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Country Bio: Japan
• Population:
– 127.1 million
– Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces combined
• Territory:
– 145,882 square miles
– Smaller than Yunnan Province
• Year of Independence:
– 660 B.C.
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Country Bio: Japan
• Year of Current Constitution:
– 1947
• Head of State:
– Emperor Akihito
• Head of Government:
– Prime Minister Naoto Kan
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The Tokugawa Clan 1600-1868
• In 1600, the Tokugawa clan finally
managed to achieve preeminence and a
considerable degree of national unity.
• The Tokugawa family ruled from Edo,
present-day Tokyo, from 1600 to 1868.
• After over 250 years of virtual isolation, a
U.S. naval officer, Commodore Matthew C.
Perry, sailed a small fleet into what is now
known as Tokyo Bay in 1853.
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The Meiji Restoration 1868
• This action emboldened regional barons to
depose the Tokugawa clan and “restore”
the emperor to power.
• The Meiji Restoration (1868), as this
transition is called, was named for the
young Emperor Meiji, who was nominally
installed as the supreme political and
religious leader.
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The Meiji Restoration 1868
• Although the new oligarchs had no
intention of democratizing politics on any
mass level, they did relent to the
establishment of a constitution with an
elected legislature.
• The government established the Diet, a
bicameral legislative body, on the model of
European parliamentary democracy.
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The 1889 Constitution
• The 1889 constitution had given the Diet
the ability to reject certain governmental
actions (specifically the budget), so that
the cabinet had to bargain with nascent
political parties on many issues.
• This creeping democratization reached its
prewar apex from 1918 to 1932.
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The Occupation
• It was not until Japan’s surrender in
August 1945, and its subsequent
occupation by the Allied powers, that the
military’s role in politics was ended and
civilian democracy was allowed to flourish.
• The Allied Occupation of Japan was
administered by the Supreme Commander
for the Allied Powers (SCAP), under the
direction of U.S. General Douglas
MacArthur.
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The Occupation
• Its initial objectives were to demilitarize
and democratize Japan, to render Japan
unable and unwilling to wage war ever
again.
• This idealism was discarded rather quickly
in the face of Communist advances in
China and increasing conflict between the
United States and the Soviet Union.
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The 1947 Constitution
• Perhaps the best known provision of the
Japanese Constitution is Article 9, the
“Peace Clause,” in which Japan
renounces the right to wage war or even to
maintain a military capability.
• Conservative governments and courts
have interpreted the provision flexibly (to
say the least) to allow for a defensive
capability.
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The 1951 Peace Treaty
• The priorities of SCAP shifted from the
demilitarization of Japan to securing Japan
as a reliable ally in the Cold War.
• In September 1951, Japan signed a
general peace treaty in San Francisco with
all Allied powers except the Soviet Union
(and China), formally ending the
Occupation and ceding Japan’s postwar
autonomy.
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The US-Japan Security Treaty
• At the same time, the U.S.-Japan Mutual
Security Treaty was signed.
• This treaty allowed the United States to
station troops in Japan and to continue to
occupy Okinawa as a military base, a vital
link in the U.S. anticommunist
“containment strategy” during the Cold
War.
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Watershed Events since WWII
• Postwar Japanese politics is chock-full of
fascinating personalities and episodes, but
four watershed events stand out.
• The first was the promulgation of the
postwar Constitution in 1947, which
established Japan’s political institutions
and specified their relative shares of
political power.
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Watershed Events since WWII
• The second was the 1955 party merger
that resulted in the formation of the Liberal
Democratic Party (LDP), which was to
govern Japan for the next four decades.
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Watershed Events since WWII
• The third was the 1960 U.S.-Japan Mutual
Security Treaty crisis, which both
crystallized the foreign policy cleavage
that persisted until the end of the Cold War
and induced the government to downplay
such issues and instead place economic
growth squarely on the front burner.
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Watershed Events since WWII
• The fourth was the temporary fall of the
LDP from power in 1993, and the
subsequent adoption of new electoral
rules in 1994.
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The National Diet
• Japan’s system of government is
parliamentary, bicameral, and, despite the
existence of elected local governments,
nonfederal.
• Article 41 of the Constitution specifies that
the parliament, the National Diet, “shall be
the highest organ of state power, and shall
be the sole law-making organ of the
State.”
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The National Diet
• Thus, there is no separately elected
executive with whom the Diet must share
policymaking authority.
• The Diet consists of two legislative
chambers:
– the House of Representatives (the Lower
House)
– and the House of Councillors (the Upper
House).
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The National Diet
• Both chambers must pass a bill in identical
form for it to become law, with three
important exceptions:
• the House of Representatives alone
– chooses the prime minister,
– passes the budget,
– and ratifies treaties.
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The House of Representatives
• As in all parliamentary systems, the first
business that any new parliament must
conduct (after an election) is to elect one
of its members to serve as prime minister.
• The person elected is usually, but not
always, the leader of the largest party in
the Lower House.
– During the LDP’s long reign as majority party,
the LDP leader always won that prize.
