« August 2006 | Top | February 2007 »
January 29, 2007
Yasushi Kudo’s Opinion Poll Analysis: Part4 – Final Installment
First, in order to conduct a general assessment of Shinzo Abe’s government’s first 100 days, we asked respondents to score the following 7 areas. The first 3 dealt with Shinzo Abe’s personality and competence as a leader:
1. The Prime Minister’s personality
2. The Prime Minister’s leadership and political prowess
3. Level of appeal and ability to explain his policies to the public
and then the remaining 4 dealt with Shinzo Abe’s government’s policies:
4. The basic ideas and goals that the government should realize
5. The development of policies that the government has drawn up
6. The achievements or results of the government’s policies so far
7. The system and team supporting Shinzo Abe’s government
Looking at all the results, the only point on which the government was assessed positively was “The Prime Minister’s Personality.” Almost half (46.6%) of respondents answered “good” or “quite good”. However, on all other points the assessments were negative. More so than policy related problems, the Prime Minister’s quality as a leader and his way of structuring the government including the selection of his team received particularly low ratings.
Points on which the government received particularly low assessments were “The Prime Minister’s leadership and political prowess” (62.9%), “The system and team supporting Shinzo Abe’s government” (64.3%) and “Level of appeal and ability to explain his policies to the public” (76.6%). On each of these points over 60% of respondents assessed the government negatively by selecting either “bad” or “quite bad”.
When we look at each group of respondents separately, we see that the above assessment was particularly frequent amongst the members of the media. The number of respondents selecting “bad” or “quite bad” for the point “Level of appeal and ability to explain his policies to the public” stood out at 87.0%, and for “The system and team supporting Shinzo Abe’s government” the number reached a striking 85.0%.
When we look at the relation between these assessments of Shinzo Abe’s government and the level of support for it, then the following characteristics can be seen.
First of all, in order to gain “support” then you must at least have people’s esteem for your personality. However, this alone is not enough. Of the people, who selected “I support” Shinzo Abe’s government all of them chose the option “average” or above regarding Shinzo Abe’s personality. However, of those who chose “average” or above regarding Shinzo Abe’s personality, over 60% of them still chose “I don’t support” Shinzo Abe’s government.
So what was the relation between level of support and respondents’ general assessment of the government? Firstly, looking at the government officials the relation between the assessment of each point and the level of support for the government was quite tenuous. Even though respondents from this group assessed various points as “bad” or “quite bad”, there still was a large number of people selecting “I support” the government.
This tendency was strong, especially in the following 3 points, “The Prime Minister’s leadership and political prowess”, “Level of appeal and ability to explain his policies to the public” and “The system and team supporting Shinzo Abe’s government.” Many government officials still answered that they supported the government, although they were dissatisfied with the government’s performance in these 3 points.
In contrast, amongst the members of the media, the relation between support or opposition and the assessment of the individual points was strong. 90% of representatives of the media who did not support the government assessed it as “bad” or “quite bad” in regard to the afore-mentioned 3 points. This tendency was not restricted to the media alone, but was also evident amongst the well-informed group of respondents.
Genron NPO plotted these results on radar charts using a five point assessment scale and then published them on its website. The mean of all the results was 2.2 points.
Next we asked respondents to assess 18 individual policies and issues the government had adopted or dealt with during its first 100 days. These included amongst others, ①The selection of cabinet ministers and assistants, ②The educational reform, ③The nation and its regions, ④Diplomatic relations within Asia and ⑤Creation of a core leadership team. In this case respondents could assess each policy or issue positively by choosing “appropriate” or “expect it to improve” or negatively by choosing “expect no improvement”.
Looking at the results as a whole, positive assessments that stood out were foreign policy, particularly diplomacy in Asia, which over 70% of respondents assessed positively. In contrast, besides “Economic Growth” all other domestic policy areas received negative assessments one after the other. Especially in such areas as the “Postal rebels’ return to the LDP” and the “Town Meetings” etc. the number of respondents choosing “Expect no improvement” passed 60% in each case. These points which had been dogged by public criticism all received particularly negative assessments.
In the case of government administration, it is often said to be relatively easy to cover up the previous government’s weak points, yet difficult to maintain and build on its plus points. With this in mind, the previous government’s weak point was diplomacy in Asia. Immediately after his inauguration, Shinzo Abe visited China on October 8th to have a Sino-Japanese summit meeting for the first time in five years. This is reflected in the high evaluations in our opinion poll vis-à-vis general foreign policy.
In contrast, the assessments of Shinzo Abe’s domestic policies were uniformly harsh across the board. On top of the individual 18 policies and issues the government had dealt with, we asked respondents specifically about the postal rebels’ readmission into the LDP, road construction revenue issues, and issues concerning the creation of a core leadership team. The assessments of these 3 issues and for that matter for the 18 individual policies, were all the same. That is to say negative assessments were numerous.
