Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:07:48.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Electoral Power of Japanese Interest Groups: An Organizational Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2016

Patricia L. Maclachlan
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

What explains the electoral staying power of many Japanese interest groups in the wake of electoral reform? Electoral explanations provide part of the answer; candidates in elections to both houses of the Diet continue to face incentives—many of them unintended—to court the organized vote. But missing from such accounts is an explanation of why economically noncompetitive groups provide the bulk of such support. The primary reason for this, I argue, is organization. As a result of their historical linkages to the bureaucracy, many interests developed hierarchical, national organizational structures that enabled them to carry out a variety of vote-gathering functions that the parties had trouble performing themselves. Although electoral reform and long-term demographic trends have weakened the electoral influence of interest groups, these organizational complementarities between groups and the parties continue to matter in Japanese elections—including under conditions of two-party competition. To illustrate these points, I trace the evolution of interest group politics from the era of LDP dominance through the rise of two-party competition and the LDP's recent return to power, using postmasters associations and agricultural cooperatives as case studies.

Keywords

agricultural cooperativesbureaucracyelectionsexchange relationshipsinterest groupspolitical partiespostmasters associations
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of East Asian Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , December 2014 , pp. 429 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © East Asia Institute 

References

Bawn, Kathleen, and Thies, Michael F.. 2003. “A Comparative Theory of Electoral Incentives: Representing the Unorganized Under PR, Plurality and Mixed-Member Electoral Systems.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 15, 5: 5–32.Google Scholar
Berger, Suzanne, ed. 1981. Organizing Interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, Corporatism, and the Transformation of Politics. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bullock, Robert. 1997. “Nokyo: A Short Cultural History.” JPRI Working Paper, no. 41 (December). http://www.jpri.org/publications/workingpapers/wp41.html.Google Scholar
Curtis, Gerald. 1971. Election Campaigning Japanese Style. . New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Christina L. 2003. Food Fights over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization. . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Masaki, Enō. 2006. Jitsuroku: Tokutei yūbinkyokuchōsan [An authentic account: Mr. commissioned postmaster]. Tokyo: Shinpūsha.Google Scholar
Mulgan, George, Aurelia, . 2000. The Politics of Agriculture in Japan. . London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mulgan, George, Aurelia, . 2005. “Where Tradition Meets Change: Japan's Agricultural Politics in Transition.” Journal of Japanese Studies 31, 2: 261–298.Google Scholar
Mulgan, George, Aurelia, . 2013. “Farmers, Agricultural Policies, and the Election.” In Japan Decides 2012: The Japanese General Election , ed. Pekkanen, Robert, Reed, Steven R., and Scheiner, Ethan, 213–224. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Mulgan, George, Aurelia, . 2014. “Bringing the Party Back In: How the DPJ Diminished Prospects for Japanese Agricultural Trade Liberalization Under the TPP.” Japanese Journal of Political Science 15, 1 (March): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2010. Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer—and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Shinsuke, Hamamoto. 2010. “Changes Among Interest Groups Toward the Two-Party System.” Social Science Japan Newsletter 42 (March): 16–20. http://newslet.iss-u.tokyo.ac.jp/ssj42/ssj42.pdf.Google Scholar
Shinsuke, Hamamoto and Yutaka, Tsujinaka. 2010. “Gyōsei nettowaaku ni okeru dantai” [Groups in bureaucratic networks]. In Gendai shakai shūdan no seiji kinō: rieki dantai to shimin shakai [The political functions of contemporary social organizations: Interest groups and civil society], ed. Yutaka, Tsujinaka and Hiroki, Mori, 156–179. Tokyo: Bokutakusha.Google Scholar
Masayoshi, Honma. 2014. Nōgyō mondai: TPPgo, nōsei wa kō kawaru [Agricultural issues: how agricultural policy will change after TPP]. Tokyo: Chikuma shinsho.Google Scholar
Shūichi, Honma. 2003. Tokutei yūbinkyokuchō ni natta boku no rakudai nikki [My diary as a failed commissioned postmaster]. Tokyo: Shinpūsha.Google Scholar
Ishida, Takeshi. 1968. “The Development of Interest Groups and the Pattern of Political Modernization in Japan.” In Political Development in Modern Japan , ed. Ward, Robert E., 293–336. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ishida, Takeshi. 1974. “Interest Groups Under a Semi-Permanent Party: The Case of Japan.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 413 (May): 1–10.Google Scholar
Kazunori, Kawamura. 2011. “Rieki dantaiuchi no dōtai to seiken kōtai” [Interest group dynamics and regime change]. Nenpō seijigaku , 33–51.Google Scholar
Kazunori, Kawamura. 2012. “Seiken kōtai jidai no rieki dantai to sono henyō: 2010nen sangiinsen de no nōgyōhyō no yukuei kara” [Interest groups and their structure in the era of regime change: The outcome of the agricultural vote in the 2010 upper house election]. Komei (March): 24–30.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, Herbert, and Wilkinson, Steven I.. 2007. “Citizen-Politician Linkages: An Introduction.” In Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition , ed. Kitschelt, Herbert and Wilkinson, Steven I., 1–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Klein, Axel, and Reed, Steven R.. forthcoming. “Religious Groups in Japanese Electoral Politics.” In Kōmeitō: Politics and Religion in Japan , ed. Ehrhardt, George, Klein, Axel, McLaughlin, Levi, and Reed, Steven R.. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.Google Scholar
