Web developments

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's largest daily by circulation, is finally entering the twenty-first century.

Earlier this month it revamped its website, introducing an RSS feed and other web tools. It also created a clipping service, for which users must register.

Meanwhile Japan's other political parties have followed the LDP and created YouTube channels of their own (DPJ; JCP; NKP; PNP; SDPJ; NPJ — links also available at YouTube's Japanese politics portal). Koike Yuriko has her own channel too.

Like the LDP channel — which at the moment features an odd video of Abe Shinzo promoting a Diet tour led by Mr. Abe himself — none of these channels is particularly interesting: lots of videos of people sitting in front of microphones. Nevertheless they should provide the occasional laugh.

Speaking of laughs, allow me to close with this video, featuring silly pictures of everyone's favorites, the "dangerous" ANA (Abe-Nakagawa-Aso) politicians.

Bait and switch

The HR passed the road construction bill a second time on Tuesday afternoon, as scheduled. Despite rumors to the contrary, there was no rebellion. Kono Taro and his comrades voted with the government, in the process illustrating why the much-anticipated political realignment has yet to occur: for all the discontent voiced by backbenchers about the leadership of both the LDP and the DPJ, they remain reluctant to bear the risks associated with bucking the party leadership and possibly leaving the party.

Mr. Kono and other reformists are still threatening to fight for the party to adopt the prime minister's plan to phase out the road construction fund from 2009, but after caving on the road construction plan Tuesday, will their concerns be taken seriously in the coming months? As Mainichi reports, despite remaining silent in the face of the cabinet decision supporting Mr. Fukuda's plan, the road tribe remains ready to fight to preserve its privileges. The road tribesmen will instead focus their efforts on the year-end budget proposal, a sound strategy considering that Mr. Fukuda will likely be gone by then, leaving the reformists to fight on alone.

Even with Mr. Fukuda as premier the tribesmen have important allies within the party for their campaign to derail the reform: local and prefectural politicians, who will undoubtedly remind their patrons in Tokyo that their communities need the road fund and suggest that if Mr. Fukuda's plan goes forward, they cannot guarantee that the LDP will get favorable returns in the next general election. Whether such a threat is credible is not the issue — if the LDP leadership becomes convinced that ending the special fund truly alienates the party from its supposed base, that will be enough to ensure that the reform plan gets watered down to the point of irrelevance. The head of the national mayors association has already criticized the plan, no doubt the first of many such comments to come from local politicians.

In short, the LDP, already concerned that its rural base could desert the party in a general election, will not follow through on Mr. Fukuda's proposal, a classic bait and switch.

And so the LDP's death throes will continue, as the LDP can no longer rely on the two methods that had extended its life in the past: opportunistic policy shifts (like this, for example) and "divide-and-rule." (These arguments are made by Ito Atsuo in a Chuo Koron article to which I linked above.) Regarding the former, not only has the LDP calcified ideologically, but its reformist members, who want to change the party's policies, find it nearly impossible to overcome the opposition of older members who desperately cling to their remaining privileges. What do the latter have to lose in resisting reform tooth-and-nail? The party is in no position to punish them, Mr. Koizumi's 2005 purge notwithstanding. Mr. Koizumi's purge of postal rebels — so objectionable to many LDP members, judging by the return of most of the rebels to the LDP — was clearly an aberration.

As for the latter, the LDP's bid to divide and co-opt the opposition by offering a grand coalition to the DPJ clearly failed and if anything united the DPJ in its opposition to the government. This scheme may have temporarily created turmoil within the DPJ by intensifying dissatisfaction with Ozawa Ichiro's leadership, but Mr. Ozawa appears to have quelled most of the resistance to his leadership. The LDP continues to hope that Mr. Ozawa will face a serious challenge in the September party leadership election but the threat to Mr. Ozawa may be overstated. A reformist like Maehara Seiji or Okada Katsuya, both former party leaders, may ultimately stand against Mr. Ozawa, but it is unlikely that the bulk of the party will abandon Mr. Ozawa for either man.

Meanwhile, the depth of the LDP's desperation is revealed in its hope for an incapacitated DPJ.

Realignment scenarios

After months of talking about forming a new party, Hiranuma Takeo, a leading LDP postal rebel who spurned LDP efforts to bring him back into the party during the Abe era, may finally be taking steps to create a new conservative party that may yet be a fly in the LDP's ointment.

