Ellis S. Krauss

Electoral Incentives in Mixed-Member Systems: Party, Posts, and Zombie Politicians in Japan

How do electoral incentives affect legislative organization? Through an analysis of Japans mixed-member electoral system, we demonstrate that legislative organization is strongly influenced not only by the individual legislators reelection incentives but also by their interest in their party gaining power and maintaining a strong party label. Electorally vulnerable legislators are given choice legislative positions to enhance their prospects at the polls, whereas (potential) party leaders disproportionately receive posts with greater influence on the partys overall reputation. Members of Parliament elected from proportional representation (PR) lists and in single member districts also receive different types of posts, reflecting their distinct electoral incentives. Even small variations in electoral rules can have important consequences for legislative organization. In contrast to Germanys compensatory mixed-member system, Japans parallel system (combined with a “best loser” or “zombie” provision) generates incentives for the party to allocate posts relating to the distribution of particularistic goods to those elected in PR.

‘Presidentialization’ in Japan? The Prime Minister, Media and Elections in Japan

Both academics and journalists have given increasing attention to the rising importance of prime ministers – a phenomenon often referred to ‘presidentialization’. Although many commentators use the term differently, and the term blurs the line between the very different institutional contexts of a parliamentary and presidential system, one careful definition of the term is ‘the movement over time away from collective to personalized government, movement away from a pattern of governmental and electoral politics dominated by the political party towards one where the party leader becomes a more autonomous political force.’ This phenomenon has been observed primarily in Britain and in West European parliamentary democracies – no one has ever described the Japanese parliamentary system as even remotely ‘presidentialized’. In fact, the Japanese prime minister has not been the subject of much academic research, and even the Japanese press often used to ignore the prime minister. Despite being the leader of a majority party in a centralized political system, the Japanese prime minister was almost universally described as weak and uninteresting, with both academic and popular discourse focusing on the powerful bureaucracy and factional politics within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). However, recent political changes, most prominently the selection and popularity of Junichirō Koizumi as Japans prime minister in the spring of 2001, have led to a surge of interest in the prime minister.

Media and Politics in Japan

A collection of essays which examine the influence of media in Japan. These essays discuss the medias influence in politics and public opinion, to name a few.

Political Opposition and Local Politics in Japan

Japans national government, and most of its local governments, have been in conservative hands for more than three decades. Recently, however, the strength of progressive opposition forces has been increasing at the local level. The contributors to this volume analyze this increasing opposition to determine whether it is a temporary phenomenon or portends permanent changesOriginally published in 1981.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Japan, the US, and the emergence of multilateralism in Asia

APECs founding and subsequent development has been seen as primarily driven by the ‘middle’ and smaller powers of Asia, such as Australia and the ASEAN countries, with Japan as a secondary, if supportive, and the US as a passive and reluctant, player. This article, while acknowledging Australias essential leadership in the founding process, uses new evidence about it to revise views of Japan and the USs roles in APEC. I argue that the former played a more major role in APECs founding and that the latter was more positive in its thinking about that forum than has been acknowledged. This should force us to rethink the politics of APEC, paying more attention to how the political economy and relationship of the two major powers in the region influence the patterns of cooperation and conflict in it. It should also lead us to reconsider the efficacy of the major theories of international relations that might be used to explain APECs politics and development.

Japan's New Security Agenda

New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has only been in office since late September, but already the outlines of his administration are becoming clearer, both in expected and unexpected directions. Abe’s administration is proving to be conservative and revisionist, and even more so than that of his predecessor Junichirō Koizumi. Abe has certainly moved to improve ties with China and South Korea—Beijing and Seoul the October destinations for his first overseas visits within two weeks of taking power—and thereby to limit the damage wrought by Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine and bilateral wrangling over Japan’s colonial history. However, the general thrust of Abe’s diplomacy is built upon much of the legacy left by Koizumi, and is attempting to shift it on to a yet more pro-active and assertive path.

