The Search for Safe Change: The Democratic Party of Japan and the Post-Koizumi Era

by Mark Halperin

August 3, 2005

United States-Japan Media Fellows Program
2005

Note: This report was published on August 3, 2005 and thus reflects only those events that have occurred through that date.

In November, Japan's Liberal Democratic Party plans to celebrate its fiftieth birthday. Like most fifty-year-old Japanese men, the party is showing its age and feeling existential.

In the half-century that the party has presided over Japan’s national government—the LDP was out of power only for a few months during the early 1990s—analysts at home and abroad have questioned Japan’s status as a true democracy.

For many skeptics, the perennial rule of the LDP, which operates arm-in-arm with the national bureaucrats to whom it has long ceded substantial power, is the most conspicuous evidence that the country’s brand of democracy falls short of the model serving most of the industrialized world.

But as the LDP gears up to celebrate its golden anniversary this fall, it might be on the verge of involuntarily delivering to the people of Japan the first two-party, truly competitive system the country has seen in the modern era.

A certain cynicism pervades discussions among masses and elites in industrialized democracies when appraising how responsive a government is to the will of the people. But such conversations seem even thornier in Japan, where public opinion polls suggest deep alienation and little expectation for principled politicians, and where leaders in government, politics, and journalism speak in such cynical terms that they make Tony Soprano look like Gandhi.

Although it is often difficult to remember, politics and government exist to express and enable a society’s national will. With Japan in the midst of a series of critical debates about the future direction of the nation, some of the country’s desires are clear. Removed from the inside game of electoral politics, the nation faces an extraordinary array of new challenges and changed conditions which politicians are scrambling to address.

These include the inability of economists to find growth models despite more than a decade of stagnation; steep budget deficits, which will require some painful tax increases and spending cuts to correct; an aging population with expensive needs; an economically ruinous declining birthrate; and the glaring desire of Japanese citizens to maintain their standard of living.

Meanwhile, the LDP has been singularly ineffective in restoring economic growth since the country's economic bubble burst in the 1990s. In fact, it is hard to imagine any other party in any other democracy surviving in office through such a long-term economic decline. While there have been some indications of a comeback, Japan’s failure to sustain its economic miracle might be reason enough for voters to throw out the LDP, particularly if there exists a plausible alternative party with a plan.

What’s more, Japan is struggling with an ominous suicide rate, particularly among middle-aged men; an under-funded pension system; widespread insecurity caused by the decline of the life-time employment system; and a lack of national consensus on defense and foreign policy issues, especially involving Asia and the fickle attitude toward nationalism.

Some younger LDP Diet members now quietly admit that the country —and even their own party—might be better off if the opposition took power for awhile, giving Japan a real alternative and, perhaps, shocking the LDP into reforming itself and coming up with new ideas.

Enter the Democratic Party of Japan and its impressive but imperfect leader, Katsuya Okada. Born into a wealthy family of supermarket magnates, he attended the University of Tokyo, studied at Harvard, and served in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. He initially joined the LDP, but, appalled by malfeasance and scandals within the party, eventually sought a cleaner political path in the opposition, and, in May 2004, became president of the DPJ. There are days when Okada looks and sounds a bit like the early Bill Clinton or Tony Blair. While the smart set in Nagatcho tend to see him as nothing more than the colorless bureaucrat he used to be, Okada has in the past few years achieved a level of celebrity that visibly excites people when he plunges into a rope line to greet the public.

Mr. Okada is intelligent and has an appealing sense of humor, although he often seems unsure about how to deploy it in a manner that furthers the party’s interests. In spite of his apparent lack of control over his facial expressions, he also has the rhetorical ability simultaneously to be critical of the governing party and optimistic about the future of Japan. Convincing insecure voters in an uncertain world (and the Japanese are more insecure and uncertain now than they have been in years) requires both slashing criticism and an upbeat assessment of the possibilities of change.

Optimism can be seen, for instance, in Okada’s Clintonesque rallying cry for free trade as a way to enrich all nations. Indeed, he is a vibrant free marketeer. "What can be done by the markets should be done by the markets," he says. It is clear that Okada intellectually understands the importance of balancing a negative critique with a picture of a rosy future, but it’s equally clear that he doesn’t pull it off every time out. In a recent speech to the American Chamber of Commerce in Tokyo, Okada repeatedly emphasized, "I’m not pessimistic, I’m optimistic," but he did not seem to have the audience convinced.

