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Asian International Studies Review Sukeui Vol. 21 Sohn No.2 (December 2020): 55-77 55 Received September 15, 2020 Revised December 4, 2020 Accepted December 11, 2020 Examining Opposition Realignment and Japan’s Rightward Shift in the 2017 General Election* Sukeui Sohn** The purpose of this study to examine the degree of ‘rightward shift’ among Japanese politicians as well as voters by analyzing the result of the 2017 general election, particularly focusing on the split of Democratic Party (minshintō) and the consequent realignment of opposition bloc between moderate conservatives, represented by Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (rikken minshutō), and hardline conservatives who joined newly-established Party of Hope (kibō no tō). Particularly, the district-level analysis of eighty-five districts reveal that the moderate-hardline alignment among voters appears to be solidified, and there seems low level of vote mobilities between the two blocs. Instead, the electoral results indicate that political parties are competing one another within its respective blocs. While the overall tendency of new voters to support new rightwing party may serve as one of indicators to elucidate Japan’s rightward shift, given the ambiguity of candidates’ positions on constitutional revisions as well as poor performance of PoH candidates against CDPJ, it is questionable whether such trend can be accounted for permanent or holistic shift to the rightist ideology. Keywords: Rightward Shift (ukeika), Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), Party of Hope, Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), The 2017 General Election, Opposition Realignment * This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2019S1A6A3A02102886). ** HK Research Professor, Institute for Japanese Studies, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea; E-mail: [email protected] DOI: 10.16934/isr.21.2.202012.55 Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 10:48:20AM via free access 56 Examining Opposition Realignment and Japan’s Rightward Shift in the 2017 General Election I. INTRODUCTION The resurgence of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after the inauguration of the second Abe cabinet in 2012 is often conceived as the triumph of hardline conservativism in Japan. Once characterized by redistribution of wealth from competitive firms to highly protected rural economies, the dismantlement of so-called LDP system after the 1990s put an end to long-held clientelist practices between the ruling party and its rurally-based supporters (Kabashima 2014, 3).1 What came to rise instead was electoral competition that centered on parties, rather than politicians, generated by the new electoral system installed for general election since 1994 (Maeda 2009; McElawin 2012; Reed, Scheiner, and Thies 2012; Reed 2014). Along with the development of party-centered political competition surged the ‘presidentialization’ of Japanese politics in which the role of party leadership became more critical than it was in the past in influencing electoral performance (Krauss and Nyblade 2005; Sasada 2010; Jou and Endo 2015). Against this backdrop, the unprecedented longevity of prime minister Abe’s second term and the consecutive electoral victories in national elections throughout his eight-year-tenure has invited speculations regarding the ‘rightward shift’ of the Japanese electorate. The consecutive triumphs of Liberal Democratic Party, as well as the rise of rightwing ‘third’ parties that have gained substantial support in the post-2010 electoral competition, have overshadowed the ‘liberals’ within Japan’s political market, which, particularly after the split of Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in 2012, seemed to remain unable to overcome seemingly chronic divisions of political interests. While it is easy to mistake prime minister Abe’s wire-to-wire race as well as the former DPJ’s unfortunate unfolding after it fell out of power in 2012 as the victory of the hardline conservativism in Japan, it is premature to assume that the liberals and moderate conservatives are no longer competent in Japan’s political market. One recent incident that symbolized the reinstitution of moderate conservative ideology was the split of Democratic Party (minshintō) and consequent ideological realignment among opposition bloc centering on hardline Party of Hope (PoH, kibō no tō) and moderate Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ, rikken minshutō) just days before the 2017 general election held on October 22. This party realignment among Japan’s oppositions was induced by ideological regrouping of political actors, rather than clash of factional or political interests. In other words, the results of 2017 election allows us to investigate the degree of ideological divide among Japanese politicians as well as voters. The purpose of this study to examine the degree of ‘rightward shift’ among Japanese politicians as well as voters by analyzing the result of the 2017 general election, particularly focusing on the split of Democratic Party (minshintō) Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 10:48:20AM via free access Sukeui Sohn 57 and the consequent realignment of opposition bloc between moderate conservatives, represented by Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (rikken minshutō), and hardline conservatives who joined newly-established Party of Hope (kibō no tō). The following section provides contextual backgrounds of shifting ideological divide among political parties, focusing on the rise of moderate and hardline conservatives that pushed the axis of policy competition to the ‘right.’ Section III examines the ideological inclinations of running candidates in the 2017 general election by utilizing UTAS survey to analyze the political elites’ attitudes toward constitutional revision, particularly of Article 9, which continues to serve as an important divisive policy between hardline and moderate conservatives. Sections IV and V focuses on the split of Democratic Party and opposition realignment as well as the electoral performance of CDPJ’s candidates and former DP independents in eighty-five single-member districts against candidates from hardline parties, including the LDP and Party of Hope, to assess the degree of moderate-hardline divide among Japanese voters. Ⅱ. Ideological competition in post-reform Japan in the Post-Cold War context The assessments of the ‘rightward’ shift of Japan under prime minister Abe’s leadership are sharply divided. While some claim that Japan under Abe has nurtured nationalism (Berger 2014), others interpret Abe government’s proactive defense policies, such as the launching of National Security Council in 2013, changing the interpretation of Article 9 to allow the exercise of the right of collective self-defense in 2014, upgrading of defense capabilities to counter Chinese aggression in maritime security, as an extension of long-term incremental development of postwar Japan’s security profiles (Oros 2017; Easley 2017). The triumph of ‘military realists’ in the post-Cold War era is understood as caused by increasing external threats from North Korea and most of all China, as Japan’s status as economic superpower was gradually overshadowed by Chinese presence in the region (Sakai 2019). The significant transformation of external environment in the post-Cold War setting cast shadow upon the domestic reconfiguration of ideological contests as well. Once characterized by the competition between overreaching conservative values (LDP) and progressives (socialists) under the 1955 system, in the post-Cold War context, the Japanese conservatives underwent considerable restructuring in terms of ideological balances. Though initially caused by a factional strife within the dominant Takeshita faction, the LDP’s brief loss of power in 1993 as well as the concurrent jijiho-jishasa conflicts throughout the 1990s was characterized by the diverging views on the directions of national Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 10:48:20AM via free access 58 Examining Opposition Realignment and Japan’s Rightward Shift in the 2017 General Election security profiles (Ōtake 1999, 41-87). The decline of socialist party and the following rise of the Democratic Party of Japan propelled the LDP to accentuate ‘hardline’ conservatives values, creating policy/ideological competitions that are centering on the ‘moderate/centrist’ and ‘hardline’ conservatives (Nakano 2015). That LDP is undergoing rightward shift in terms of policy preferences is discussed in terms of shifting policy axis in the post-Cold War context, in which the socialists, who represented the ‘opposition’ vis-à-vis the conservative LDP, were replaced by the ‘new conservatives,’ represented by New Frontier Party (1994-1997) and then Democratic Party of Japan after the 1990s. A series of surveys conducted by Asahi Shimbun and the University of Tokyo illuminates the LDP members’ growing tendency to conform with the party leadership in regards to hardline agendas such as exercise of the right of collective defense and constitutional revision. According to the survey, such ‘rightward shift’ in terms of party’s policy proposals began in the 2009 general election as a reactionary swing vis-à-vis DPJ’s pursuit of ‘people’s life-first’ agendas that attracted centrist voters.2 The survey indicates that, along with the rise of ‘rightwing’ populist parties, such as Japan Restoration Party (Ishin no kai), who shares the closest policy preferences with the LDP particularly in such policy fields
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