Political Japan awaits a black swan

"SOCIAL ENTROPY: A measure of the natural decay of the structure or of the disappearance of distinctions within a social system. Much of the energy consumed by a social organization is spent to maintain its structure, counteracting social entropy, e.g., through legal institutions, education, the normative consequences or television." – Krippendorff's Dictionary of Cybernetics

The LDP is in an advanced state of decay. Not surprisingly, as its death throes worsen, as the chaos within its ranks grow, more energy is being expended simply to preserve the fiction that the LDP remains a coherent party capable of governing its own members, let alone Japan. As entropy grows, so too does the energy dedicated to preserving the structure.

The signs of decay are everywhere.

At present the leading example is the developing Watanabe mutiny, which shows no signs of abating. Watanabe Yoshimi appealed to Prime Minister Aso for cooperation in a speech in Fukushima prefecture Saturday, but only on Mr. Watanabe's terms. Mr. Watanabe criticized Mr. Aso's new stimulus package as doing little to shift power from the bureaucracy to the politicians. "Change for this country," he said, "is truly desired." Behind Mr. Watanabe stands what AERA suggests is a group of forty-eight young reformists who share Mr. Watanabe's desire for wide-reaching reform and fear for their political lives. These forty-eight, including Shiozaki Yasuhisa, chief cabinet secretary under Abe Shinzo, are more than sufficient to overthrow the government by depriving the government of its supermajority. The question is whether they are willing to do so. The article makes a good point in suggesting that the reformists may have nowhere to go: with the DPJ running candidates in nearly 250 of 300 single-member districts, many of the Koizumians — particularly those in their first or second terms — face uphill battles for reelection and are hardly in a position to run to the DPJ. In Albert Hirschman's terms, their exit option is limited, so they are left trying to exercise voice within the LDP by forming study groups and publicly criticizing the prime minister. (And the DPJ will do everything it can to encourage the exercise of voice by LDP members — just as LDP officials have cheered for DPJ members opposing Ozawa Ichiro and criticized the lack of voice within the DPJ.)

Perhaps this explains Kan Naoto's inclusion in what is now being referred to as the YKKK. Growing out of the LDP's liberal dynamic duo of Yamasaki Taku and Kato Koichi, the final two letters are for Kan Naoto, DPJ executive, and Kamei Shizuka, founder of the People's New Party. Messrs. Yamasaki and Kato are apparently in touch with the latter two regarding the possibility of a post-election realignment. Asahi reports that Mr. Kato is open to leaving the LDP before an election — as are the other two (naturally) — but Mr. Yamasaki is reluctant, saying only that his goal is ending the divided Diet. Accordingly, Mr. Yamasaki joined the six other faction leaders to voice their support of the Aso government.

Based on the combination of names, the YKKK looks to me more like a way for a potential DPJ-led coalition government to pry away some LDP members than the basis for a comprehensive political realignment. The liberals are even more alienated within the LDP than the Koizumian neo-liberals, and have little to lose from leaving the LDP. It's little wonder that Mr. Kan would want to pry the liberals into the DPJ; not only would the bolster the party's numbers, but they would strengthen Mr. Kan's group within the DPJ. Not surprisingly, Mr. Kan has rejected the notion of a realignment before a general election. (I should add that this must be precisely what Ozawa Ichiro wants: all talk of a realignment is focused on LDP members defecting, as opposed to the dissolution of both the LDP and the DPJ during a realignment. The YKKK resembles less a multi-partisan alliance than the opposition parties looking to pluck low-hanging fruit from the LDP.)

The LDP's leadership, consistent with the notion of social entropy, is taking all of these threats seriously — these manifestations of entropy within the LDP. The party elders have closed ranks around the prime minister. Mori Yoshiro, don of the Machimura faction and a former prime minister who knows something about low approval ratings, most recently lashed out at Messrs. Yamasaki and Kato, as well as Nakagawa Hidenao. "Deplorable," he said. "Nothing but carefree, thoughtless politicians who have profaned all who have done the hard work of building Japan's politics." Ibuki Bunmei, Mr. Abe's education minister and LDP secretary-general under Fukuda Yasuo, has also spoken up on the prime minister's behalf, first by arguing that the party has no choice but to stick with Mr. Aso, because the public would be outraged if the LDP picked a fourth leader without a general election (how is four any less bad than three?) and then by warning that the YKKK could be like the KKK, "assassinating" young LDP members who follow them. It's hard to describe just how offensive this is, although MTC tries. But lame attempt at a joke aside, Mr. Ibuki couldn't be more wrong. Staying loyal to the Aso LDP — Mr. Aso's name has been inserted before the party's name in recent promotional material — at the same time that the party has moved ever further from the platform that got so many of the young LDP members elected in the first place seems like a terrible career move. Mr. Ibuki forgets that the party has systematically alienated its young Koizumians in the two years since Mr. Koizumi left office. How could the YKKK, or whatever alternative emerges, possibly be worse?

The LDP leadership's goal is to both close off exit options and stifle the exercise of voice.