Looking at each group of respondents individually, the disparity between the critical media, the group of well-informed and the government officials, who are still holding out for an improvement, is striking. Besides points related to diplomacy in Asia and economic growth, over half of the media selected “expect no improvement” for 13 different policies and issues. In contrast to this, only in 3 points concerning the policy making organ, “The Prime Minister’s personality”, “creation of a core leadership team” and “postal rebels’ return to the LDP”, did 50% of government officials choose “expect no improvements.” However, in response to 11 other policies and issues concerning domestic and foreign affairs, the number of government officials choosing “appropriate” or “expect it to improve” surpassed the number selecting “expect no improvements.”
So are the media being too harsh on the government? Or, are the opinions of the government officials, working in close proximity to the source of political decision, reasonable? This is not something that we can debate now, but roughly speaking, the tendencies appear to be symmetrical. The well-informed group of respondents’ assessment of the government is close to that of the media and conversely, that of the students is close to the government officials’ assessment of Shinzo Abe’s government.
How does this assessment of individual policies and issues reflect in the level of support for Shinzo Abe’s government? Of those amongst the media, who answered, “expect no improvement”, most of them did not support the government. Conversely, looking at the government officials, who chose “support” or “don’t support” and then the results of their assessments of the government’s individual policies and issues, there seems to be no direct connection.
During its first 100 days, Shinzo Abe’s government dealt with various issues pertaining to domestic and foreign affairs. However, what emerged from this opinion poll was that many respondents had no idea what aims or visions the government has. Further, it would seem that respondent’s trust is yet to be gained for the firm leadership and system responsible for realizing these aims.
Koizumi’s administration, whose policies Abe’s government has inherited, was one defined by its reformative stance. It was also one, which overcame the rejection of its postal reform bill via a snap general election, and was hence able to build a stable political basis. Shinzo Abe’s government, however, is one that was inaugurated without a base of trust gained from the Japanese people.
Even though Shinzo Abe’s government inherited the policies of its predecessor, the public has caught glimpses of government administrative mistakes such as the town meetings, postal rebels’ readmission into the LDP and road construction revenue issues. They have also glimpsed examples of a shaky government with a haphazard reformative stance. The impression that is setting in is one of a government, whose organization and political position both remain unsure.
Obviously Shinzo Abe did not think he would be subjected to an assessment after only 100 days. And yet, the eyes of the electorate have been very critical. If Shinzo Abe’s government acknowledging this fact, then this will assure that our opinion poll was a success. How will Shinzo Abe’s government get to grips with the issues that were raised in our opinion poll before the election of the House of Councilors? What will be reflected in the policies that are made from now on and how?
If this is not made clear, then our assessment of Shinzo Abe’s government, which we shall complete prior to the election of the House of Councilors in July, is likely to become all the more critical.
投稿者 gnpo : 04:58 PM
January 24, 2007
Yasushi Kudo’s Opinion Poll Analysis: Part3 – Separate Reasons Causing the Gap in Support Between Government Officials and Members of the Media
In addition to the question about support for Shinzo Abe’s government, we included the following 3 questions:
1.) Can you discern what policies the government in pursuing?
2.) What role do you expect of Shinzo Abe’s government?
3.) Can you expect Shinzo Abe’s government to perform the role you expect of it?
We added these questions to the one concerning respondents’ support for Shinzo Abe’s government and then analyzed them, so that we could gain a clearer picture of respondents’ current perceptions of the government.
On this occasion all groups of respondent’s shared a common opinion regarding question 1; Can you discern what policies the government is pursing? Even after 100 days had passed, respondents overwhelmingly chose “I can’t”. A total of 69.4% chose “I can’t” and even if looked at separately this figure for each group of respondents remains at the same level.
However, what policies should Shinzo Abe’s government be pursing? In response to this question the majority suggested structural reforms. In total, less than 1 in 10 of respondents answered that the structural reform system should be revised.
On this occasion we found that amongst respondents, who work close to the source of political decision and students, who are interested in political discourse, a consensus is forming regarding former Prime Minister Koizumi’s structural reforms. In fact, whilst people demanded the continuation of structural reforms, a shift in interest from rectifying residual problems of Koizumi’s reforms and radical structural reforms is starting to take place. Instead, interest is moving towards new policies for productive structural reforms.
The number of respondents choosing to “continue Koizumi’s structural reforms” was in total 14.6%. Only 6% of the media chose this option. In contrast, the amount of people expecting that even if Shinzo Abe’s government pursues Koizumi’s structural reforms it should also “rectify the perversions” reached a total of 37.4% and constituted the largest group. The next largest group with 32.6% chose “Move from radical structural reforms to new productive structural reforms.” Respondents from the media (41.0%) and government officials (42.0%) choosing “rectify the perversions” both surpassed the 40% mark.
However, all groups of respondents at this point are still very skeptical as to whether Shinzo Abe’s government can realize the expectations respondents have of it. Looking at all groups of respondents as a whole, no more than 12.3% chose “I can expect this”, 35.7% chose “I can’t expect this”, 18.9% chose “I don’t know” and 25.1% did not reply.