To his credit, and like Clinton in 1992, Okada recognizes the importance of outflanking the LDP on issues typically associated with the right, such as a pledge of fiscal discipline.

Okada’s fans see him as a good team player who is able to build consensus, and they welcome the contrast between the "steady" Okada and the "flashy" image of LDP Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. They also like Okada’s reputation for straightforwardness and dedication and believe it can help the party win over female voters.

Along with his earnestness, Okada projects resolute confidence, an essential quality if the party is to convince voters that casting a ballot for the DPJ will not be wasted on a losing effort. When a translator renders into English Okada’s response to a question about his certainty of winning power in the next election as "maybe," he jumps in to say in English that his original answer was "not ‘maybe’" but "definitely."

Of course, the LDP still is expected by most informed observers to win the next election, whenever it is held. The party remains popular with an electorate universally described as "conservative," by which most people mean "wary of change," as opposed to faithful to particular positions on issues. While American national elections often are won by the candidate who calls for change, post-war Japanese elections nearly always have been won by an LDP committed to the status quo.

Yet the party that has steered Japan, first through good times and now through difficult times, is in most ways worse off than the country itself.

The old LDP joke that it is neither "liberal," nor" democratic," nor a "party" has lost its humorous punch. The party’s addiction to pork-barrel spending to keep its farmer-business- construction coalition together makes it liberal indeed, and infighting and lack of cohesiveness has created too much democracy within the LDP for its own good.

Additionally, it is plain to everyone that the seven-year-old Democratic Party of Japan is the first opposition party in the country’s modern history that might be capable of governing. And a swirl of factors—almost all negative—has created an environment in which ideas of change and reform are competing aggressively with the status quo in the minds of the voters. The tension between these two rival impulses — a somewhat recent passion for reform with a long-standing preference for the status quo – has led to a national desire for "safe change;" the party able to offer safe change to the voters is likely to win the next election.

Indeed, in some ways, Okada’s opposition seems easier to unseat than the entrenched Republicans Clinton faced or the Tories Tony Blair sought to topple. The LDP is almost laughably without a rationale, and Okada knows it. It is such a broad target, in fact, that the most aggressive and effective anti-LDP figure at this point is the man who happens to currently lead the party —Prime Minister Koizumi.

Koizuimi’s new media-driven style of leadership and sustained, albeit considerably reduced, personal popularity has served to mask many of the aspects of the party’s long-term decline, but the decline nonetheless has proceeded apace under Koizumi’s rule. Certainly, the LDP’s ability to hold onto power, after years of sustained economic troubles and now in the face of the first serious alternative party, is one of the great miracles of government anywhere in the world over the last fifty years. But the party has grown so weak in so many areas that it is almost impossible to catalogue them all. Beyond the natural charisma of Koizumi, it seems devoid of appealing ideas, energy, or ideology. Moreover, the LDP’s hold on its rural base has begun to loosen. And changes in the way Diet members are now selected work against the LDP’s hegemony, with those rural voters no longer wielding massively disproportionate influence.

Furthermore, public opinion has turned against pork barrel spending (including the costly construction projects of questionable value that have bought so many votes for the LDP over the years), and against the garden-variety corruption among public officials that has defined the LDP for many voters. The public also has grown less tolerant of iron-fisted control of local affairs from Tokyo, and of the suggestion that only the LDP can be trusted to run the country.

In addition, the two issues on which Koizumi has drawn the most press scrutiny lately—privatization of the country’s postal system (along with its massive banking and insurance functions, as well as mail delivery) and Japan’s troubled relations with China and South Korea—bitterly divide the LDP.

Also, the party’s increasingly unpopular ties to bureaucrats and corporate interests now anger voters. Broadly speaking, the LDP hasn’t figured out how to balance keeping its long-standing special interest support with earning new broad-based public interest support from additional voters. And creating yet another problem for the party, independent swing voters, many in urban areas, are increasingly without any meaningful family or attitudinal ties to the LDP.

