Populism “made in Japan”: A new species?

Is populism really (now) absent in Japan?

Despite being considered one of the world’s most important developed democracies (Stockwin, 2008), Japan has not yet been fully examined in the growing literature on populism. An exception is the extensive analysis during the 2000s, when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who was interpreted as a populist politician in Japan and overseas due to his antagonistic and sound-bite politics. The political scientist Hideo Ohtake identified Koizumi as an archetypal Japanese populist politician because he has presented himself as an outsider, stressing the moral dimension in politics, and adopting a “theatrical style,” i.e. preferring to communicate directly to the public through television (Ohtake, 2003, 2006, 2009). Sharing this perspective, Lindgren (2015: 575) stresses Koizumi’s populistic characteristics: “In terms of his attacks on the politics-as-usual and on established political structures and actors in Japan, Koizumi’s style and rhetoric resembled what has been studied as populism elsewhere (in Latin America, in Northern America, and in Europe).”

Based on this description, including his many communalities with other countries’ populists, Koizumi’s populism has similar characteristics to those attributed to French President Nicolas Sarkozy (in office 2007–2012) or to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (in office 1994–1995, 2001–2006, and 2008–2011): they both stressed the virtue of individualism (self-effort and meritocracy), the free market, and entrepreneurship, which could be termed “neoliberal” populism (Amable and Palonbarini, 2011; Campus, 2010). Indeed, as reflected by culturalist Stuart Hall’s (1983) characterization of Thatcherism as “authoritarian populism,” neoliberalism and populism have been naturally associated since the 1980s.

However, “neoliberal” populism differs from the currently observed populism in several respects. Without going into too much detail, the likes of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen, and the Austrian Heinz-Christian Sträche, though contextually diverse, are culturally authoritarian (politically right) and economically interventionist (politically left), which are different traits to those of neoliberal populists (Betz and Meret, 2013). Even more clearly contrasting are the policies of left-wing populism, represented by the Italian Five Star Movement (MS5), the Spanish Podemos, and the Greek Syriza, who principally advocate more market regulation and redistributive policies.

The fact that Japan has experienced only neoliberal populism, rather than the culturally authoritarian and economically interventionist populism recently emerging in developed democracies, has led many respected commentators to assert there has been no serious rise of populism in Japan. ¹ However, on closer examination, even after Koizumi resigned and retired in 2006, ² we see the constant and regular rise of neoliberal populists in Japan. One possible reason for Japan being often neglected in populism studies is that its populist politicians are not only neoliberal types but also local figures: most are governors or mayors of big cities pledging neoliberal policies.

It is always difficult to set objective criteria to denote a politician as populist, since the word itself is neither descriptive nor analytic, but simply pejorative, functioning as what Max Weber named a “fighting term” (Kampfbegriff) in politics. Nonetheless, there are several local political figures who are commonly called populists in Japan. For the sake of argument, I adopt the list of populist politicians devised by Matsutani (2017), who sets three criteria to specify populist politicians: their ideology, style, and strategy, exhibiting similarity to the three approaches identified in the above-mentioned literature review. The first criterion refers to the ideological dualism of “the good people and evil elites”; the second refers to praising “the people” in their general public discourse; and the third refers to adopting a “theatrical” way of communicating as their political strategy, for example through specific TV programs preferred by the common class.

Based on these three criteria, Matsutani has identified five genuine populist politicians of the 10 generally termed populist from the 1990s onward. In addition to Prime Minister Koizumi, the other four were all local political figures: Yasuo Tanaka, Governor of Nagano (2000 to 2006); Toru Hashimoto, Governor of Osaka (2008 to 2011) and then Mayor of Osaka City (2011 to 2015); Takashi Kawamura, Mayor of Nagoya (2009 to present); and Yuriko Koike, who was elected Governor of Tokyo by a landslide victory in 2016. ³ As Shintaro Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo (1999 to 2012) is often cited as a populist, he would not fit the criteria by the fact that he is not building up his discourse based on “the people.”