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The House of Representatives
• The new prime minister then appoints a
cabinet, at least half of whose members
must be legislators.
• These appointees head up the cabinetlevel ministries and agencies that
comprise the central government
bureaucracy.
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Local Government
• Japan is divided administratively into fortyseven prefectures, each of which elects its
own governor and legislature.
– The country’s hundreds of municipalities elect
their own mayors and city councils as well.
• Nevertheless, Japan is not a federal
system: all local government authority is
delegated, and may be retracted, by the
national government.
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The Judiciary
• The Japanese legal system ostensibly
features the same degree of judicial
independence that courts in the US enjoy.
• Such independence is guaranteed in the
Constitution.
• Nonetheless, independence does not
appear to be the reality in Japan.
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The Judiciary
• Political domination and manipulation of
the courts have arisen from a combination
of the LDP’s long reign and its ability to
use appointment powers and bureaucratic
mechanisms to avoid putting courts into
positions where they might render
decisions anathema to LDP interests.
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The Judiciary
• In a unitary parliamentary system,
especially one with a long-tenured majority
party, there are fewer checks and
balances, and hence fewer conflicts for
courts to mediate, other things equal.
• It will be interesting to see if this practice
changes now that LDP control of
government is over.
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The Judiciary
• The Cabinet directly appoints the fifteen
members of the Supreme Court, and
indirectly, through the administrative
apparatus of the Supreme Court, helps to
determine all lower court appointments as
well.
• The Supreme Court, through its
Secretariat, controls the career paths of
lower court judges.
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Electoral Systems
• The two chambers of the National Diet use
different electoral rules.
• The rules for the more powerful House of
Representatives were changed in 1994.
• According to the Constitution, members of
the House of Representatives are elected
to four-year terms, but these terms usually
end early, as the prime minister may
dissolve the chamber and call elections at
any time.
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New Electoral Rules
• In January 1994, several months after
wresting power from the LDP, a sevenparty coalition government enacted a
major restructuring of the Lower House
electoral rules.
• The new rules set the size of the House of
Representatives at 500 seats, later
reduced to 480.
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New Electoral Rules
• Of these, 300 are elected on the basis of
equal-sized single-member districts, and
180 (originally 200) are elected from
eleven regional districts by proportional
representation (PR).
• Each voter casts two votes: one for a
candidate in the single-member district,
and one for a party in the PR region.
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New Electoral Rules
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Political Participation
• By international standards, the political
involvement of ordinary Japanese is low.
• Voters generally identify with political
parties based on personal identification
with a candidate or association with a
party-affiliated interest group.
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Voter Turnout in Elections
• Voter turnout at election time has been
declining steadily on a nationwide basis.
• Recently, party identification has declined
as well, as self-proclaimed “independents”
now make up the largest group of
respondents in public opinion polls.
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Voter Turnout in Elections
• It is unclear whether it represents a
worrisome new political alienation or
whether it is simply a sign that Japanese
democracy has matured,
• now that Japanese voters seem as
apathetic and complacent about politics as
their counterparts in other advanced
democracies.
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Political Culture
• In discussions of Japanese political
culture, the concepts of hierarchy,
homogeneity, and conformity to group
objectives take center stage.
• Social hierarchy governs most Japanese
relationships.
• In the family, in the workplace, and in
politics, the hierarchical traits of loyalty
and obligation can be found.
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Political Culture
• Japanese political behavior and economic
success have also been attributed, at least
in part, to ethnic and cultural homogeneity.
• This homogeneity has been credited with
allowing Japan to focus in a unified
manner on national goals, the foremost
being economic growth.
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Political Culture
• An understanding of why the Japanese
feel confident that they are homogeneous
may be found in the lack of strong issue
cleavages.
• Indeed, one reason the LDP was so
successful for so long at implementing a
campaign strategy that downplayed issues
in favor of the distribution of private goods
was the simple absence of many common
issue cleavages.
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Political Culture
• Studies of Japanese culture also stress
the Japanese emphasis on conformity, the
belief that individual goals should be
sublimated to the objectives of the group.
• But by itself, reference to culture can not
explain many things that are interesting
about Japanese politics.
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The Policymaking Process
• Japan is a parliamentary democracy, with
both houses of the National Diet directly
elected, and with the prime minister and
the cabinet chosen by, and accountable to,
the Lower House.
• In practice, the Diet, like all parliaments,
tends to leave the proposal of legislation to
the Cabinet, reserving the right to pass,
reject, or amend those proposals as it
sees fit.
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The Policymaking Process
• The Cabinet, in turn, delegates the task of
drafting legislation - everything from
regulation to the budget - to policy experts
in the bureaucracy.
• The Cabinet ministers oversee this
process in the broadest sense, but most of
the expertise resides, and most of the
action takes place, in the various bureaus
and departments of the government
ministries and agencies.
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How a Bill Becomes a Law
• Members of either house of the Diet may
submit legislation, and they do so quite
often.
• But these “member bills” are almost
always exercises in grandstanding for the
sponsors’ constituencies, where the
proposal itself is the point, and they rarely
have any hope of passing into law.