Despite this staggering array of forces working against the LDP, the DPJ clearly will need luck in terms of timing and a last-minute issues environment in which a lower house election is held in order to win. Indeed, the DPJ lacks four necessary assets: a clear message, a sufficient number of good candidates, the political infrastructure to reliably turn out votes, and a rural strategy to poach some of the LDP’s base. Some LDP politicians take comfort in the fact that the DPJ hasn’t assumed control already, presuming that the younger party’s level of campaigning competence and natural appeal remains too low to win power.

As they struggle to remedy their shortcomings, the DPJ faces many obstacles. First, although the DPJ has resolved to make Okada the face of the party—plastering his barely-smiling face all over its pamphlets and billboards to the exclusion of other images—there is palpable skepticism about his leadership abilities from almost every quarter. Both the younger party leaders and some of the old bulls seem resigned to giving Okada another chance to lead them to an election victory, but few express great fondness for him or his style of leadership. Many consider him simply too cerebral and message-challenged to be a strong leader.

Second, the party has basic problems with its rhetoric of reform as well as its daily political tactics. Unlike democracies in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, Japan does not have a history of employing foreign political consultants, and the homegrown media experts retained by the DPJ have not produced a breakthrough rallying cry. The party’s greatest successes have come through the attention paid to its so-called "manifestos," although the media and the public alike seem to give the party credit for simply formulating a set of ideas, rather than for the ideas themselves.

An informal survey of leading and rank-and-file DPJ members about what the party stands for yields talk of a "devolution" of power from Tokyo to local governments and stronger relations with Asian neighbors, but those positions are not the kind of accessible, bumper-sticker message, or even longer postulation, that could easily engage large numbers of voters. The party hasn’t found shorthand — "New Democrat," "Putting People First," "New Britain" — that might break through. DPJ politicians speak in populist terms, in phrases such as "the citizen’s eye," "local first, Asia first, children first," and "free, fair, open," but they fail to use these slogans with any consistency or strong connection to policies.

Third, the DPJ’s can’t decide what it stands for. From a purely good-government point of view, the party’s formal agenda is pig heaven for the wonky, the reformist, the progressive, and the modern. With its focus on devolution, "responsible" entitlement reform, and improved relations with Asian neighbors, the party would almost certainly take power if the electorate were a panel of left-of-center political scientists rather than the Japanese voters. The party kicks around plenty of interesting ideas, but perhaps too many, and none sufficiently well-formed, specific, or saleable to the general public. Some of the party’s better strategists believe that for all the talk of "manifestos," the DPJ is still struggling to figure out which of its beliefs and policies can be rendered distinct in the public mind. It is possible that eventually, in formulating ideas, the DPJ might overcome the lack of support from the bureaucracy, and draw on the know-how that its members have as former bureaucrats, businesspeople, and LDP members. But they have not done it yet.

The fourth problem is that the Japanese political press is relentlessly pro-government and pro-LDP. Opposition parties all over the globe complain that the media ignores their agenda and statements, but the problem seems particularly acute in Japan, with a remarkable degree of media skepticism about the DPJ’s chances of becoming the ruling party and a patent lack of interest in their ideas. That the DPJ lately has better showings in actual elections than in polls suggests to some analysts that all the party needs is the kind of near-parity media coverage they get at election time on a regular basis. Most of the political press has settled into conventional wisdom about the DPJ: that it lacks original ideas, that it’s racked by internal strife between its left- and right-wing factions, that its leaders are unexciting — and journalists are reluctant to approach the story with a fresh eye. In one recent case, a reporter for a major Japanese news organization, when asked to enumerate the DPJ’s strengths, proceeded to offer a list of negative traits about the party instead.

Fifth, the DPJ needs more governors and local officials to help fortify its identity and build a political machine, which would get people in the habit of voting for the party.

Finally, though it’s unusual for a left-of-center party, the DPJ seems to have a problem attracting women voters. Again, Okada’s prominence in the party imagery is seen by some as an attempt to address this issue, since his "straight-talking" ways are thought to appeal to women more than the party does as a whole.