Other characteristics shared by these figures include reform-orientation, a pro-business agenda, and a focus on securing the wide mobilization of the city electorate. For example, before being elected Governor of Osaka in 2008, Hashimoto was already a famous lawyer who appeared frequently on TV. After taking office, he fiercely denounced the prefectural bureaucracy and the local bureaucratic system organized by central government. His longtime political program called for a local referendum to establish a new administrative entity (“Osaka-to,” similar to Tokyo-to), which he claimed would be a smaller and more efficient governing body. His plan was ultimately rejected by the inhabitants of Osaka when this referendum was held in 2015. Besides having a sharp tongue, Hashimoto is also known for his sometimes-violent criticisms (often through local TV programs or Twitter) of intermediate organizations such as local councils, labor unions, and school councils, as well as his attacks on national newspapers and academic intellectuals.

Another leading local populist figure is Yuriko Koike, the first female Governor of Tokyo, whose electoral program included halving the governor’s salary, bringing transparency into decision-making procedures, and making Tokyo a big financial center of Asia. Having started her career as a TV news anchorwoman, she was later elected as an MP in 1993, and served several times as a minister in the Koizumi government. Already a known figure, she further raised her profile during the governorship election campaign, for example by denouncing the procedure that allowed the prestigious fish market Tsukiji to be moved to a new location where its ground was reportedly being polluted. Once in office, she publicly criticized the prefectural assembly’s leader, a member of the Liberal Democrat Party (LDP), and even interrogated in a standing committee former Governor of Tokyo Ishihara, contending that his decision to transfer the fish market had endangered Tokyoites’ health. The political style of blaming the old political structure and calling for reforms applies also to Tanaka and Kawamura. For example, the former designed his office to have clear glass walls as a symbol of transparency, while the latter reduced the city councilor salary and cut inhabitant tax. ⁴

Thus, while Japan may not have populist politicians at the national level, there is clear evidence of populism in local politics.

Regional populism’s institutional setting

It needs to be considered why, in contrast to western populists, Japan’s so-called populist politicians are: 1) local/regional figures, and 2) politically reform-oriented and pro-business. Following Margaret Canovan’s canonical book, it is true that some state governors in the United States, such as Huey Long, have been described as among the archetypes of “populist dictatorship” which is one of the six typologies of populism (Canovan, 1981). However, the Governor of Louisiana during the 1920s was certainly not a market-believer, directing criticism at big companies and supporting public spending. Political reform-oriented and pro-business populism was widely witnessed in the West from the 1990s, but has almost vanished today, and is only still seen at the national level; by contrast, in Japan, it is prominent at the local level.

To explain these differences, which add local neoliberal populism as another variety of this political phenomenon, we must go beyond contextual conditions to try to find substantive reasons why this type of populism emerges in Japan.

For this purpose, in focusing on Japanese local/regional populists we adopt a neo-institutional analysis. Neo-institutionalism allows us to see, through institutional settings, how the strategy of actors at different levels is framed (Kato, 1996). This also applies when trying to understand populist strategies.

The key to understanding the presence of Japanese populist politicians at the local and regional level lies in its unique institutional and electoral setting, particularly the dual representation system (Nigen Daihyo-sei), ⁵ under which executives (governors and mayors) and assemblies (councilors) are both elected as political representatives and share competencies over public policy formation and implementation.

As a part of its reform program after the Second World War, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, led by the United States, initiated decentralization, transferring responsibility from central government to local authorities with the aim of realizing grassroots democracy in Japan (Steiner, 1965). This idea concretized to a model imitating the US local government structure: it comprises four levels of local assembly (prefecture, city, town, and village), which function as deliberative organs. On the other hand, each of these public entities has an elected head (governor or mayor) as its executive branch. As a whole, the Japanese local government structure has been conceptualized as a hybrid system, combining the pre-Second World War local assembly system with the subsequently introduced American-style executive branch.

