In this post earlier this month, I asked whether administrative reform, the subject of a private consultative commission at the Kantei, was the ideal wedge issue for the DPJ to wield against the LDP.At the time, the DPJ had yet to elevate the issue to the top of its talking points. It appears, however, that …
Continue reading Administrative reform is a wedge issue after all
US Forces Japan (USFJ) has issued orders that from today personnel attached to bases in Okinawa and Iwakuni are, for the time being, forbidden from leaving their bases except for a small handful of activities. The restrictions apply to approximately 55,000 people, covering both 29,000 members of the Armed Forces and their dependents.USFJ has also …
"First-rate economics, third-rate politics."This phrase has long been shorthand for the LDP's half-century of nearly uninterrupted rule, despite corruption and high levels of unpopularity among the Japanese people (although of late there might be some convergence between economics and politics).Japanese and non-Japanese scholars have concocted numerous explanations for the LDP's enduring hold on power. Some …
Continue reading Recommended Book: Democracy Without Competition in Japan, Ethan Scheiner
Another week, a couple more Marines arrested in Okinawa, more anger from the local and national officials.On Sunday, a Marine was arrested for drunk driving. Then, on Monday, Shawn Cody Jake , a twenty-one-year-old Marine corporal was arrested for breaking into a home in Nago, where he was found sleeping. Sankei, dropping any pretense of …
The LDP and the DPJ have come to an agreement on the process for approving candidates for positions that require HR-HC consensus. The terms of the agreement, the result of negotiations between the two parties' Kokutai chairmen, calls for separate hearings for candidates in the HR Committee on Rules and Administration and the HC Committee …
Ishiba Shigeru, defense minister and self-described "defense otaku," is getting a lesson in bureaucratic politics.The Minami commission, a public-private consultative body at the Kantei convened under the chairmanship of Minami Naoya, an adviser to Tokyo Electric, has been deliberating on reform of the Defense Ministry since December. The commission formed in response to the corruption …
Thanks to Mainichi, we have a calendar of this week's events related to the progress of the budget and budget-related legislation — the latter including the special measures bill on taxation — through the House of Representatives and its committees.It'll be a busy week.The budget will be discussed in the Budget Committee all this week. …
With the debate within the LDP over the human rights protection bill intensifying, Abe Shinzo, former prime minister, has followed Mr. Aso out of exile and is now openly reunited with his ideological comrades within the LDP. He announced Friday that he is joining Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Research Group," making him the group's …
...Now that the city of Obama has given him his very own hissho daruma, described by Asahi as an "indispensable item" for Japanese elections.
In a meeting between Oshima Tadamori and Yamaoka Kenji, the Diet strategy chairmen of the LDP and DPJ respectively, the two parties came closer to an agreement on joint personnel decisions. They discussed a proposal that envisions an "expanded representatives committee" of twenty from both houses that will question government-nominated candidates about their policy positions …
Tobias S. Harris 