Job Name:2133916 Date:15-01-28 PDF Page:2133916pbc.p1.pdf Color: Cyan Magenta Yellow Black The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, established in 1943, is a publicly supported, nonpartisan, research and educational organization. Its purpose is to assist policy makers, scholars, businessmen, the press, and the public by providing objective analysis of national and international issues. Views expressed in the institute's publications are those of the authors and do not neces­ sarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEI. Council of Academic Advisers Paul W. McCracken, Chairman, Edmund Ezra Day University Professor of Busi­ ness Administration, University of Michigan Robert H. Bork, Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Public Law, Yale Law School Kenneth W. Dam, Harold I. and Marion F. Green Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School Donald C. 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Johnson, Economic Policy Studies Review, Robert J. Pranger and Donald C. Hellmann, Sidney L. Jones, Seminar Programs Co-Editors Marvin H. Kosters/James C. Miller III, Public Opinion, Seymour Martin Government Regulation Studies Lipset, Ben J. Wattenberg, Co­ Editors; David R. Gergen, Jack Meyer, Special Projects (acting) Managing Editor W. S. Moore, Legal Policy Studies Regulation, Antonin Scalia and Murray L. Weidenbaum, Rudolph G. Penner, Tax Policy Studies Co-Editors; Anne Brunsdale, Howard R. Penniman/Austin Ranney, Managing Editor Political and Social Processes William J. Baroody, Sr., Robert J. Pranger, Foreign and Defense Counsellor and Chairman, Policy Studies Development Conzmittee A SEASON OF VOTING A SEASON OF VOTING The Japanese Elections of 1976 and 1977 Edited by Herbert Passin American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Washington, D.C. Distributed to the Trade by National Book Network, 15200 NBN Way, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17214. To order call toll free 1-800-462-6420 or 1-717-794-3800. For all other inquiries please contact the AEI Press, 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 or call 1-800-862-5801. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: A Season of voting. (AEI studies;240) Includes index. 1. Elections-Japan. 2. Voting-Japan. 3. Japan- Politics and government-1945- 1. Passin, Herbert. JQ1692.S35 329'.023'5204 79-15712 ISBN 0-8447-3343-1 AEI Studies 240 © 1979 by American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the American Enterprise Institute except in the case of brief quotations embodied in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. The views expressed in the publications of the American Enterprise Institute are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, advisory panels, officers, or trustees of AEL U American Enterprise Institute" is the registered service mark of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS PREFACE Herbert Passin 1 JAPANESE POLITICS TODAY Herbert Passin 1 The LDP and the Parliamentary System 1 The Japanese Electoral System 3 Part One THE 1976 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ELECTION 2 THE CONSERVATIVES IN CRISIS Michael Blaker 13 The Lockheed Election 14 The New Liberal Club 18 Candidate Selection 21 The 1976 Election Results 25 Summary and Conclusions 38 3 THE OPPOSITION Gerald L. Curtis 43 The Japan Socialist Party 44 The Democratic Socialist Party S4 The K6meit6 S9 The Japan Communist Party 66 Opposition Party Cooperation 69 Campaign Issues 74 4 HISTORICAL STATISTICS Nisihira Sigeki 81 Changes in National Election Results 81 Party Voting Percentages by Electoral Districts 86 Voting Rates by Degree of Urbanization 89 Distribution of Seats by Size of Constituency 93 Vote Share by Size of Municipality 100 Characteristics of the Parties 105 A Comparison with the Political Parties of Europe 109 Part Two 1977 HOUSE OF COUNCILLORS ELECTION 5 THE HOUSE OF COUNCILLORS Herbert Passin 115 A Note on the Upper House 115 The Political Environment 117 The Elections 118 The Results 133 Representativeness and Reform 136 Part Three OVERVIEW 6 FINANCING POLITICS Kata Hirohisa 141 The LDP and Money 144 Opposition Party Funds 148 Revision of the Public Office Election Law 152 Revision of the Political Funds Regulation Law 154 Public Attitudes toward the High Cost of Elections 157 7 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ELECTIONS Herbert Passin 160 The LDP Defeat 161 The Operation of the Diet 163 Winners and Losers 166 Public Opinion and the Elections 168 New