The Japanese constitution stipulates that “local public entities shall establish assemblies as their deliberative organs” (Article 93(1)), and that these members (councilors) shall be elected by direct popular vote, in the same way as the executives (Article 93(2)). The number of councilors in each assembly is decided by bylaws and varies according to the size of the public entity, ranging from 12 (for a village with fewer than 2000 inhabitants) up to 127 (Metropolitan Tokyo). ⁶ The average numbers of seats is around 55 in a prefectural assembly, and around 75 in the assembly of a big city of more than 1.3 million inhabitants.

Each assembly has authority to issue resolutions to establish or amend bylaws, make budgetary decisions, approve statements of accounts, endorse expenditures, and deal with matters raised by local demands. Another important power is their ability to submit a motion of no confidence in their executive, which requires a majority of at least three-quarters of the vote in assembly.

On the other hand, the executive branch has sole authority to submit the budget, and shares power with the assembly on proposing bylaws. The executive can also insist on reconsideration of the assembly’s resolution when he/she objects to a bylaw’s enactment, amendment, or abolition, or to a resolution concerning a budgetary matter. Finally, if not resigning, he/she could also dissolve the assembly when the vote of no confidence is approved.

In sum, the dual representation system means that “the relation between the executive and the assembly is to inspect and check each other mutually, and when needed, to cooperate between the two” (Kitamura et al., 2017: 36). When implementing or deciding on public policies, they share competencies and authority, as both the assembly and the executive of local governments are directly elected to represent the inhabitants.

Some literature suggests that this resembles the US presidential system (Soga and Machidori, 2000), but they are not entirely analogous, since Japanese local assemblies have more power to hold the executive to account, whether by passing a vote of no confidence in them or requiring them to appear on the floor of the assembly to explain their actions. Moreover, the executive has the right to dissolve the assembly. This strong dual system is dissimilar to other systems of government. In practice, in the main assembly, the process of question and answer between councilors and the executive concerns important content and has substantive consequences. In this respect alone, it differs greatly from the management of Congress under the US presidential system, where the central focus is on discussions between individual members of Congress. Indeed, there are conflicting analyses and interpretations on the power relationship and equilibrium between the two bodies, with some arguing the predominance of the executive (Yoda, 1995), and others contending that the assembly has real autonomy to influence and challenge the executive’s authority (Natori, 2004). In any event, the Japanese system assures much more equality between the two branches.

With regard to the two branches’ dual competences and our focus on local populism in Japan, the dual representation system provides two different channels to reflect the popular will of citizens: the executive and the assembly have different electoral systems, often characterized by different partisan structures, and are sometimes elected at different times, which is another feature of the institutional setting that allows populism – a point we will address later.

Since 1993, the year when the long dominance of the LDP ended, the de-alignment of Japanese voters has been observed (Tanaka and Martin, 2003). Consequently, there was growth in the number of so-called “independent governors” (Mutoha Chiji), unaffiliated with any established party during the 1990s. ⁷ This period saw greater levels of conflict between governors and assemblies than during the 1980s. On some occasions, conflicting objectives caused serious conflicts to arise. Having collected data from every prefecture, Tsuji (2015) asserts that after 1993, the conflicts between governors and assemblies were mainly caused by “reformist governors” (Kaikakuha Chiji) trying to implement their program (whether conservative or progressive) regardless of the assembly’s composition. Many of the policies they championed concerned reducing public utilities, administrative reform, and information disclosure. ⁸

In the same manner, analyzing cases from the Tokyo administration, Soga and Machidori (2017) demonstrate a shift in the policy realms over which conflict has arisen: whereas social security issues were a major source of conflict until the end of the 1980s, reflecting the old conservative-progressive cleavage, disputes now mainly concern such issues as deregulation, the environment, and information disclosure. These new sources of conflict have arisen through independent governors’ politicization of many new policy areas.