None of this is to say that any one scenario is inevitable. There are number of possibilities for the coming year: a pre-election realignment that involves defection of the liberals and/or the neo-liberals; the creation of a neo-liberal third party before or after the next election; no change before a general election, in which the Koizumians are defeated; a fierce leadership struggle in the DPJ should Mr. Ozawa be forced to step down due to ill health. No one can say with any certainty which scenario will come to pass. The actors themselves don't know. The Japanese political system is waiting for a black swan of one form or another, the next jump in the history of Japanese politics. "History and societies," Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote, "do not crawl. They make jumps. They go from fracture to fracture, with a few vibrations in between."

What is certain is that the LDP establishment is losing its grip over the LDP and its constituent parts. They cannot silence mutinous backbenchers. They cannot stop backbenchers from forming study groups working at cross purposes with the government. When the right opportunity comes, they will most likely be unable to stop discontented members from leaving.

And they cannot stop voters and interest groups who have long supported the LDP from breaking with the LDP to support the DPJ.

Nearing a climax?

Japan's political air is once again full of election talk as the end of April approaches, bringing the first by-election of the Fukuda era and the end of the sixty-day period after which the HR can vote again on the tax bill containing the temporary gasoline tax.

Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, hinted in remarks in Nara-ken Saturday that the election will likely be held before the expiration of the term in September 2009, perhaps as early as this autumn. Mr. Ibuki suggested that Mr. Fukuda might act if he gets a tailwind so as to minimize the blow to the LDP in the general election that everyone knows is coming.

Asahi builds upon Mr. Ibuki's remarks, noting that he added that the party is encouraged by its strong favorable ratings in public opinion polls, many of which have consistently shown the LDP receiving more support than the DPJ.

Koga Makoto, the LDP's chief election strategist, who has been one of the leading advocates in the LDP for delaying until September 2009, has also changed his tune to echo Mr. Ibuki's line.

Mr. Ibuki's emphasis on the party's popularity, however, suggests a certain distancing from the increasingly unpopular Mr. Fukuda. I suspect that the earlier the general election, the greater the chance that it will not be Mr. Fukuda who leads the party into it, especially once the G8 summit has passed. Now that Mr. Fukuda has admitted that he underwent surgery for stomach cancer nearly a decade ago, there's even a convenient excuse for his stepping down, something like "health concerns brought on from the intense stress of the premiership."

But regardless of whether Mr. Fukuda will be at the helm for the next election, it is worth asking whether the LDP is right to feel confident about its electoral prospects based on opinion polls showing greater support than for the DPJ. Do the party support numbers recorded in polls actually have any meaning for how people will vote? Are the LDP and Komeito really willing to bet their two-thirds majority — which Mr. Ibuki admitted will likely not be retained — on the basis of there being some significance to the polls? I have a hunch that the polls fail to capture the extent of the public's discontent. I'm not convinced that the public is any less discontent than it was last summer when the LDP was trounced in the HC election. Will the public really be inclined to punish the DPJ more than the LDP?

The DPJ may not be able to win a majority outright, but anything close will be more than enough to topple the sitting premier, whether Mr. Fukuda or a successor, and possibly break the LDP as its contending sects battle for control of the party.

It is with this in mind that we head into the final weeks of the battle of the temporary tax and road construction. Ozawa Ichiro is still threatening a censure motion should the HR pass the tax bill again, although he has hedged on his threat by suggesting that the final decision will be for the party's HC members to make. Whether a censure motion will have any meaning depends, of course, on the government's response.

If the LDP's leaders are convinced that its popularity will win the day in a general election, perhaps they will call Mr. Ozawa's bluff.

And then?

Tip of the iceberg

Following Prime Minister Fukuda's remarks Thursday at the LDP convention, Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, has also warned darkly of the possibility of the breaking of the LDP.

Speaking in Utsunomiya, Mr. Ibuki said, "If the LDP wins, the DPJ will break. If the DPJ wins, in the LDP people who cannot persevere will spill out."

There are plenty of public signs of the gathering storm within the LDP, but if the president and secretary-general of the party feel compelled to take their fears for the party's future public, then the situation must be worse than even press reports suggest. Given the barely concealed vitriol of the conservatives, who seem to feel that Mr. Fukuda has taken their birthright — control of the party for which they and their ideological predecessors yearned for decades — I don't doubt it.

But Mr. Ibuki is right: I don't expect any movement until after the election. But he's wrong about the winner staying united, the loser dividing. What will count as a victory for the LDP? retaining the supermajority? Best take out the carving knives now. A simple majority for the LDP, without Komeito? A simple majority for the government, but only with Komeito's help? Undoubtedly different actors within the LDP will have their own ideas about what constitutes a win for the LDP in a general election. I expect that Nakagawa Shoichi and the other ideologues will do their best to spin just about any outcome as a defeat, giving them due cause to reassert control over the LDP, and push out their dovish rivals, with a mitigating factor being a strong election performance by the doves that bolsters their numbers within the party. Barring that, the LDP will be rocked by just about any outcome short of the miraculous retention of the supermajority.

As for the DPJ, if it loses — although, again, there is a question about the definition of what constitutes a win for the DPJ — the party will have to confront the question of who will replace Ozawa Ichiro. As revealed back in November, there isn't an obvious replacement, meaning that when Mr. Ozawa goes, there's bound to be chaos within the DPJ as the party's proto-factions search for a new compromise leader who can assuage all factions or purge the party's conservatives, sending them into the arms of the LDP.