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How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The typical path for new legislation
proceeds as follows.
• A ministry drafts legislation for some policy
change in its jurisdiction and submits the
bill to the Cabinet.
• The Cabinet may send the bill back, reject
it, or amend it in any way it wishes, but if
and when it is satisfied, it submits the bill
to the Diet.
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How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The Diet may then do whatever it wants
with the bill.
• Normal legislation must be passed in
identical form by both houses, unless the
Lower House can muster a two-thirds
majority to override Upper House
objections.
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How a Bill Becomes a Law
• Again, if the bill is the annual budget, or a
treaty to be ratified, then only the Lower
House need pass it;
• the Upper House may delay that passage
for up to thirty days, but it may not stop it.
• Any bill passed by the Diet becomes the
law of the land.
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How a Bill Becomes a Law
• There is no separately elected president
who may veto Diet actions, and Diet laws
supersede any local laws that might
conflict.
• The Supreme Court may declare a law
unconstitutional, but this is exceedingly
rare.
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How a Bill Becomes a Law
• The final steps in the process involve
implementation.
• The Diet can pass legislation, but it
delegates to the bureaucracy the job of
implementing and enforcing the new rules.
• Indeed, laws are often so vague that the
bureaucrats must do considerably more
than robotically carry out the Diet’s orders.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• Perhaps the most well-known aspect of
postwar Japanese history has been the
country’s remarkable economic
development.
• As the first industrial democracy in East
Asia, Japan has been looked to as a
model for other industrializing countries in
the region.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• Arguments over who should receive credit
for Japan’s economic growth have raged
for years, with three major theories
contending.
• The role of government intervention in the
economy is at the center of each of these
explanations.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• The first theory stresses the role that
market fundamentals have played in
directing Japanese economic growth.
• Japan’s high postwar growth is simply a
result of returning to the growth path
established before World War II.
• This theory discounts any positive role for
interventionist government policy in
explaining Japan’s economic miracle.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• A second theory, widely subscribed to both
inside and outside Japan, contends that
Japan’s government (or more precisely its
well-trained bureaucrats) is the source of
economic success.
• In this account, skillful use of government
in providing firms with access to capital
was crucial to Japan’s economic rebirth.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• Further, the Ministry of International Trade
and Industry (MITI - since renamed), the
bureaucratic agency in charge of industrial
policy decision making, used its
administrative authority to point firms in
fruitful directions.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• Government is also credited with
retreating intelligently and carefully from
declining economic sectors, such as coal,
that were unlikely to prove beneficial in the
future.
• This view argues that MITI was adept at
picking industries that would become
profitable, and discarded losing economic
sectors to enhance the economy as a
whole.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• A third view suggests that Japan has
maintained a form of “strategic capitalism”
requiring cooperation between the firms in
an economic sector and the government
over the type and depth of government
involvement.
• Government is most involved in economic
decision making when firms can agree to
limit competition among themselves.
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Industrial Policy and the Miracle
• Since the beginning of the 1990s, Japan
has reeled from one recession to the next,
from bad economic straits to worse.
• Deflation, unemployment, and
bankruptcies, all unheard of for decades,
have stagnated the economy and shocked
the national psyche.
• Fiscal deficits are worse than ever.
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Security and Foreign Policy
• Japan’s postwar security and foreign
policy have focused on maintaining a
close relationship with the United States.
• Bargaining from a position of weakness,
Japan has been on the receiving end of
most U.S. foreign policy decisions.
• With the end of the Cold War, Japanese
voters have become more ambivalent
about the alliance.
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Security and Foreign Policy
• With national security taken care of by the
U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, the
Japanese government was able to focus
its foreign policy on economic matters.
• Recently, however, Japan has been
obliged to pay for a large share of the U.S.
defense commitment to all of East Asia.
• Japan now pays fully 50% of all costs of
deploying U. S. troops on Japanese soil.
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Welfare Policy: Health Care
• Health care in Japan is universally
covered through a governmentadministered, single-payer program that
requires all individuals to pay a health
insurance premium based on income
level.
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Welfare Policy: Health Care
• Standards of service are below what is
commonly found in the U.S. private
system, but the coverage ensures
widespread access to basic health
services.
• Despite many failings, the benefits of
Japan’s health care system are clear.
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Welfare Policy: Health Care
• Infant mortality is the lowest among
industrialized nations, and life expectancy
is the highest.
• The Japanese accomplish this even
though public spending on health care
constitutes a smaller percentage of GNP
in Japan than in the US (6.6%), Britain
(5.8%), France (8%), or Germany (8.2%).
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Welfare Policy: Pensions
• On pension policies, the Japanese
government has been much less active.
• Public and private pensions are meager.
• Nonetheless, overall welfare spending has
grown steadily as Japanese society has
aged.
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Welfare Policy: Pensions
• An aging society in Japan will exacerbate
the costs of present welfare benefits and
increase the political desirability of
expanding such programs.
• Reductions of existing benefits may
become more common as the government
strives to keep up with the demographic
changes that increase the number of
people demanding assistance.
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