These two studies elucidate how the mechanism and functioning of the dual representation system have undergone groundbreaking transformation. ⁹ They also concur that a new relationship has been established between the two representative branches. In many cases, discord has been rooted in differences over basic political preferences: for example, the assembly tends to demand more budget spending, whether to benefit local business as part of the conservative pork-barrel politics agenda, or to assure greater welfare provision for citizens as a core progressive policy. This strategy increased council candidates’ prospects of electoral success. We observe that general expenditure levels across the different prefectures were stable for the second-half the 1990s, even after the bubble economy crashed. On the other hand, prefectural tax revenues gradually dropped as local economies shrank, notably after the 2008 recession, which left prefectures more dependent on national government expenditure (for an overview, see Somusho, 2017). Under this condition, independent governors have been the only political actors calling for “small government orientation” (Soga and Machidori, 2017: 309). With old political preferences colliding with new budgetary constraints, political opportunities opened up for populist executives.

In sum, we have seen that the dual representation system of Japanese local politics has inherently controversial dimensions that can induce cooperation or collision between the two branches. However, after the second half of the 1990s, this equilibrium was changed by growing numbers of independent governors politicizing many nontraditional policy areas and opting for budget reduction and administrative reforms.

The real question is why these actors, namely, the governors and the councilors of local assemblies, adopt different strategies that cause them to collide.

Sources of conflict and the rationality of adopting populist agendas

To understand why these two types of representatives hold different policy and budget preferences, especially when one tries to understand why Japan experiences regional neoliberal populism, we could refer to the electoral dynamics confronting them.

As noted above, in the dual representation system, the executives and the assemblies are elected through two different electoral systems, sometimes through elections held at different times. ¹⁰

As in the United States, executives are elected by citizens and serve a four-year term. However, the size of the district determines the electoral strategy of the actors: at the prefectural level, each prefecture constitutes one district; the governors are chosen by electorates exceeding 10 million in Tokyo and 7 million in Osaka. The turnout rate in these elections has not exceeded 65% since the 1990s. In addition to attempting to become known through mass media, governors must have an electoral program that is sufficiently vague or otherwise appealing to attract large public support. In the big cities, such as Tokyo and Osaka, the industrial composition is diverse: the commerce/wholesale sector employs the most workers (18% and 17%, respectively, in Tokyo and Osaka in 2012). The service industries represent about 80% of the total employment; the remainder of the workforce is employed in manufacturing, construction, and the public sector. More than 70% of male Tokyoites are employed, and nearly half (42%) have at least a university degree. The inhabitants are rather young: around 40% of Tokyo’s inhabitants are aged between 25 and 55 (Tokyo Metropolis, 2016). The overall picture suggests that Tokyo citizens are mainly working in the service industry, are high- or mid-skilled, typically young to middle-aged, and, most relevant here, politically “independent.” For a governorship candidate to triumph, they have to persuade these voters. ¹¹

The 2011 election of Osaka’s city mayor, held simultaneously with the election of Osaka’s governor, provides a useful example. Nearly 90% of full-time workers and 85% of managers supported the populist mayoral candidate Toru Hashimoto, standing as leader of Osaka Ishin-no-Kai (the Osaka Restoration Association). By contrast, support for that regional party was recorded at 75% for the unemployed and part-time workers and the same percentage for socio-cultural professionals. Such strong support for the populist candidate among white-collar voters is even clearer when one analyzes voters’ educational and income levels. Indeed, 70% of university graduates supported Hashimoto, compared to only 60% of college graduates and 53% of middle school graduates. As regards income levels, those with higher incomes were more likely to support Hashimoto: >4 million yen: 75%; >6 million yen: 77%; >8 million yen: 76%; and >10 million yen: 72%. For context, the average income per household in the city is about 3.2 million yen (Matsutani, 2012; Zenkyo et al., 2012).

