Liberal Democratic Party Research Articles

The gender dimension in the work of political parties (in case of liberal democratic party of Uzbekistan)

The gender dimension in the work of political parties (in case of liberal democratic party of Uzbekistan)

Языковая реализация прагматических стратегий в японском политическом дискурсе (на материале публичных выступлений членов «Либеральнодемократической партии Японии»)

Языковая реализация прагматических стратегий в японском политическом дискурсе (на материале публичных выступлений членов «Либеральнодемократической партии Японии»)

Authoritarianism and Social Policy

Authoritarianism seems to be emerging as the default mode of global capitalism. In the absence of reliable economic growth, and with working-class incomes in long-term stagnation, both liberal and social democratic parties have lost support in many countries, and authoritarian regimes have come to power in several. But poor people in the USA, UK and Europe have long experienced coercion, being forced to accept low-paid, insecure work or face benefits sanctions. As a growing proportion of workers have come to rely on supplements such as tax credits, the working class has been divided, and opportunistic authoritarian politicians have mobilised the anxiety and resentment of those on the margins of poverty. This article argues that only an active civil society, with voluntary agencies uncompromised by involvement in coercive policies, along with universal, unconditional Basic Incomes for all citizens, can reverse these trends.

Selective Engagement: Mainland China’s Dual-Track Taiwan Policy

ABSTRACT Since the Democratic Progressive Party won the Taiwan 2016 presidential campaign, Beijing has established a dual-track policy framework featuring “selective engagement” to address thes talemate across the Taiwan Strait. The “selective engagement” policy can be characterized as a set of complementary approaches, basically a combination of containment and engagement measures. In terms of the issue areas, it is a combination of confrontational measures in security, political and diplomatic fields, with comparatively encompassing approaches on economic, social and cultural affairs. In terms of the policy counterparts, it is a combination of punitive measures against the “Taiwan independence” activists, with accommodative approaches to all the other politically non-pro-independence forces. In conclusion, this article analyzed the challenges inherent in Beijing’s current dual-track policy.

Sweden’s Burka Ban: Policy Proposals, Problematisations, and the Production of Swedishness

ABSTRACT Between February 2002 and November 2018, Swedish politicians from the Centre, Christian Democrat, Moderate, Liberal and Sweden Democrat parties proposed policies to ban clothing variously referred to as the “burka,” “full-covering veil,” “face veil” and “niqab” (Arabic for face veil) at least 38 times, six at the national level and thirty-two at the municipal. Research suggests that circa 100 women in Sweden wear a “burka”; clearly these policy proposals have little to do with the burka’s prevalence. What, then, do these policy proposals attempt to govern? In this text we adopt feminist political scientist Carol Bacchi’s “what is the problem represented to be?” approach to analyse Swedish bills to regulate the burka. These policy proposals, we contend, have more to do with conceptualizing Swedishness than addressing an existing “problem” of women who wear burka.

Политическая идентичность японцев: гибрид религиозного и секулярного

The article analyzes the specifics of Japanese religious syncretism, which managed to adapt with great efficiency the norms of the Buddhist-Confucian complex and the autochthonous religion of Shinto. Japan is a vivid example of the harmonization of national identity, based not only on the high level of homogeneity of society, but also on the high degree of tolerance and ability to adapt and to adopt. In the political sphere, the Japanese post-secular system demonstrates the capacities of the Komeito party (Party of Pure Politics), which was created on the basis of Soka Gakkai Buddhist organization, which professes the humanistic ideas of Nichiren (1222–1282), set forth in the Lotus Sutra. Now the Komeito party plays an important role in shaping Japanese politics, coalescing with the dominant Liberal Democratic Party. The Komeito party, in particular, is effectively advocating the preservation of the 9th ‘pacific’ article of the constitution. The movement of laic Buddhists Soka Gakkai International (SGI), operating in 93 countries around the world, is widely known for cultural and educational activities and its struggle to ban nuclear weapons. Thus, Japan provides a pointed example of the combination of humanistic philosophy of human dignity and empowerment with political activity, which determines the nature of Japanese post-secular society.

