Reforming Japan

“Koizumi’s Top-Down Leadership in the Anti-Terrorism Legislation: The Impact of Political Institutional Changes” by Tomohito Shinoda, in SAIS Review (Winter–Spring 2003), 1619 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036.

When Japan finally acted during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, its contribution of $13 billion to help underwrite the war effort was widely derided as “too little, too late.” But 10 years later, in response to 9/11, Japan moved swiftly to back U.S. reprisals against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, rapidly enacted antiterrorism legislation, and, under it, dispatched—for the first time since World War II—part of its armed forces on a military mission overseas, providing rear support for a U.S. deployment in the Indian Ocean. The different responses, explains Shinoda, a professor at the Inter­national University of Japan, show how much progress has been made in removing factional and bureaucratic shackles and strengthening the office of prime minister.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which controlled the Diet from 1955 to 1993, was divided into large factions. Faction leaders chose the party chief, who became prime minister, and they influenced his cabinet selections. And the cabinet was reshuffled almost every year, enhancing the power of the government bureaucracies. All this, notes Shinoda, made for a weak prime minister.

In 1994, however, a new government formed by eight opposition parties began altering Japan’s political foundations. Under the old system, each legislative district had three to five seats in the Diet’s lower house, which encouraged fierce factional fights among LDP candidates competing for the same bases of support. The 1994 reform introduced 300 single-seat districts and 200 other seats filled by proportional representation. That helped undermine the factions.

The government’s poor performance in a series of crises—the 1995 Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake, the 1996–97 hostage crisis in Peru, and a 1997 oil spill disaster in the Sea of Japan—highlighted the need for stronger central authority. Further reforms strengthened the prime minister, streamlined the cabinet, and curbed bureaucrats’ influence over Diet politicians.

The current prime minister, the LDP’s Junichiro Koizumi, elected in a landslide in April 2001, was the first “to be selected outside of the traditional factional power struggles,” says Shinoda. He had the support of younger party members in the Diet and local party members outside Tokyo, and he was able to pick his cabinet without consulting faction leaders. When the terrorists struck America on 9/11, Koizumi’s government was ready to act decisively. Though he failed to win legislation providing for a strong response to any future military attack, he won a hard-fought parliamentary vote last July to send a military force to Iraq. While Koizumi—who’s likely to win reelection this fall—has been unable thus far to lead Japan out of its economic morass, Shinoda believes that the stage at least has been set for a revitalized politics and effective national leadership.