko: Miyauchi
Yoshihiko (The man who used the Koizumi regulatory reforms: Yoshihiko Miyauchi)(Kodansha: 2009) and Isao Mori, Sarariman Seisho: Miyauchi Yoshihiko no Hikari toKage (Salary man with political influence: light and dark of Yoshihiko Miyauchi)(Kodansha: 2007).
10
Jiro Yamaguchi, “Nihon ni okeru Saha Seiji no Kongo to Minshuto no Yakuwari”(Future of Japan’s leftist politics and the role of the DPJ), Sekai, December 2005.
11
It is no accident that politicians from the former Socialist Party and theGeneral Council of Trade Unions in Japan (Sohyo), such as Azuma Koshiishi(originally from Japan Teachers Union, Yamanashi Prefecture) and Yoshimitsu
Takashima (originally from All-Japan Prefectural and Municipal Workers’ Union,
Osaka Prefecture), played a very important part in supporting the Ozawa system.
These politicians share the same political culture with Ozawa on such issues as theimportance of organization in politics and the need for discipline and unity in theorganization. However, this political culture has led to the creation of a chasm
between this camp and the younger and middle-tier politicians who entered the worldof politics after the implementation of political reforms.
12
Weather Network Newsletter No. 76 (January 1, 2011).
13
Under the DPJ, two consecutive Ministers of Economy, Trade and Industry had
earlier backgrounds in the labor unions of major manufacturers. Ironically, theindustrial interests were being protected by people from the labor side.

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After the collapse of the Hatoyama Cabinet and the formation of the Kan Cabinet,
revision of the DPJ manifesto became a major point of contention, with pro-Ozawa
and anti-Ozawa camps taking up opposite positions on this issue. On December 26,
2010, I had an opportunity to engage in a two-hour dialogue with Prime Minister Kanat the prime minister’s official residence. During our dialogue, I was very
surprised by the apathetic position taken by Kan that the 2009 DPJ Manifesto had
been produced by Ozawa. The DPJ has been unable to settle on treating the revisionof the manifesto as simply a prioritization of objectives that leaves the basic
directions of the manifesto unchanged. As a result, the lingering implication thatbasic principles are also at stake and subject to possible amendment has fueled thefactional struggles within the party.
15“Mekura no Tebiki suru Mekura” (The blind leading the blind) in Masamichi
Asukai, ed. Osugi Sakae Hyoronshu (Osugi Sakae anthology) (Iwanami Shoten: 1996), p.
147, p. 157.
16
Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004), pp. x-xi.
17
Junji Banno, Nihon Kensei Shi (History of constitutional government in Japan)(Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan: 2008), pp. 193-201.
18
Mamoru Sorai, “Rinen naki Seito Seiji no Rinen Kei” (Ideal type of party
politics with no ideas) Sekai, August 2010, pp. 143-148.