The US, Japan, and trade liberalization: from bilateralism to regional multilateralism to regionalism+

Japan’s foreign economic policy has undergone two crucial changes in the past decade and a half: first the shift from predominantly US–Japan bilateralism to the addition of regional multilateralism, and then the recent extension to regional bilateral FTAs for the first time. To what extent did these shifts in Japan’s behavior in the trade area represent a deep shift in the purposes and goals of Japanese foreign economic policy? This article looks at how American policy changes and developments in the US–Japan relationship, and economic globalization, produced the changes in Japan’s domestic policy thinking and process that led to these outcomes and to the particular pattern of development of these policy shifts. Using a simple version and modification of ‘strategic interaction theory’ it concludes that despite recent arguments that the shift to bilateral FTAs may presage a turning point toward an Asian bloc, instead it reflects a remarkable continuity in Japan’s foreign economic goals in the post-war period. Although an important change, it indicates only using new means to adapt to the changed regional economic security environment after the East Asian financial crisis and the débâcle of trade liberalization in EVSL in APEC. Japan now has a full ‘multi-tiered’ range of trade alternatives to advance its constant goals of maintaining a US ‘military shield’ and promoting its own ‘economic sword’ in the region.

Policy Dissension and Party Discipline: The July 2005 Vote on Postal Privatization in Japan

This article examines party discipline and party cohesion or defection, offering as an illustration the rebellion over postal privatization in 2005 by members of Japans Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It explores the importance of party rules – especially the seniority rule and policy specialization for district rewards – as intervening variables between election rules and party defection in a decentralized and diverse party. It is argued that in such cases, party rules like seniority can help prevent defection. When these rules are changed, as in the postal case of 2005, defection is more probable, but it is found that the relationship between defection and seniority is likely to be curvilinear, and also that the curvilinearity is conditional upon each legislators having different incentives for vote, policy and office.

The Rise and Fall of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party

THE SUMMER 2009 ELECTORAL victory of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) over the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) holds historical significance, not only for political scientists but also for the people of Japan, and possibly for the country’s Asian neighbors and the United States as well. The LDP can boast of being the most successful political party operating in a democracy since the mid-twentieth century. The party held power nearly continuously from its formation in 1955, a scant three years after the end of the U.S. occupation. In the House of Representatives (the lower but substantially more powerful house in Japan’s bicameral system), the LDP compiled an amazing record: the party did not lose a single election in more than a half century, until August 30, 2009, when the Democracy Party of Japan won a stunning upset victory. Generations of Japanese have grown up knowing no governing party other than the LDP. The only interruption to the party’s rule was a brief ten-month period in 1993–94, when a small group split from the LDP to seize power as part of a disparate coalition that did little more than pass an electoral reform bill before falling apart. Much more significant than that episode, this electoral result seems likely to have important implications for the way in which Japan’s democracy works. Nearly 60 percent of LDP incumbents were turned out, and many sitting and former ministers, even a former prime minister, lost their seats. For the DPJ, on the other hand, election night brought only smiles. The party captured an amazing 308 of the 480 seats in the Diet—an all-time record—and only seven DPJ district candidates did not find their way into the Diet. The DPJ more than doubled the LDP’s 119 seats. What makes this election result even more surprising is that in the last House of Representatives election in 2005, the LDP engineered its greatest triumph

Comparing Japanese and American Administrative Elites

Using evidence from surveys of top administrators, we examine differences between Japanese and American administrative elites. Our findings are far more complex than the reigning stereotypes of an apolitical, technocratic and elitist Japanese bureaucracy contrasted to a politically charged, conflict-oriented and social-reformist American federal executive. For example, senior Japanese bureaucrats take political considerations into account, compared to technical ones, no less than top American officials. American administrators have a more negative view of the role of political parties than their Japanese counterparts and, on average, an equally negative view of politicians interfering in their work than the supposedly more elitist, autonomous and technocratic Japanese bureaucrats. The article closes with a discussion of why popular conceptions of the two bureaucracies break down in practice.