Taking the case of Tokyo’s governorship election in 2016, we can observe the “politicization” of public policies. Although limited details on voters are available, beyond the fact that more than half (51%) of “independent voters” preferred Koike, the populist candidate’s manifesto was rated more favorably than those of the other two main candidates in seven policy areas. Among the policies presented by the candidates, though renovation of urban transportation and infrastructure attracted greatest support among independent voters (64%), there was also a strong preference for administrative and budgetary reforms (52%). On the other hand, only 27% of Tokyoites expected Koike to tackle the problem of poverty in their city ( Tokyo Shimbun, 2016).

As noted earlier, the executives (namely, the governor and the mayor) of big cities tend to favor reform-oriented, pro-business policies to mobilize the inner-city electorate, since such neoliberal populist policies are certainly attractive to the wealthy, well-educated, middle-class electorate.

However, we must also consider that the style and programs adopted by these populist governors could mainly be explained by the electoral system, in which it is advantageous for a candidate to appeal to a geographically dispersed electorate in a large constituency, and to propose policies for the better-off middle class where the population is concentrated. The LDP lost its hegemony during the 1990s, and in highly populated inner cities the party’s structural support has been eroded (Sunahara, 2017). This political vacuum also presented opportunities for candidates to use populist strategies, relying on the traditional politics of difference: “us vs. them.” From only three independent governors in 1995, Japan had 20 in 2015, representing about 40% of the country’s prefectures (47). Large constituency sizes for executive elections is an institutional feature that is conducive to candidates adopting populist strategies.

By contrast, the councilors of regional assemblies are elected under a single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system, in which multiple candidates contest between one and 10 seats, according to the district’s population. For prefectural assemblies, the electoral district is the area of a county (called a “gun,” and composed of several towns and villages) or a city. In 2013, there were 1139 constituencies (polling districts) across the 47 prefectural assemblies. Single-seat constituencies exist only in big cities and towns (comprising 431 seats and constituting 40% of total constituencies in 2011); ¹² for the remaining 614 districts (2046 seats), the councilors are elected by SNTV. ¹³ The same electoral system is employed for city assemblies. For Osaka City, for example, the assembly has 86 seats, split across 24 constituencies, each of which has between two and six seats.

Under this system, in constituencies with more than five seats, even parties struggling to gain seats in the national assembly, such as the Socialist Party or the Communist Party, win around 70% of the seats they contest in each prefectural assembly election (Sunahara, 2017). The SNTV electoral system thus allows weakened parties to survive in local politics. Indeed, unlike at the national level, where partisan politics developed considerably toward bipartisanism after electoral reforms in 1994, competition at the local level continued to stagnate because the electoral system remained unchanged. Indeed, Weiner (2008) observed durable uncompetitiveness even at the prefectural level, where he observed that about half of the districts lacked viable challengers to the incumbents, while one-quarter of districts were uncontested.

In those political conditions, candidates for the assembly need only receive 20 to 30% of the vote to be elected; their most rational strategy is, therefore, to represent organized or occupational interests. When assessing the data on councilors, notably those of the LDP, Toai (2017) found a strong preference for membership of what Inoguchi and Iwai (1987) termed “particular interests controlling committees”: (Inoguchi and Iwai 1987:101) as assembly committees implementing policies on agro-fisheries, construction, and commerce, their members can mobilize and secure electoral support from related organizations. In fact, facing elections every four years, regional councilors rely heavily on personal networks and associations to mobilize support during the electoral campaign, since local elections are more candidate-centered than national elections, in which party membership is most relevant.

In addition, prefectural assembly elections generally tend to be characterized by the old conservative-progressive cleavage. In response to a questionnaire sent to local representatives in 2010, LDP councilors replied that they heavily rely on professional organizations for daily political support, whereas those on the left depend on trade unions (Nishizawa, 2012; Shinada, 2012).