Rather than grapple with these problems in a serious way, however, the DPJ seems to have decided to wait for Koizumi to leave office, which he’ll do by September 2006 at the latest, or perhaps sooner if he steps down or calls for a snap election (which he says he will do if postal reform fails to pass the Diet). And waiting is not a totally irrational strategy. Though Koizumi’s policies have seriously weakened the LDP, he does seem to allow the party to defy gravity and stay in power in part through the force of his personality. It is safe to assume that the next LDP leader will not be as popular as Koizumi, nor will the public perceive his successor as the same credible agent of reform for the party, the government, and the country.

In fact, Koizumi has been such a towering figure in Japan’s politics (more influential psychologically and attitudinally, one senses, than is commonly accepted), it seems nearly impossible to anticipate what a post-Koizumi world would look like for the LDP and the DPJ. Politicians from both parties, as well as political journalists, tend to dismiss Koizumi’s skills and sincerity. DPJ members in particular claim to find nothing positive to learn from his governing example, deriding his so-called "one-word" sound bites and claiming he is not a true reformer. They see him as impulsive and unprincipled.

There is much debate in Japanese political circles about whether Koizumi actually has changed the office of prime minister and the organizing principles of the LDP in any fundamental ways. Some believe that the next prime minister, whatever his party, will be forced to rely on public support and an aggressive, populist media presence in order to thrive - like Koizumi. Similarly, these analysts believe that if the LDP retains control, the next prime minister will be in a position to carry on Koizumi’s practice of disregarding the party factions, as he did in choosing his cabinet.

But others say that Koizumi has lived by rules that apply only to him, and that another LDP victory would return things to the pre-Koizumi practices. And it is evident that Koizumi’s early pledge to radically remake the LDP into a party of reform has substantially failed.

Indeed, the DPJ’s greatest strength simply has been that it is not the LDP, giving voters who are dissatisfied with the ruling party’s current character a relatively "safe" place to park their votes, even if they haven’t developed a solid allegiance to the DPJ. By largely avoiding the taint of scandal, by rejecting the so-called "village-style" of LDP politics that alienates urban voters, and by avoiding the image of being dominated by special interests (despite a closeness to some labor unions), the DPJ theoretically has positioned itself to get at least a hearing from undecided voters.

Another advantage of the DPJ cited by many inside and outside the party is its young members. Offering a contrast to the sixty- and seventy-something image of the LDP, these opposition Diet members combine stylishness with a passion for ideas, along with an image of youth and change.

The party also has been able to recruit some establishment up-and-comers who, in the past, might have gone reflexively into the LDP. As the DPJ has achieved some measure of success, it has become a more plausible path to power, and thus has attracted people from the bureaucracy and business who see less opportunity in an LDP still bloated with second- and third-generation officeholders.

Young leaders such as Seiji Maehara, Kan Suzuki, and Akihisa Nagashima (who calls himself a "Reagan Democrat") speak with the kind of passion about devolution that would not be out of place among students at Harvard’s Kennedy School. Indeed, many of these young politicians studied at American graduate schools. Still, behind their good-government enthusiasm, they understand how to reach voters in modern ways, such as with Suzuki’s weekly webcasts from his office.

Sometimes they sound like Japanese versions of Michael Dukakis, stressing "competence" over "ideology," but such a message may play better in Japan than in 1988 America. Unlike past Japanese opposition parties -- most significantly, the Socialists —the DPJ has, as noted above, cultivated an image as an "acceptable" alternative, capable of governing the country, the first time the LDP has faced such a rival. But, therefore, the DPJ has to balance provocative positions which capture public and press attention with opinions that aren’t so provocative that they make the party appear outside the mainstream.

Perhaps the most effective gambit has been the DPJ’s effort to create contrast on the issue of Asia. The party is careful to pay homage to the Japan-U.S. relationship, an alliance still supported by a majority of the Japanese people, while at the same time pitching the notion of improved relations with countries like South Korea and China.

This is clever politics. First, over the long term, should the DPJ ever govern, it will require more backing from Japan’s business community, which has been a mainstay of LDP support. And big business lately has become troubled by Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni shrine commemorating Japan’s war dead, as well as by his public statements about bilateral matters which have inflamed citizen and governmental anti-Japanese sentiment in both South Korea and China. To the extent that the DPJ can be seen — by contrast — as supporting the kind of peaceful regional relationships that will foster more trade and allow for safer economic investment elsewhere in Asia, they might be able to pry away some business (and worker) support from the LDP.