US Covert Action in Cold War Japan: The Politics of Cultivating Conservative Elites and its Consequences

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of US covert action in establishing and perpetuating the political dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan during the Cold War. The study sheds light on the modalities of the US intelligence community’s involvement in the Japanese political process, evaluates the effectiveness and consequences of this intervention and seeks to place it in a broader comparative perspective. The timing of the most intense phase of US covert intervention in Japan’s political process is important, occurring during the tumultuous first decade after the US-led occupation when conservative dominance was uncertain. The article’s central argument is that, nevertheless, the US intelligence community’s contribution to establishing and stabilising LDP rule cannot be considered in isolation from other important endogenous factors, most notably Japanese political actors. It is therefore necessary to explore the role of conservative elites who actively and eagerly engaged with the US intelligence community in pursuit of their own political and economic interests. The relationship between the US intelligence community and Japanese conservatives helped reinforce Japan’s status as a one-party LDP-ruled, junior ally of Washington.

Highlighting the Recent Historical Innovations in Political Progressions from Law

In this paper, it is highlighted the recent big historical innovations of politics from law the world people participating enthusiastically, manifested in television and recorded as diaries. It was the author Cai who started and led the democratic law execution in China in 2000, which was new in history and helped establish the theory of armed police. Besides overcoming the difficulties after the June 4th Incident and acquiring some provincial supports in China, it further promoted the democracy in Mideast in many countries, differentiating the democratic law execution and democratic revolution by the legality of route map to election. During this period, it was proposed by the Mideast people the revival of race by law. To control the democratic crimes, it was suggested by the world people to innovatively use the party disciplines in congresses at various levels, including the communist parties worldwide, the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan, the Democratic National Construction Association of China, the Christian Democratic Union in Germany, and so on. It was the international movement of “Marx-MingXun calling for competitive election” that overcame the autocratic influence from China, increased the democratic proportion of world communists, and revived the communist parties synchronously in the whole world to practice law to control the democratic crimes. It was Taiwan president YingWen Cai of Democratic Progressive Party and Germany Chancellor Merkel of Christian Democratic Union who elevated the law against democratic crimes to the national level. It is expected that these political innovations would improve the democracy and law.

Fiji’s coup culture: Rediscovering a voice at the ballot box

Commentary: The second Fiji General Election in 12 years, since the fourth coup in 2006, took place on 14 November 2018, and once again the key players were the three parties that gained seats in Parliament in the 2014 election. The three parties: FijiFirst, the incumbent government led by the 2006 coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama; the preeminent opposition, Social Democratic Liberal Party (SODELPA), whose leader was the instigator of the first two coups, Sitiveni Rabuka; and the National Federation Party (NFP) which was led by former University of the South Pacific economics academic Professor Biman Prasad. The 2018 election was widely seen as another sign of progress for Fiji’s fragile democracy and both the significant protagonists were former military commanders and coup leaders seemingly committed to democracy. The media remained cowed, a legacy of the 2010 Media Industry Development Decree (MIDD, 2010), giving rise to using other forms of media such as social media platforms, with Facebook being the most popular. This commentary reflects on the experience of a journalist on a postgraduate assignment to report on the 2018 election.

Taiwan at a Tipping Point: The Democratic Progressive Party’s Return to Power, by John F. Copper. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. viii+251 pp. US$100.00/£70.00 (cloth).

<i>Taiwan at a Tipping Point: The Democratic Progressive Party’s Return to Power</i>, by John F. Copper. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. viii+251 pp. US$100.00/£70.00 (cloth).

Electoral Support of Parties in Eastern Siberia: The Macroregional and Regional Aspects

Relationships of the results of the 2016 State Duma election (the share of voters who supported each of the three main political parties) for the federal subjects of Russia with three indicators have been analyzed. The first indicator are the socio-economic phenomena at the regional level. The second indicator refers to the results of the same election at the level of macroregions to which the respective regions belong. The third indicator includes the socio-economic phenomena at the level of macroregions to which the respective regions belong. Four types of regions were identified for each indicator, based on analyzing these correlations. The three indicators and types are all considered as complementary in predicting the electoral behavior of the region’s population. It is concluded that if in a federal subject of Russia the level of support of a political party is higher than the national average and if the set of attributes favoring voting for a given party is relatively well covered, it is a region of stable support of this party. In the event where in a constituent entity of the Russian Federation, a political party received fewer votes than the national average, and in the region the set of attributes of the support of a given party is not sufficiently expressed, it is a region of stably decreased support of this party. If a political party in a federal subject of Russia received more votes than the national average, but has a weak set of support factors, this is a region of potential decrease in support for this party. If a political party in a region has received fewer votes than the national average, but the set of factors supporting this party is relatively strong, it is a region of potential increase in support of this party. It has been established that protest-type electoral attitudes are dominant in Eastern Siberia, which implies a widespread occurrence of the stably decreased support of the party of power (United Russia, UR) and the stably increased support of the main opposition parties (Communist Party of the Russian Federation, CPRF, and Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, LDPR). It is found that all regions of Eastern Siberia show coincidences of the types of electoral predisposition for CPRF — LDPR and UR — LDPR.