Mr. Hiranuma has reportedly been in talks with other former LDP members — "independent conservatives" — to form a new study group. Partners in this endeavor include Watanuki Tamisuke, leader of the PNP; Kamei Shizuka, the PNP's secretary-general; Suzuki Muneo, the disgraced (and indicted) former LDP member, partner-in-corruption of the late Matsuoka Toshikatsu, and representative of his own Hokkaido-based New Party Big Earth; and Nakamura Kishiro, construction minister in the Miyazawa cabinet who was subsequently left the LDP, was arrested and charged with influence peddling in 1994, continued to win elections and serve as an independent HR member until 2003, when the Supreme Court rejected his final appeal and promptly stripped him of his seat and sent him to prison until 2004 when he was paroled (he won his seat back in the 2005 election).

These LDP castaways agreed to take a confrontational stance towards the "Fukuda cabinet's policy line," suggesting that this PNP+ grouping could be the beginning of Mr. Hiranuma's new party, throwing a wrinkle into a political realignment.

Or will it? While Mr. Hiranuma clearly has links to Nakagawa Shoichi and other conservative ideologues in the LDP, it is not at all clear that Mr. Hiranuma will be able to entice them to join his party, considering the ragtag group he has assembled around him. That won't stop the DPJ from looking to bolster Mr. Hiranuma's party in the hope that it will break the LDP. On Monday, Hatoyama Yukio, the DPJ's secretary-general, greeted the news of Mr. Hiranuma's group by calling for cooperation. I hope cooperation goes no further. For all Mr. Hiranuma's anti-LDP posturing, I suspect that his tune would change were Aso Taro elected as leader, suggesting that this gambit may be less an effort to create a third pole in the political system than to improve the terms for Mr. Hiranuma's eventual reunion with the LDP. Ibuki Bunmei, LDP secretary-general, has already come calling.

Mr. Hiranuma cannot possibly think that his party could become a significant third force in Japanese politics. Considering that it would be little different from the PNP, which has elected a grand total of eight representatives (four HR, four HC), why should anyone expect the Hiranuma new party to be anything but a guppy? Obviously that would change if the LDP's conservative wing were to leave the party en masse and join with Mr. Hiranuma, but at that point it would no longer be the Hiranuma new party but the Hiranuma-Abe-Nakagawa-Aso true conservative party, with the "H" increasingly pushed to the side.

The Japanese political system might have room for a third, swing party between two big parties, but I doubt that the swing party will have the ideological coloration of the Hiranuma new party.

The prospect of a Koizumi new party remains, to me, the more intriguing possibility. An article in the June issue of Bungei Shunjyu suggests (in part one) that Mr. Koizumi views the present crisis — a natural outgrowth of his ransacking of the LDP — as an opportunity to build a new political system, with Koike Yuriko acting as his stalking horse.

Another scenario discussed in the latter portion of the article is a bid by Ozawa Ichiro to pry the LDP's liberals away, similar to his failed attempt in 1994 to pry Watanabe Michio and his followers away from the LDP by promising Mr. Watanabe the premiership. The target for Mr. Ozawa's efforts supposedly is Kato Koichi, the once-promising liberal, although it is unlikely that the has-been Mr. Kato could bring significant numbers of LDP members with him.

Nevertheless, if the conservatives retake control of the LDP under Mr. Aso and reunite with Mr. Hiranuma, that alliance could prove fatal for the LDP, as the readmission of Mr. Hiranuma and the other postal rebels could lead Mr. Koizumi and his followers out of the party, perhaps prompting liberals unconnected to Mr. Koizumi to leave too and drift towards the DPJ.

But I still suspect that nothing will happen until after the next general election. Until an election is held, no group knows just how valuable its hand is. The size of the LDP's majority — if it retains a majority — will make all the difference when it comes to potential separatists considering whether to split (the same logic applies to Komeito's partnership with the LDP). The larger the majority, the stronger the LDP will be respective to potential splinter groups. Should the DPJ have a strong showing that puts it within striking distance of a majority, however, there will be a brutal war for the loyalty of possible defectors and Komeito (the latter especially in the event that the governing coalition retains a majority, but not the LDP independently).

Why a realignment is inevitable

Janne Morén's recent post on institutional loyalty (thanks for the reminder, MTC) provides an excellent argument for why to anticipate a new political realignment in the near future.

He writes:

If we return to politics, the situation shares some similarities and there is a clear possibility of a similar dissolution of loyalty between lawmakers and their parties. More and more of pre- and post-election resources are tied to the politician personally, and come from sources other than their party. A party of course offers their name - political branding - and a party affiliation is often necessary to partake in the give-and-take of parliamentary work (you need party support for juicy positions, just like you need a research affiliate for grants), but again, there is no real reason to stay with one particular party at any cost. The more an election costs the less beholden is the candidate. A veteran lawmaker (or dynastic scion) comes with his own district-wide name recognition, his well-tested local organization and a stable cadre of financial donors (legal or not; improper political donations are a leading cause of indictments here). An established politician may in fact need his party quite a bit less than the party needs him.

