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Japanese Politics Syllabus Japanese Politics PS 3530 MTWR 3:00-5:05 Introduction: Japan stands in a peculiar position in today’s world. As pundits talk about conflict between “The West” and other parts of the world, no one is sure where to put Japan. It is an industrialized democracy like the United States and Western Europe, but it is nonwhite and definitely not European. In a decade it swang from the world’s largest creditor to the world’s largest debtor government. As “Globalization” and “Americanisation” have become synonyms around the world, Japan is perhaps the only other country whose pop culture (Pokemon, video games, Hello Kitty, and karaoke are just some examples) reaches a global audience. Its constitution forbids Japan from having armed forces, but Japan has the 3rd largest military budget in the world and it sent troops to Iraq. Not even the Japanese themselves are sure how to reconcile these facts. In this course we will examine the politics and policies of contemporary Japan in an attempt to understand Japan’s place in the world. We will start with the evolution of Japan before WWII, asking what enabled Japan to transform itself from an isolated backwater into a great power. As we continue with the postwar construction of a stable conservative government and look for persistent trends in Japanese governance. Finally, we will consider how Japan is dealing with the turbulence of the 1990s: economic growth stopped, the political consensus behind the Liberal Democratic Party broke down, and Japan could no longer rely on the United States to make security and foreign policy decisions on its behalf. Along the way we will consider the major theoretical controversies in the study of Japanese politics, such as: concepts of political leadership, the relative power of politicians and the bureaucracy, industrial policy, political culture versus individual rationality, and the passivity of Japanese policy making. As I see it, these questions can be generalized into three core questions for this semester: 1. Who makes the rules (Bureaucrats? LDP? Outsiders?) 2. What rules do they make (Industrial Policy? Other Policy choices?) 3. Why do they make those rules (Culture? Rationality? Institutions?) We can ask these questions about any group of people, and they give us a base from which to make comparisons. Course components I want to take advantage of our small numbers to make this course collaborative learning, but the novelty of what we’ll cover makes that more difficult than a course where you have more background knowledge. We’ll split each class roughly in half—I’ll talk for the first half and you’ll be responsible for the second. It may seem like this means more work for you, but: a) you’ll learn more, and b) you don’t want to listen to me for two hours. I will have to lecture for the first half or so of each class, though. The topics are listed in the schedule below, and I’d like you to do the assigned reading before the lecture. We’ll have four quizzes; they will primarily be about lecture and reading, but may also cover class discussions. Each one will count for 12.5% of your final grade (50% total). Reasonable accommodations will be made for students registered with the office of learning disabilities, but you may only make up missed quizzes if you consult with me in advance. We will discuss two blogs on Japanese politics during class. One is called Observing Japan, by an American just a bit older than you who went to Japan and got a job with the Democratic Party of Japan. The other is Mutantfrog Travelogue, by a group of people who (mostly) live in Japan. After each day’s lecture, we’ll take a look at the latest postings. Then… 1) The first thing we’ll do is figure out what new knowledge we need to make sense of the posts, and divide those facts up amongst the class. Each of us will prepare a quick presentation on our assigned facts before the next day’s class. This will involve either outside research or reading ahead in the textbook or both. After dividing up our research we’ll identify one or two key questions the post raises for us to consider overnight. 2) Once we’ve divided up today’s posting, we’ll talk about yesterday’s post. First people will present their research and take questions. Then we’ll re-summarize the post in light of what we’ve learned and discuss the key questions. 3) One person will be responsible for organizing each discussion—we’ll call him/her the toban. This means: a) choosing a post to discuss from the two blogs, b) coordinate brainstorming about what we need to know, c) assigning research topics, d) leading discussion the following day. Your participation in these discussions will be 30% of your final grade. I’m looking for thoroughness of outside research and evidence of careful thought in addition to the volume of your comments (although that matters too). Finally, I would like to put our daily research together in a Wiki about Japanese Politics. Towards the start of the course, each research topic will probably involve creating a new wiki page. Later on, though, it may make sense to modify pre-existing pages. When you add new content, you should be sure to add links to your content in other pages. At the end of the class, I’d like you to turn in your wiki portfolio, which should include a copy of the pages you wrote, as well as a copy of the edit logs on pages you helped with (with your contributions marked). Your portfolio will be worth 20% of your final grade. Caution: Much of this will duplicate existing information on Wikipedia; that’s okay, but whatever you put up must be in your own words! You may paraphrase something you see another site, but you may not copy it—and just changing a few words per sentence counts as copying. Every so often I’ll google random phrases from the Wiki and if I see any evidence of copying, the perpetrator’s grade will suffer dramatically. Lecture Schedule 22 May A quick and dirty guide to Japanese politics Today’s lecture will be a quick overview of Japan’s political geography to help you get started with reading the blogs. Today’s toban will lead discussion on May 24th instead of May 23rd. 23 May Japanese Politics as Theater Political culture shapes action and institutions. We’ll look at important features of Japanese political culture, with reference to larger cultural issues. After we discuss that, we’ll go downstairs to the computer lab and learn about how to use the Wiki. Johnson: “Omote and Ura: Translating Political Terms 24 May The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of Japanese Democracy Today we’ll have our first blog discussions, led by the May 22 toban. Japan's parliament--the Diet--dates back to the 19th century, and the franchise slowly expanded in the early 20th century. We'll talk about how this happened, and then look at how politics turned into a giant train wreck in the 1930s, that took two atom bombs and the American occupation to get things sorted out. Schlesinger: Shadow Shoguns, chapter 1 “From Penury to Parliament” 28 May Memorial Day 29 May Politicians Rule, Bureaucrats Govern For all the political drama of the first decades after WWII, politicians really didn't actually do very much. The real power lay with Japan's bureaucrats. As you watch the movie, think about the image of bureaucrats it portrays and how it portrays the bureaucrat-politician relationship. Watch the movie Taxing Woman, on reserve at the Library. 30 May Industrial Policy and the Japanese Economy In 1960, Prime Minister Ikeda promised to double national income in 10 years. It happened in 7. Politicians claimed credit for the growth, but many academics gave bureaucrats the nod. We'll talk about how this happened, and how the Japanese economy differed from that of the United States. Ito: The Japanese Economy 31 May Getting Elected to the Diet First rule of getting elected: inherit your father's seat in the Diet. For everyone else, you'll need the 3 Ks: kane, kanban, and koenkai. Schlesinger: Shadow Shoguns, chapter 7 & 8 Quiz #1 4 June Moving on up the ladder The Liberal Democratic Party has many factions, that some call parties within the party. Ambitious politicians need to know how the system works and what factions can do for them. Schlesinger: Shadow Shoguns, chapter 9 "Politics is Power, Power is Numbers" 5 June Tribal Loyalties For a long time politicians couldn't buck the bureaucrats, but that changed with the emergence of policy tribes (zoku), and tribal politicians (zoku-giin). This gave politicians the edge they needed to seize the reins of power. Schlesinger: Shadow Shoguns, chapter 11 & 12 6 June But everyone else does it... Kakuei Tanaka had his fingers in everything, and everyone was paying him off. He ruled for years, but eventually his corruption caught up with him. We'll look at that quickly, then talk about the justice system in Japan, which works very differently than the US. Schlesinger: Shadow Shoguns, chapter 13 "Court Justice, Political Logic" "Light and Shadow in the Japanese Justice System" 7 June Greed is Good, Japanese Style The 1980s were the Gilded Age of Japan. The country was awash in cash, and the rest of the world was on sale at 50% off. In many ways, it was similar to the dot.com bubble or the housing price (?) bubble in America, but worse.
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