Globalizing Constitutional Moments? A Reflection on the Japanese Article 9 Debate

U.S. scholars have developed a rich toolkit for analyzing informal, as well as formal, processes of constitutional change. A leading example is Bruce Ackerman’s theory of “constitutional moments.” Comparative constitutional scholars, in contrast, have given relatively little attention to the legitimacy of informal modes of constitutional change. This Article contributes to filling this gap in our understanding of informal constitutional change outside the United States, by analyzing recent attempts by Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government informally to amend or “reinterpret” Japan’s pacifist Constitution. Attention to the Japanese experience in this context reveals superficial indications of an actual constitutional moment, but also a lack of true democratic support for such change. This, the Article suggests, further helps reveal an important, though largely unstated, precondition for the application of Ackerman’s theory—that there must be meaningful competition between political parties, in the legislature and at national elections, before informal constitutional change can legitimately occur.

Reexamining Taiwan’s South China Sea policy dilemma

While other claimants are directly involved in maritime territorial disputes and dialogues, Taiwan has stalled its momentum and kept its distance from controversy. The government in Taiwan has quietly retreated from the most legitimate and conventional role in the South China Sea in hope of gaining diplomatic support in the region. Many have wondered why Taiwan consistently shies away from the issues. Does the government in Taiwan realize its key role in the South China Sea has been further marginalized as a result? Over the last 2 decades, following democratization, various administrations in Taiwan only managed to imply that Taiwan may have a policy guideline on the South China Sea, but not a firm policy per se. With substantially less political weight in domestic political debates and fierce power struggles in Taipei, Taiwan’s South China Sea claim has unfortunately been left far behind general issues on the policy agenda, especially when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is in power. Due to their relevance to the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Taiwan’s complicated relationship with it, the DPP does not want to attach its political efforts to South China Sea issues. This paper intends to review the effectiveness of political measures on South China Sea issues taken by various administrations in Taiwan and examine reasons why indecision has become mainstream in policy thinking on the territorial disputes.

Политические стратегии демократической оппозиции в борьбе за власть в современной России

The research deals with the strategy of democratic opposition parties as an actor of the political pro-cess in modern Russia based on the concepts of hybrid regimes, electoral authoritarianism, and de-fective democracy. The system-based, institutional approaches and the analysis of relevant literature are employed. In the author’s opinion, Russian demo-cratic opposition parties and movements can be classified as parliamentary parties (Fair Russia, Lib-eral Democratic Party of Russia, Communist Party of the Russian Federation), non-parliamentary regis-tered (Yabloko (Russian United Democratic Party), Civic Platform) and non-parliamentary unregistered parties (Russia of the Future). The research looks at their priorities for the development of society and the state being of particular relevance to modern political science and practice. The author concludes that, firstly, the strategies of democratic opposition parties depend, as a rule, on whether they are em-bedded in the system of power or not, whether they are parliamentary or not. Secondly, today, the main Russian political strategy of the democratic opposi-tion in a power struggle is to support Western politi-cal values and strategies, criticize the current gov-ernment, focus on decommunization, and strive to build a parliamentary state.

Pitting prime minister cues with party cues in a multiparty system: a survey experiment in Japan

AbstractMotivated by a previous finding that single-party cues have no effect in Japan and by the increasing ‘presidentialization’ of Japanese politics, the present study examined whether the use of prime minister cues in place of single-party cues helps Japanese voters form policy preferences. In addition, to probe the effect of party cues that are unique to multiparty systems, the effect of multiple-party cues, which indicate that a policy is supported by multiple rather than single ideologically distinct parties, was investigated. The results of a survey experiment showed that while prime minister cues are not utilized by the supporters of incumbent parties, the supporters of opposition parties demonstrated significantly reduced approval of a policy when there was an indication that the prime minister supported it. The effect of prime minister cues on opposition supporters was stronger than that of Liberal Democratic Party cues, suggesting that leader cues are effective in Japan. Furthermore, a cue indicating that ideologically distinct parties support a policy enhances approval for that policy among the public, which suggests that multiple-party rather than single-party cues are informative in multiparty systems. Theoretical implications are discussed.

