Democratic Reform in Japan: Assessing the Impact

Abstract

Confidence in the quality of Japanese democracy, never high, has, if anything, weakened since the bursting of the economic bubble. Reform of campaign financing and the Lower House electoral system in 1994 provided temporary reprieves, as did the Prime Ministership of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) reformer Koizumi Jun’ichirō in the mid-2000s. Moreover, the victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the Lower House election of 2009 put a decisive end to more than 50 years of LDP dominance. Support for the DPJ soon dissipated, however, and the party suffered a humiliating loss in the 2010 Upper House Elections. The DPJ government’s real and perceived failures in dealing with the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in 2011 combined with persistent economic weakness and astronomical budget deficits to produce gloom and dismay. Were the reforms of the 1990s all for naught? Sherry L. Martin and Gill Steel’s Democratic Reform in Japan: Assessing the Impact provides a useful meter stick. Completed just before the end of LDP rule, the volume allows us to isolatethe changes caused solely by the transformation in partisan control. The editors and their contributors display an appropriate awareness of the inherent complexity of democracy as a concept, and often draw attention to the tradeoffs between different democratic desiderata, such as participation, representativeness and effectiveness. The volume is especially interesting for its juxtaposition of national developments—generally portrayed as relatively dynamic—and local politics, which display strong elements of continuity.