Political Forces 176 Campaign Issues 178 Political Developments 179 APPENDIX: Japanese Ballots, 1974 189 CONTRIBUTORS 191 INDEX 193 ABBREVIATIONS DSP Democratic Socialist party (Minshushugi Shakait6) JCP Japan Communist party (Nippon Ky6sant6) JSP Japan Socialist party (Nihon Shakait6) KMT K6meit6 (Clean Government party) LDP Liberal Democratic party (Jiyu-Minshut6) NLC New Liberal Club (Shin Jiyu Kurabu) PFL Progressive Freedom League (Kakushin Jiyu Reng6) SCL Socialist Citizens League (Shakai Shimin Reng6) WP Women's party (Nippon Joseit6) NOTE: Japanese personal names are presented in Japanese order-the family name first and the given name last. PREFACE That Japan is the second largest industrial power in the world is by now recognized by most moderately well-informed people. But many are not aware that it is also the world's third largest democracy. The first is India, then the United States; among the advanced industrial democracies, Japan is second, the same rank it holds as an economic power. But this has not always been so. Until World War II Japan had a parliamentary and cabinet system that in many superficial respects resembled the British system. But it was in no sense a democracy. The rights of the people were severely proscribed, the elected parliament had only limited powers, the cabinet was responsible to the emperor, not to the parliament, and the ministers of the army and navy were responsible not to the prime minister but to their respective services. A system so hedged-in could scarcely qualify as a parliamentary de­ mocracy. It should not be forgotten, however, that neither prewar Germany (except for the brief flowering of the Weimar period) nor Italy was a democracy. Nor was India, for that matter, since it was still a colony. Democracy in the Western sense was entirely limited to Western Europe and the relatively autonomous British dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The full-scale democratic political system in Japan today is the product of World War II. The American Occupation, as part of its program to assure that Japan would never again become a military threat to the rest of the world, placed its primary emphasis on the democratization of the country. "Democratization" meant many things -from retraining the police to land reform, from coeducation to a new constitution based on Western concepts of human rights and popular sovereignty, from the encouragement of square dancing to PREFACE the dissolution of the zaibatsu cartels, from the midmorning coffee break to the enfranchisement of women. But one thing it surely meant was the complete reorganization of the political system to reflect the Occupation's concept of what a responsible parliamentary democracy should be. Curiously, despite the fact that the changes were imposed by a foreign occupying power, they struck deep roots and held firmly. Since the end of the war Japan has had thirteen general elections for the House of Representatives and eleven triennial elections for the House of Councillors. The turnout for these elections is normally between 70 and 75 percent of the electorate, higher than for American elections by a significant margin. The elections have been hard fought and their outcomes, on the whole, accepted as legitimate. Challenges have always been by the legal procedures available in a democratic society; there has never been the slightest hint of extraparliamentary methods. This bespeaks a high degree of democratic stability, a mark of how firmly democracy has struck roots. Perhaps, however, this very lack of sensation, drama, and excitement accounts for the fact that Japanese elections appear to have very little news value in the American media. My principal source of daily news is the New York Times. During the British elections of May 1979, I found myself very well served by the news coverage. Reporting was in considerable depth, so that I was able to follow not only the general course of the campaign but also the local trends in Scotland and Wales, the key issues, the reasons for public disenchantment with Labour, and even Jeremy Thorpe's desperate campaign. This is as it should be. But when I tried to follow the elections in Japan, which is twice the size of Britain, much more powerful economically, and, as our regional ally, at least as important in Asia as Britain is in Europe, I could not do so. The Times gave a brief summary of the results of the 1976 and 1977 national elections and not a word about the equally significant outcome of the spring 1979 local elections.