Lawmakers do shop around in Japanese politics; a not inconsiderate number of lawmakers have switched parties, sometimes several times, during their careers. And you can argue that the same mechanism is at play among internal party factions in the LDP, with individuals changing their allegiance in return for a cabinet post or committee membership. This, by the way, happens very rarely in Sweden, as most election costs are borne by the parties, not the representative. As internal cohesion weakens and parties become little more than amorphous blobs discussion clubs for mutual backing (the ideological range within both the LDP and DPJ almost beggars belief), the next step would be to dispense with party affiliation as a major criteria for case by case cooperation altogether.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why a political realignment is pretty near inevitable.

The LDP, and Japanese political parties in general, have never been known for their cohesiveness. Indeed, a longtime foreign correspondent once quipped to me about the LDP, "The party may be known as the Jiminto (自民党), but each member is his own Jibunto (自分党)." The prevalence of koenkai and hereditary Diet members in the postwar period meant that financial independence was common for LDP members; they depended upon the party for jobs and for pork.

What binds members to their parties today? The most important factor, at least for lesser-known members, may be the party's endorsement to run as a candidate (the "branding" factor). It certainly isn't policy: policy loyalty seems directed more at sub-party groups — factions or study groups — than the party at large.

That said, I do not think that party affiliation is on the road to irrelevancy. The situation described by Mr. Morén simply shows the failure of the current political arrangement. The LDP and the DPJ are fundamentally incoherent, divided as much or more within as between the parties. This fact is universally recognized, at least in the Japanese political world. Few doubt that a realignment is necessary. The question now is how the realignment will unfold: who will make the first move? What issue(s) will form the basis for the identities of the new parties? Taxation? Deregulation? The welfare system? Foreign policy?

Of course, the new (or newly transformed) parties will be divided in different ways — and members will still be financially independent from the party leadership. But they will likely inspire greater loyalty from their members than the current LDP and DPJ.

A new 1955 system?

With Typhoon Fitow bearing down on the Kanto plain, I have decided to take shelter from the storm for the evening, and so there's no better time to step back and ponder the evolution of the Japanese party system.

In the aftermath of the Upper House election, there was some talk of a political realignment as a possible result of post-election uncertainty. That talk has diminished somewhat, especially because Ozawa Ichiro has managed the DPJ adeptly, most notably by co-opting Maehara Seiji with a deputy leadership post. (Although I think the talk of a grand coalition by LDP leaders hints at a political realignment of sorts.)

An article in this week's Liberal Time, however, renews the conversation about the shape of a new political alignment. The speculation considers the usual actors. Mr. Koizumi, dissatisfied by his party's backtracking on reform (as Mr. Hiranuma's return suggests), could split from the LDP with his "children" to form the "Koizumi New Party." Joining him could be Mr. Maehara — Hatoyama Yukio is apparently convinced that he would — and Mr. Tanigaki, who has, with his faction, been effectively isolated within the LDP.

I don't think this scenario is particularly plausible at the moment. More interesting is the article's conclusion, which is called "the demise of the two-party system" and looks back to the founding of the LDP in 1955 to call for a new ruling party:

It was said by Miki Bukichi, who successfully created the "conservative fusion," "This will last ten years." The thought that the LDP has steadily exceeded its service life is strong.

Conversely, avoiding internal dissension in the midst of the suddenly changing international situation means (1) we should make a kyukoku cabinet [kyukoku, means patriotic in the sense of the salvation of the country], and (2) it is starting to be recognized that the LDP/DPJ grand coalition idea is an essential second "conservative fusion."

This might be what Mr. Ozawa has in mind — the article mentions the possibility of Mr. Ozawa's luring onetime allies from the former Tanaka faction to his side.

But the idea that a grand coalition (i.e, a new permanent ruling party) will save Japan is a dangerous illusion. In an ever more dynamic world, the homeostatic management of Japan's affairs implied by a new permanent ruling party (like the 1955 system, and the Tokugawa bakufu for that matter) is impossible, because such systems invariably focus on maintaining the delicate balance among factions (or daimyo) rather than making the good policy decisions required in a dynamic environment. Hence the Tokugawa shogunate's inability to cope with "troubles at home and abroad." Hence the suitability of the 1955 system in an international system frozed by the cold war, and its almost instant collapse in the aftermath of the cold war.

Japan needs a two-party, even a multi-party system because competition in politics as in other areas of life depends better performance from all actors, and the people's interests are served by having the government held accountable by active opposition parties (each with a reasonable chance of taking control of the government for itself).

So thank you, Liberal Time, for calling attention to 1955 and reminding us all why a grand coalition is an awful idea.