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The Era of Koizumi‟S Right-Wing Populism

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The Era of Koizumi‟s Right-Wing Populism A study of ideology, political practice and rhetoric in Japan Petter Lindgren Master Thesis in Asian and African Studies 60 Credits UNIVERSITY OF OSLO DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL STUDIES AND ORIENTAL LANGUAGES Spring 2012 II Acknowledgment Back in 2004, when she lectured in the subject ”Japanese politics and society,” I met my adviser Reiko A. Auestad for the first time. Over the years, we have discussed a variety of Japanese and Western topics. Honesty, openness, and trust are her trademarks. I would like to thank her for reading some chapters and for discussing the master thesis project on several occasions. I would also like to thank Mark Teeuwen, Dick Stegewerns and Arne Kalland, for teaching me about Japan, and for providing insights and inspiration on the journey to understand Japanese society, history and politics. I am indebted to Tomoko O. Hansen for her splendid, but somewhat strict teaching of Japanese language. Without her - no thesis. Thank you. I also want to thank professor Glenda Roberts at Waseda University. Her courses benefited my anthropological and sociological understanding.. I would like to express my gratitude to Saito and Yamanoi for their hospitality, books, food and teaching on Japanese politics and society. Great thanks to the Itô Foundation as well. Itô offered me the opportunity to study at Waseda University in Tokyo and enabled a year of studies in one of the world‟s most interesting cities. Sasakawa Foundation provided funding that enabled a research trip to Japan in December 2008. Thank you very much. Major thanks are forwarded to Wrenn Yennie. Not a few mistakes were identified by her magnificent proofreading. I am in deep academic debt to Tor E. Simonsen. Over the years, he has tried to teach me to be patient, critical and humble when facing historical material and academic arguments. Although I have tried to study Japanese politics with his advice in mind, I still have a long way to go. Anyways, I owe you. A lot. Thank you. This thesis would not have been possible without you. The thesis is dedicated to Jussi. Although he has yet to grasp the social world, he has such potential. My hope is that he develops a curiosity for the social world. Good luck! III Abbreviations ASDF Air Self-Defense Forces CEFP Committee on Economic and Fiscal Policy CGP Clean Government Party (kômeitô) CP Conservative Party DPJ Democratic Party of Japan FILP Fiscal Investment and Loan Program FLE Fundamental Law of Education FTA Free Trade Agreements GAC General Affairs Council GSDF Ground Self-Defense Forces JP Japan Post LDP Liberal Democratic Party LP Liberal Party MAFF Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery METI Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (former MITI) MLIT Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport MOC Ministry of Construction MOE Ministry of Education MOFA Ministry of Foreign Affairs MPT Ministry of Post and Telecommunications MSDF Maritime Self-Defense Forces NCER National Commission on Education Reform NPM New Public Management PARC Policy Affairs Research Council PISA Programme for International Student Assessment PSA Postal Service Agency SDF Self-Defense Forces WTO World Trade Organization IV Japanese terms Amakudari Bureaucrats and politicians descending retiring from their positions to well- paid leader positions in public corporations Dôroku zoku Highway zoku Hikaku san gensoku Three non-nuclear principles Ichiritsu nôsei Equal payments to farmers Jûshô shugi Mercantilism: the view of the Japanese postwar state as only concerned with economic growth and trade balance Kantei Prime Minister‟s Office Kômeitô New Clean Government: LDP‟s coalitin partner. The political organization of the sôka gakkai, a Buddhist sect. Nihon shintô Japan New Party Rachi mondai The abduction issue: North Korea‟s kidnapping of Japanese citizens during the 1970s. Sanmi ittai kaikaku Tax reform: taxation but also expenditure responsibility transfer from central government to local government Yûsei zoku Postal services zoku Zoku Policy ‟tribe‟ V Use of Japanese I have used the Hepburn romanization (chi, sho, etc.). The diacritic (ô) indicates all long vowels except in familiar places (Tokyo). I have used n rather than m before syllables beginning with m, b, and p (such as shinbun). All Japanese names are written with the family name first, even for Japanese scholars publishing in Western-language publications.1 1 I have stolen partly from the standard in The Journal of Japanese Studies. VI Table of content Acknowledgment ..................................................................................................................... III Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................... IV Japanese terms ........................................................................................................................... V Use of Japanese ........................................................................................................................ VI Table of content ....................................................................................................................... VII 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Research Questions .......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Relevance ......................................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Contributions of the thesis ................................................................................................ 2 1.4 Overview of the thesis ...................................................................................................... 2 2: Ideology and politics: theory, methodology and data ............................................................ 5 2.1 Ideology ............................................................................................................................ 5 2.2 Political practice in the national political field ................................................................. 6 2.3 Purpose of the field of history and its methodology ........................................................ 7 2.4 Data .................................................................................................................................. 9 3 Koizumi Jun‟ichirô: reform, reform, reform ......................................................................... 11 3.1. Background ................................................................................................................... 11 3.2. Political career ............................................................................................................... 11 3.3. LDP presidential election attempts – two failures ........................................................ 12 3.4. Postal privatization – the „iron triangle‟ and willingness to cooperate ......................... 13 3.5. The YKK trio ................................................................................................................ 15 3.6. Charismatic leadership .................................................................................................. 17 3.7. Media influence? ........................................................................................................... 19 3.8. Linguistics – Koizumi‟s speech style and directness .................................................... 21 3.9. The ideologies of the Koizumi reign ............................................................................. 22 4 The politics of structural reforms: Neoliberalism in Japanese .............................................. 25 4.1 Overview of the chapter ................................................................................................. 26 4.2 Koizumi – a libertarian ................................................................................................... 26 4.3 Neoliberalism – a definition and its history ................................................................... 28 VII 4.4 The history of neoliberal reforms in Japan: Koizumi as the third wave ........................ 30 4.5 The structural reforms .................................................................................................... 32 Reform of protected industries ......................................................................................... 33 Reform of the Japanese economy ..................................................................................... 35 Reform of public welfare .................................................................................................. 38 Reform of local government ............................................................................................. 39 Areas of non-reform? ....................................................................................................... 40 4.6 The neoliberal reform project ......................................................................................... 40 5 “I will destroy my party”: the Koizumi project as populism ................................................ 43 5.1 Overview of the chapter ................................................................................................. 44 5.2 Populism ........................................................................................................................
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