“Towards a Beautiful Country”: The Nationalist Project to Transform Japan

Japan is often regarded by scholarship as an example of what a healthy East Asian liberal democracy ought to look like. Despite its reputation for pacifism and liberal democracy, Japan has demonstrated a remarkable shift in political culture in the last decade, as successive governments have embraced decidedly nationalist policy choices. As the Abe Administration continues to push ahead with its plan for Constitutional Revision, a goal long advocated for by nationalist groups, Japan seems poised to enter a period of renewed nationalist discourses and policymaking. Existing scholarship presents these shifting political trends as having been facilitated by the political elite, and many scholars argue that elite driven, or top-down nationalism, is the driving force of political change in the modern Japanese political system. This paper challenges these assertions, instead arguing that resurgent nationalism in Japanese politics can be traced to the grassroots of society. Through a study of two non-government organizations, Nippon Kaigi 日本会議and Jinja Honchō 神社本庁, this paper clearly demonstrates the critical impact that grassroots organizing through non-government organizations has had on driving nationalist policymaking at the national level. The political success of these lobbying groups has been clearly evidenced in their presence at the highest level of Japanese government, as well as the remarkable similarities between their organizational goals and the political goals of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. This paper demonstrates that the relationship between grassroots nationalist organizations and the Japanese government is one of influence and pressure, rather than a coincidental alignment of political ideals.

The phantasmagoria of confidence: the tragi-comedy of Indian liberal democracy

The 20 July 2018 no-confidence motion shown for 12 hours live on Indian national news networks where the Congress party (with 44 seats in the Indian parliament of 545 members) defied the ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by initiating a no-confidence motion against them has to be seen in a light different from the commonsensical reading as the conflict between liberal democracy and populist authoritarianism. This essay is on a Marxist reading of the politics of parliamentary democracy and how the commodity principle must be seen governing bourgeois politics. It claims that one does not have to read into the appearance levels of what the leader of the liberal democratic Congress party Rahul Gandhi said or did not say, or what the Prime Minister Narendra Modi said or did not say. This essay claims that the no-confidence motion was not merely a spectacle, but a delusion that Marx calls a ‘phantasmagoria’ transformed into the political space where both the liberal democracy of the Congress and the populism of the ruling BJP are fighting for the political space of capitalist authoritarianism. This essay seeks a different space where popular politics can be played out, a space that is radically different from that of the bourgeois state.

John F. Copper, Taiwan at a Tipping Point: the Democratic Progressive Party’s Return to Power

John F. Copper, Taiwan at a Tipping Point: the Democratic Progressive Party’s Return to Power

The politics of developing global human resources in Japan

ABSTRACTJapan has made developing global human resources (gurobaru jinzai ikusei) a national priority. The government has invested billions of yen annually to double the number of Japanese students studying overseas, double the number of globally competitive Japanese universities, and improve Japanese students’ English test scores. A broad, conservative ‘globalist coalition’ supported these reforms, including the Liberal Democratic Party, Democratic Party Japan, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry, and big business. Education specialists – government vice ministers and business association committee chairmen – created ‘contrived consensus’ through a series of advisory council deliberations. All globalist coalition members benefitted from reforms to develop global human resources, especially big business. Political progressives, including teachers’ unions and university professors, were not included in the policy-making process and benefitted little from the reforms.

La Operación Roca. El fracaso de un proyecto liberal en la España de los 80

El hundimiento de Unión de Centro Democrático (UCD) hizo que los diversos sectores que la integraban buscaran un nuevo lugar en el escenario político. Mientras los suaristas trataban de refundar el centro desde el CDS, los democristianos se acercaron a Fraga y los socialdemócratas se integraron en el PSOE. Los grandes huérfanos que dejó la desaparición de UCD fueron los liberales. Este grupo intentó buscar su nuevo lugar, en un primer momento, en torno a Antonio Garrigues Walker, quien lo intentó sin éxito a través del Partido Demócrata Liberal (PDL). Finalmente fue la llamada Operación Roca la que capitalizó dichos intentos. Así nacía el Partido Reformista Democrático (PRD) en torno a la figura del político catalán, con el propósito de formar un partido liberal-demócrata que fuera clave en la política española. El proyecto generó un amplio interés en numerosos sectores de la sociedad, que no tardaron en verse frustrados después del fracaso del PRD en las elecciones de 1986. Este artículo pretende analizar la historia de este proyecto político para comprender las razones de su fracaso.