The big news of the day is the sharp decline in the Fukuda cabinet's popularity, as found in a Kyodo poll (see articles in the Sankei Shimbun and the Tokyo Shimbun).The poll found an 11.7% drop in the cabinet's favorable rating, to 35.3%. The unfavorable rating experienced a corresponding 11% rise to 47.6%. The overwhelming …
Tag: DPJ
Post-summit election?
In recent days, the message from the LDP's leaders has been that the government is considering calling a general election later in 2008, following the G8 summit to be held in Hokkaido in July.Nikai Toshihiro, chairman of the LDP's executive council, argued in a speech in Osaka on Saturday for a post-summit election, suggesting that …
Can the DPJ become a social democratic party?
Hokkaido University's Yamaguchi Jiro — an acknowledged supporter of the DPJ — wrote a post at his blog earlier this week in which he discussed the emergence of new axes of confrontation in the political system.Looking at political systems in other developed countries, in which "on the right, conservative parties that respect the liberty of …
Continue reading Can the DPJ become a social democratic party?
One more month
As anticipated, the Fukuda cabinet has decided to extend the extraordinary (and extraordinarily long) Diet session thirty-one days, to 15 January, ensuring that the sixty-day rule will take effect and allow the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror special measures law.As noted by MTC, the extension means that the Diet will recess for …
Waning support for the anti-terror law
A survey conducted by Yomiuri over the weekend asked whether it is "appropriate" for the government to use its two-thirds majority to pass the new anti-terror special measures bill over an Upper House rejection of the bill.Consistent with other recent polls, the results were decidedly tepid. 43% favored playing the supermajority card, 44% opposed. Meanwhile, …
Discontent in the air
There is no shortage of discontent in Japanese politics today.The HANA right (that's Hiranuma-Abe-Nakagawa-Aso), including their sympathizers in the media, are finding their voice again, and as always, it's a belligerent, combative voice — as described by MTC in this post about the contents of Voice's latest issue. The November issue too was full of …
The post-Koizumi LDP and the search for a new Japanese model
Yamaguchi Jiro, a specialist in Japanese and British politics at Hokkaido University, had an article in the November Ronza that has been published in translation at Japan Focus.Yamaguchi competently explains the reasons for Mr. Abe's demise, and in the final portions of the essay, places Mr. Abe's decline and fall squarely in the larger narrative …
Continue reading The post-Koizumi LDP and the search for a new Japanese model
On Ozawa’s statecraft
Over at 空, Ken Tanaka wonders about my criticism of Mr. Ozawa's remarks in China in this post, echoing the questions of several commentators to the same post.Let me be clear: Japan has no choice but to have cordial and constructive relations with China, the same as for the United States, Australia, India, and other …
Ozawa glorifies the Sino-Japanese relationship
I was way off target in my hopes that Mr. Ozawa would be reasonable on his trip to China."The intensely cold period in Sino-Japanese relations has been surmounted, and the warm period has advanced," he said. "Both of our countries must bear a great responsibility politically, economically, and even for the global environment, and there …
Continue reading Ozawa glorifies the Sino-Japanese relationship
Surmounting decay
MTC, in a post on Japanese democracy that references this recent post, argues, "Right now Japan's democracy is just sitting down, frazzled and panting."There's not much I can add to this excellent post, other than that if this era is, as some (Mr. Ozawa especially) have suggested, the third paradigm shift for modern Japan following …
Tobias S. Harris 