Discussion: Japan’s Economic Miracle

NOW F OR AN ORIGINAL PAPER ASSIGNMENT:Discussion: Japan’s Economic Miracle

When Japan’s economic miracle gave way to a severe and prolonged slump in the 1990s, the LDP’s popularity faded. After an eleven-month hiatus in 1993-1994, however, the LDP regained control of the government. The LDP’s long run as Japan’s ruling party appeared at an end in 2009 when voters handed the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) a stunning victory, giving the DPJ 308 seats and leaving the LDP with a mere 119 seats.

At long last, Tokyo’s “iron triangle” of party bosses, bureaucrats, and business elites—a closed and corrupt system that was tolerated so long as Japan’s economy was robust—was down but hardly out. (In a practice known as amakudari—literally, “descent from heaven”—retiring Japanese high-level bureaucrats often take lucrative jobs at firms they previously regulated. Sound familiar?)

A major earthquake (magnitude 9.0) in the ocean off Japan’s east coast caused a massive tsunami in March 2011. The tsunami left more than 19,000 dead, destroyed or partly collapsed over a million buildings, and severely damaged three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. When Prime Minister Naota Kan and his cabinet resigned in the fall of 2011—one more casualty of Japan’s earthquake-induced perfect storm—the DPJ chose Yoshihiko Noda—Japan’s sixth head of government in five years—to succeed Kan.

At the end of 2012, voters made yet another U-turn, giving the LDP a landslide victory in national parliamentary elections (294 seats in the 480-seat lower house). Naoto Kan lost his Diet seat to a relatively unknown LDP challenger. The LDP gave Shinzo Abe a second chance at running the government.

Abe, who had briefly served as prime minister in 2006-2007, called a snap election in late 2014 and the gamble paid off. The outcome, however, was not all positive for Abe. The LDP retained nearly all the seats it had won in 2012 and together with Komeito, its coalition partner, kept its two-thirds super majority in the 475-seat lower house: the good news. The bad news: voter turnout was very low—52.7% compared to 59.3% in 2012—and in the logic of parliamentary politics, a low turnout is tantamount to a weak mandate.