As we have seen, preference differences between local executives and assembly councilors are closely connected to their respective electoral system and the conditions it generates. Candidates for executive office must appeal to geographically dispersed constituencies, and especially to voters in urban areas, who tend to be relatively highly educated and working in the service industry. These candidates can mobilize support through reformist ideas, which leads them to use neoliberal populist rhetoric, as outlined above.

Therefore, a rational strategy for executive candidates is to criticize the local assembly and its councilors, blaming them for prioritizing the particular interests of a specific sector or industry that they represent. Such prioritization is the best strategy for councilors seeking election, for the reasons explained above.

Additionally, the more urban the district, the greater the volatility of voters’ preferences and the weaker their loyalty to any particular party or candidate, giving populist politicians greater opportunities to win elections. The LDP retains relatively strong roots and support in the countryside, but is losing its hegemony in big cities. This is confirmed by votes cast in the Lower House election in 2012, decided by proportional representation. While the LDP scored around 35% in the countryside, its vote share was lower in more densely populated areas, receiving only around 25% in urban districts (Sugawara, 2013). By contrast, the first opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), receives fewer votes at prefectural level than at national level, which creates room locally for third parties adopting populist strategies. A good example is the populist party Ishin-No-To, whose vote share is around 15% in the countryside but increases up to 20% in urban areas. Albeit to a lesser extent, the same trend was observed for the short-lived Minna-No-To (Your Party), led by the LDP dissident Yoshimi Watanabe who promoted neoliberal reforms, having been minister for administrative reforms before leaving the LDP (he lost his seat in 2014, but was then elected as a senator representing Ishin-No-To in 2016).

Thus, the LDP’s hegemony continues to decline in big cities, while the DPJ is lacking support at the regional level. This political vacuum allows and indeed incentivizes other political actors to employ the strategy of neoliberal populism to promote administrative reforms and cost cutting measures, as the traditional progressive-conservative cleavage favors budgetary increases, either to pursue pork-barrel politics (LDP) or to expand welfare provisions (DPJ).

Conclusion

There has been wide debate on whether the recent populism phenomenon in different parts of the world is grounded in economical or cultural conditions. The Great Recession and related austerity policies in the United States and in Western Europe have undoubtedly greatly fueled the ascendancy of populism (Kriesi et al., 2015). Culturally, it is especially noteworthy that members of the white working class are threatened by erosion of their status (Inglehart and Norris, 2016). Some assert that these two factors are both correlated with rising populism (Gidron and Hall, 2017). The debate over populism focuses on how and why populisms are gaining prominence in different contexts.

Aiming to contribute to this recent debate, this article contended that much of the firmly established populism in Japanese politics arises for purely institutional reasons, as actors adapt in attempting to maximize their votes within specific institutional frameworks.

Of course, this article certainly does not deny that economic and cultural factors influence Japanese populism. For certain populist politicians, these aspects appear of some relevance. However, in Japanese regional politics, the dual representation system is the major source of populism, with local executives and assembly members sharing competencies and elected under two different systems. The dual representation system demands different rationales and strategies for the executives and councilors: while the former seek to represent general interests, the latter focus on defending sectorial interests. Therefore, to maximize their (re-)election prospects, incumbent and candidate executives may adopt populist strategies, especially neoliberal populism, which especially appeals to the inhabitants of Japan’s big cities. This strategy is feasible since many Japanese electorates became independent voters during the 1990s, eroding the traditional political hegemony of the LDP in metropolitan areas.

In this respect, we could classify Japanese local populism as a variant of political strategy, and not an ideology or organizational structure as certain literature claims.

Whereas most recent descriptions of populism tend to stress its economically interventionist and politically authoritarian character, populism in Japan is mainly neoliberal in nature, and attributable to these institutional factors. This fact demonstrates the need to consider all the varieties of populisms, just as we recognize there is more than one form of democracy.