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 …
Tag: Japanese politics
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 …
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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 …
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 …
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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 …
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Fukuda answers some questions
After weeks of uncertainty, Prime Minister Fukuda has moved to answer definitively the six unanswered questions of the current Diet session, answering at least two of them by announcing that he will use the government's supermajority in the House of Representatives to pass the new anti-terror law, and he will extend the Diet session into …
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 …
The usual suspect
Readers will note that I have declined to comment on the widening scandal involving Moriya Takemasa, former administrative vice minister of the Japan Defense Agency, and related corruption at the Defense Ministry.Frankly, I think the entire issue is a distraction, and I'm pleased that the DPJ has desisted from calling upon Nukaga Fukushiro, the finance …
A necessary revision
In light of the ongoing speculation about the probability and timing of a snap election, it is worthwhile to step back and consider structural flaws in how Japanese governments are formed.Why, after all, should Mr. Fukuda's government function on the basis of a parliamentary majority secured more than two years ago under his predecessor before …
Tobias S. Harris 