Is the LDP Unbeatable?

I have been digging marxy’s blog hardcore lately, and his latest posts have inspired a few lengthy rants from me. Since I am so very proud of myself for actually having written something, I’ll repost them here.

Today we will look at whether there can be a viable opposition to Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has, with only one brief (but significant) hiccup in 1993, ruled Japan since 1955 thanks at least partly to CIA funding.

First, marxy’s post, a reaction to Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback:

Academics are always convinced that the rebirth of Japanese politics is right around the corner, as if the DPJ will suddenly become a viable second party. But check the demographic breakdown: Japan’s most educated white-collar workers are thoroughly apolitical and the working classes depend even more now on LDP pork barrel projects and protection for their job security in the post-manufacturing era.

The One-Party Japanese State is here to stay, but perhaps Japan can at least cut the American leash in the future, right? Unfortunately for the Pacifist Japanese masses, the LDP only presents two options: remilitarize with a nod to past Imperialist glories or maintain a Japanese pseudo-pacificism under the American protectorate. Politics could offer a third way, but thanks to the gifts of U.S. foreign policy, they don’t have that here.

And my reaction, slightly edited for readability:

While I don’t count myself as one of those people who thinks that Japan is always just about to turn the corner, if you look at the elections that have taken place since major electoral reform was carried out (switch from multimember election districts to single-member) have shown that future LDP control of the government is far from certain.

There is no way to tell how involved the CIA is in Japanese politics right now (though I can more or less guarantee you that the top leaders of Japan have regular meetings with CIA officials). Also at this point, I don’t think that the LDP has any trouble raising funds on its own, and whatever slush funds the CIA set up for it have probably already been laundered somewhere.

But it is a fact that the DPJ had been gaining seats progressively in each election since its formation in 1998, so much so that it only required the defection of 18 or so LDP members in the Upper House to defeat the postal privatization legislation (though 30 eventually did rebel), which led to the General Election in September.

That election led to a huge victory for the LDP, but that victory was notable first for American support of a very different kind (Bush’s PR firm) modern PR techniques and for the types of voters it attracted to the LDP — TV-watching urbanites, the same people you (more or less rightly) dismissed as being apolitical. The LDP achieved this by having a charismatic leader with great hair, limiting the scope of debate by staying on message (postal privatization!!!), and orchestrating a riveting drama pitting the reform-minded LDP (and cute new “Koizumi children”) against the vested interests represented by the postal rebels and (somehow) the DPJ.

Remind you of US-style elections a little? Competing for constituents based on policies and theater is vastly different from the traditional way for the LDP to run an election, which was basically to round up its traditional support bases (as you quite eloquently described) and be done with it. The bad thing is the LDP played the new game to its advantage, but the good thing is that, in theory, anyone could do it, even the DPJ (which at least tried – they had a US PR firm of their own, it just happened to be caught unprepared for the ultra-effective push by the LDP [the ineffectual slogans “We won’t give up on Japan!” didn’t help either]).

Unfortunately, while the election system has changed, other aspects of Japan’s political landscape – the LDP’s close relationship with big business and the bureaucracy itself- have not. Why is this important? Well, one can see a telling example in the DPJ’s “counterproposal” to the LDP’s resubmitted postal privatization bills in October 2005. The counterproposal was a miniscule 11 pages compared to the LDP’s 500-plus megalaw.

This just goes to show that the DPJ very simply does not have the technocratic expertise to make policy, which is something the Japanese public understands. The LDP (well, the *governement*) postal privatization bills were formed after months of intense discussion and debate that involved the greatest minds in Japanese policy both in and out of the bureaucracy. The DPJ (or any other party for that matter) could not even begin to hope for such access because, for better or worse, there is no reason for bureaucrats, academics, academia, or even the Japanese people (it can be argued) to work with a party that can’t get things done. It’s a vicious cycle that will probably continue more or less unabated until the next time the LDP gets booted from power.