Second, although saber-rattling against these Asian countries clearly has some support within the LDP and appeals to the much-discussed "new nationalism" that exists among many Japanese of all ages, there seems to be a majority of Japanese interested in better relations, lowered voices, and an end to the Yasukuni visits. The more the DPJ emphasizes these issues, the more they divide the LDP, where many members disagree with the hardline Koizumi positions.

Third, most influential DPJ Diet members genuinely believe that fostering better relations with Asian countries is the right thing to do. This is important because the party still needs to brand itself in the minds of citizens, and is wise to speak passionately and convincingly about issues that matter to voters.

Okada, in particular, is most compelling when talking about issues about which he is obviously sincere, such as improving relations in Asia. He regularly speaks about a Japanese foreign policy in the region that evinces "humility based on self-confidence." That smart line also serves to highlight implicitly what some see as Koizumi’s unattractive arrogance.

At the same time, Koizumi’s high profile involvement in the Iraq war and focus on the case of the Japanese abducted during the Cold War by North Korea shrewdly has reinforced the Daddy Party image of the LDP and left the DPJ a bit gun shy of pursuing as dramatic a contrast on security matters as they otherwise might, given the electorate’s passion for nationalism.

As for the other big political issue of 2005, the Prime Minister’s near-obsessive push for postal reform is one of the most audacious moves by any G-8 leader in recent years. The public has shown next to no interest in the subject, and the notion of postal reform badly divides Koizumi’s own party. The proposal of reform has left the LDP vulnerable to potshots from the opposition, as no important constituency is in favor of it.

And, perhaps most profoundly, if postal reform is carried out, it threatens three longstanding pillars of LDP support: the allegiance of rural voters in remote areas, who are often dependent on the banking services available at their local postal branch; the support of local postmasters and their legions of followers, who have been counted on for years to help turn out the vote on election day; and the availability of funds in the savings accounts of Japan Post (by far the largest bank in the world) to pay for the legendary pork barrel projects that have greased palms all over the country in return for political support.

Still, Koizumi has pushed the issue, winning a close vote in the lower house after an extraordinary threat against his own party to dissolve the body and call a snap election if the measure did not pass.

Whenever the next national election takes place, both parties agree that unaligned, independent voters likely will decide the outcome. The LDP still can rely on a base of voters, albeit shrunken, who will reliably turn out, as well as help from supporters of the Komeito, a religious-based party with dedicated followers. DPJ vote totals have been rising steadily, but the party lacks a dependable group of voters it can count on. The DPJ hopes that whoever leads the LDP into the next election will not have Koizumi's appeal to independents. Both parties seem to think about how to appeal to these so-called "floating" voters in strictly tactical terms, without looking to win long-term fidelity. In the fine print of the DPJ’s manifesto, however, are the makings of a broader effort to build an enduring coalition, with appeals to women, the disabled, and even minorities.

Japan faces some genuine issues of national debate. As the population begins to contract, domestic consumer demand will fall, threatening one of the fundamental organizing principles of the nation’s economy. How to stoke the birthrate is something no politician yet has resolved.

There is also serious discussion about whether and how to amend the Japanese constitution, particularly Article 9, which deals with the Self Defense Forces. These issues cause huge divisions in both parties, and the losing party in the next election could easily face dissent and schisms, or even dissolution.

In fact, there are many predictions that the party that loses the next election will split apart. The LDP’s governing partner, the Komeito, has positions on issues that are much closer to those of the DPJ, and some predict a realignment if the Democrats take power, which would of course add to their majority.

But the DPJ could fracture if it loses the next election. With all of its problems, the LDP now exists for one reason -- to keep power. And it has a long record of knowing how to keep power.

The LPD’s hold on the government, though, will be surely tested in the coming weeks, as Koizumi’s planned annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine approaches, and he works to get his postal reform plan passed through the upper house of the Diet. The controversial visit and the controversial plan both have the potential to shake up Japanese politics and perhaps even lead to the election of a new prime minister.

So here’s wishing the LDP a happy early birthday. Whatever happens, the fifty-first year is bound to be a very interesting one indeed.