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Japan's Upper House Election of 29 July 2001

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Takashi Inoguchi
Takashi Inoguchi*
Affiliation:
University of Tokyo
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Extract

The Election For Japan'S House Of Councillors Took Place On 29 July 2001. The result was a resounding victory for the major governing party, the Liberal Democratic Party, with its majority regained after the failure in the previous election in 1998. The election was very interesting in two senses. First, the deepening difficulty of the economy did not prevent the LDP from making a comeback of sorts. Normally, the Japanese voters, like most others, reward the governing party when the economy goes well. Secondly, its newly chosen maverick President, Junichiro Koizumi, successfully adopted a rhetoric of ‘Reform with Pain’ for the ostensible reason of escaping Japan's dilemma: the impossibility of allowing many business firms and banks to go bankrupt without thereby aggravating economic problems and antagonizing the electorate; its inability to drastically reduce the large number of public corporations with large registered deficits; and its inability to drastically reduce huge accumulated deficits. He came, he saw and he won. ‘How?’ is the question that the rest of this article attempts to answer.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , January 2002 , pp. 38 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2002

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References

1 Inoguchi Takashi, Gendai Nihon seijikeizai no kozo (The Contemporary Japanese Political Economy), Tokyo, Toyokeizaishimposha, 1983; Kohno, Masaru and Nishizawa, Yoshitaka, ‘A Study of the Electoral Business Cycle in Japan’, Comparative Politics, 22:2, 1990, pp. 151–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 On the economic management in the 1990s, see, for instance, Yoshikawa Hiroshi, Tenkankino Nihon keizai (The Japanese Economy in Transition), Iwanami shoten, 2000; and Wellner, Richard, En no shihaisha (Princes of the Yen), Tokyo, Soshisha, 2001.Google Scholar

3 As for how the Liberal Democratic Party governed the economy and the country until its fall from power in 1993, see, Takashi, Inoguchi, Nihon: taikoku no seiji unei (Governing Japan: The Economic Power), Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1994.Google Scholar

4 Takashi, Inoguchi and Jain, Purnendra (eds), Japanese Foreign Policy Today, New York, Palgrave, 2000;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Green, Michael, Japan’s Reluctant Realism, New York, Palgrave, 2001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 The political development from Hashimoto to Obuchi is succinctly described in Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘The Future of Liberal Democratic Party Politics: Obuchi’s Legacy’, Global Communication Platform, Tokyo, 10 04 2000. http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/200004_inoguchi_obuchi/ Google Scholar

6 Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘Confidence in Institutions: Evidence from Japan’, paper prepared for presentation at the Civil Society Workshop, Tokyo, 12–13 June 2001 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘Confidence in Institutions’, paper prepared for discussion at the European Consortium for Political Research annual meeting, Canterbury, England, 6–10 September 2001 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘Japan: From Binding to Extending Social Capital’, in Putnam, Robert (ed.), Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society, Oxford, Oxford University Press, forthcoming in 2002 Google Scholar. The survey data on confidence in institutions in eighteen societies in Western Europe and East and Southeast Asia are derived from the project on Globalization and Political Cultures of Democracy, funded by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, for the period between 1999– 2003 (project number 11102000).

7 Morris, Dick, VOTE.COM, New York, Renaissance Books, 1999.Google Scholar

8 Visit www.koizumimmz.kantei.go.jp. See also Kumi, Yokoe, E-politics, Tokyo, Bungei shunju sha, 2001.Google Scholar

9 Nihon keizai Shimbun, ‘Shizumu bukai, gium taito’ (Committees on the Decline, Parliamentarian Leagues on the Rise), 31 December 2000; Moeller, Patrick, ‘Upper House Elections in Japan and the Power of “Organized Votes”’, paper presented at the British Association of Japanese Studies annual meeting, Cardiff, Wales, 11–13 September 2001 Google Scholar.

10 Johnson, Chalmers, MITI and the Japanese Miracle, Stanford, Cal., Stanford University Press, 1993 Google Scholar.

11 Takashi, Inoguchi and Tomoaki, Iwai, ‘Zoku giin no kenkyu’ (A Study of Legislative Tribes), Tokyo, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 1987 Google Scholar.

12 Schwartz, Frank J.and Pharr, Susan (eds), The State of Civil Society in Japan, book manuscript, Program on US–Japan Relations, Harvard University, 10 2001 Google Scholar. Tadashi, Yamamoto (ed.), Deciding the Public Good: Governance and Civil Society in Japan, Tokyo, Japan Centre for International Exchange, 1999 Google Scholar.

13 Reed, Steven and Thiel, Michael, ‘The Causes of Electoral Reform in Japan’, and ‘The Consequences of Electoral Reform in Japan’, in Soberg Shugart, Matthew and Wattenberg, Martin P. (eds), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds?, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001 Google Scholar.

14 These two types are discussed in Inoguchi and Iwai, Zoku giin no kenkyu, op. cit.

15 See reference in note 10.

16 Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 5 August 2001.

17 Asahi Shimbun, 10 June 2001.

18 Dick Morris, VOTE.COM, and Yokoe Kumi, E-politics, op. cit.

19 Visit http:www.kosonippon.org

20 Of all the high schools in Japan, less than one per cent adopted the right-wing history textbook. Asahi Shimbun, 16 August 2001.

21 Asahi Shimbun, 14 August 2001.

22 Rice, Condoleezza, ‘Promoting the National Interest’, Foreign Affairs, 79:1 ( January/February 2000), pp. 45–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Armitage, Richard L. et al. , ‘The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership’, INSS Special Report, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 11 10 2000.Google Scholar