Koellner, Patrick. 2002. “Upper House Elections in Japan and the Power of the Organized Vote.” Japanese Journal of Political Science 3, 1: 113–137.Google Scholar
Koellner, Patrick. 2004. “Factionalism in Japanese Parties Revisited or How Do Factions in the LDP and the DPJ Differ?” Japan Forum 16, 1: 87–109.Google Scholar
Koellner, Patrick. 2009. “Japanese Lower House Campaigns in Transition: Manifest Changes or Fleeting Fads?” Journal of East Asian Studies 9, 1: 121–149.Google Scholar
Krauss, Ellis S., and Pekkanen, Robert J.. 2011. The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP: Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions. . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipscy, Phillip Y., and Scheiner, Ethan. 2012. “Japan Under the DPJ: The Paradox of Political Change Without Policy Change.” Journal of East Asian Studies 12, 3: 311–322.Google Scholar
Maclachlan, Patricia L. 2006. “Storming the Castle: The Battle for Postal Reform in Japan.” Social Science Japan Journal 9 , 2:1–18.Google Scholar
Maclachlan, Patricia L. 2011. The People's Post Office: The History and Politics of the Japanese Postal System, 1871–2010. . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Medina, Luis Fernando, and Stokes, Susan C.. 2007. “Monopoly and Monitoring: An Approach to Political Clientelism.” In Patrons, Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition , ed. Kitschelt, Herbert and Wilkinson, Steven I., 68–83. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hiroki, Mori. 2008. “Senkyo katei ni okeru rieki dantai no dōkō” [Interest group trends in the electoral process]. Dōshisha hōgaku 330 (November): 45–77.Google Scholar
Hiroki, Mori. 2010. “Seiken kōtai zenya ni okeru dantai—seitō kankei no shosō” [Aspects of relations between groups and parties on the eve of regime change]. In Gendai shakai shūdan no seiji kinō: rieki dantai to shimin shakai [The political functions of contemporary social organizations: Interest groups and civil society], ed. Yutaka, Tsujinaka and Hiroki, Mori, 180–194. Tokyo: Bokutakusha.Google Scholar
Norgren, Christiana A. E. 2001. Abortion Before Birth Control: The Politics of Reproduction in Postwar Japan. . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Park, Gene. 2011. Spending Without Taxation: FILP and the Politics of Public Finance in Japan. . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pempel, T. J., and Tsunekawa, Keiichi. 1979. “Corporatism Without Labor? The Japanese Anomaly.” In Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation , ed. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Lehmbruch, Gerhard, 231–270. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Reed, Steven R. 2009. “Party Strategy or Candidate Strategy: How Does the LDP Run the Right Number of Candidates in Japan's Multi-Member Districts?” Party Politics 15, 3: 295–314.Google Scholar
Reed, Steven R., Scheiner, Ethan, and Thies, Michael F.. 2012. “The End of LDP Dominance and the Rise of Party-Oriented Politics in Japan. Journal of Japanese Studies 38, 2: 353–376.Google Scholar
Rosenbluth, Frances McCall, and Thies, Michael F.. 2010. Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring. . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schaede, Ulrike. 2000. Cooperative Capitalism: Self-Regulation, Trade Associations, and the Anti-Monopoly Law in Japan. . Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. . New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Scheiner, Ethan. 2006. Democracy Without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scheiner, Ethan. 2012. “The Electoral System and Japan's Partial Transformation: Party System Consolidation Without Policy Realignment.” Journal of East Asian Studies 12, 3: 351–379.Google Scholar
Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Verba, Sidney, and Brady, Henry E.. 2012. The Unheavenly Chorus: Unequal Political Voice and the Broken Promise of American Democracy. . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Schmitter, Philippe C. 1979. “Still the Century of Corporatism?” In Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation , ed. Schmitter, Philippe C. and Lehmbruch, Gerhard, 7–52. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Shinoda, Tomohito. 2013. Contemporary Japanese Politics: Institutional Changes and Power Shifts. . New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Steslicke, William E. 1973. Doctors in Politics: The Political Life of the Japan Medical Association. . New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Thies, Michael F. 2002. “Changing How the Japanese Vote: The Promise and Pitfalls of the 1994 Electoral Reform.” In How Asia Votes , ed. Hsieh, John Fuh-sheng and Newman, David, 92–117. New York: Chatham House.Google Scholar
Takayoshi, Uekami and Hidenori, Tsutsumi. 2011. “Minshutō no keiseikatei, soshiki to seisaku” [The formation process, organization and policies of the DPJ]. In Minshutō no soshiki to seisaku [The organization and policies of the DPJ], ed. Takayoshi, Uekami and Hidenori, Tsutsumi, 1–28. Tokyo: Tōyō keiai shinpōsha.Google Scholar
Yoshitaka, Wada. 1997. “Zenkoku tokutei yūbinkyokuchōkai” [The national commissioned postmasters association]. Foresight (February): 120–123.Google Scholar
Wang, Chin-Shou, and Kurzman, Charles. 2007. “Dilemmas of Electoral Clientelism: Taiwan, 1993.” International Political Science Review 28, 2: 225–245.Google Scholar
Woodall, Brian. 1996. Japan Under Construction: Corruption, Politics, and Public Works. . Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Osamu, Yamaguchi. 1993. Tokutei yūbinkyoku: zenkoku tokuteikyoku chōkai no ayumi [The commissioned post office: A history of the postmasters associations]. Tokyo: Gyōsei.Google Scholar