So, a large number of respondents cannot discern what policies Shinzo Abe’s government is pursuing. Or rather, not only can they not discern what policies the government is pursuing, they also do not trust the government to fulfill the role that they are asking of it or expect that it should be playing. This is the basic perception that many respondents have of Shinzo Abe’s government after 100 days.
This state of affairs can certainly not be dismissed as a trifling problem. The fact that members of the media, government officials etc do not understand what policies the government is pursuing can only mean that the government is being sluggish in its attempts to gain the Japanese people’s consent.
If we further cross-analyze the questions so far, then a certain interesting tendency regarding perceptions of the current state of the government stands out. This has to do with the change in the support for Shinzo Abe’s government and the expectations that people have of it 100 days after its inauguration. Particularly if we restrict this to the government officials and the media, whose perceptions of Shinzo Abe’s government are at striking odds with the general tendency, then we can see that the disparity in support from each of these respondent groups has its own different contributive cause.
As explained earlier 44% of government officials polled support Shinzo Abe’s government, 12% do not and 44% neither support nor oppose the government. Of those who answered “Don’t support” or “Neither support nor oppose”, almost half of them chose that Shizo Abe’s government’s first 100 days had “fallen short of expectations”, showing that the disappointment with the government’s policies and handling of certain issues has had an effect on government officials support for and opposition to the present government.
In contrast, the perception of members of the media is greatly different. With only 11%, supporters of the government amongst members of the media was the lowest and of the 62% claiming they did not support the government, more than 60% of them had “no expectations [of the government] from the start.” 27% of those non-supporters chose “fallen short of expectations” which means, to put it strongly, double this number of members of the media had already decided that they didn’t support the government before it had even entered into power.
If compared with other groups of respondents, then the 48% of the media choosing “I had no expectations of the government from the start” is striking but, once 100 days had passed none of this group of members of the media were in support of the government. This is to say that not only did Shinzo Abe’s government’s first 100 days fail to change the negative view point of the media but moreover, whilst witnessing a drop in support, the number of members of the media opposing the government is also increasing.
It is difficult to discern with the results of this opinion poll alone, why almost 50% of representatives of the media had chosen “I had no expectations of the government from the start.”
However, to a certain degree I can discern what sort of opinions these people have. For example, Almost 70% of those replying “I had no expectations of the government from the start” chose either “Move from radical structural reforms to new productive structural reforms" or “rectify the perversions” in response to roles they expected of Shinzo Abe’s government. Also, most of these people answered that they can not expect the government to achieve this. Of those who had “no expectations of the government from the start” only one person chose “continue Koizumi’s radical reforms.”
Shinzo Abe’s first 100 days were not able to reverse these negative expectations and impressions.
The reasons for this are currently being published on Genron NPO’s website in the form of individual respondent’s comments. If you take a look at those in conjunction to this then you will be able to better understand the views and opinions of the respondents.
投稿者 gnpo : 03:50 PM
January 18, 2007
Yasushi Kudo’s Opinion Poll Analysis: Part2 – Change in Support for and Expectations of Shinzo Abe’s Government.
They have also focused on the disparity between the perceptions of Shinzo Abe’s government by the Media and by government officials.
Are government officials being too lenient on the government or is the media being over critical? Discussions in blogs, which use newspaper articles from the mass media as their source of reference, have shown a particularly focused interest in this question.
To tell the truth, I was also shocked to a certain degree by how low the level of support was for Shinzo Abe’s administration. The results show that not even government officials had really been lenient on the present government. Based on the outcome of the opinion poll Shinzo Abe’ government is facing harsh assessments from all groups of respondents.
First of all, if you allow me to make a “confession”, I personally have not been all that disappointed with Shinzo Abe’s government so far. There have been mistakes one after the other but I believe that he is trying to do his job. I was under the impression that the first 100 days during which Shizo Abe’s government was “testing the water” was a period of grace during which the electorate would allow the government to find its feet. However, judging from the respondents’ answers it would seem that I have been particularly lenient in my perception of the government.
The character of the opinion poll that we carried out on this occasion varied from the trends in normal opinion polls. The 350 people sample that we used was rather small but, apart from the students, most of the respondents are in a position to judge the government from a perspective bolstered amongst other things by first hand information about the government’s actions and the content of its policies.
Furthermore, a large majority of the respondents are those, who are usually asked by the media for their comments and opinions in their respective fields. If after only 100 days this echelon of individuals is so critical of the present government, then this is indeed a problem that cannot be taken lightly. How should these results be looked at? That is the question that I believe people should be asking.
This opinion poll was dispatched by email to over 2000 people at the end of last year. This was during the season of budget plan presentations and directly in the middle of December’s busy period, yet 50 central government officials and 100 reporters in the field sent their answers to our opinion poll right up to the end of the year.
In addition to this, university professors, CEOs and university students, in total 350 people’s answers were collated and constitute the results of this opinion poll. The comments that accompanied respondents’ answers are currently being displayed on our website. Please take the opportunity yourself to check how openly the respondents replied to our questions.
Now to the analysis. The level of support for Shinzo Abe’s government incorporating that group of individuals who work in close proximity to the centre of political decision was in total merely 24%. Not only this but the level of opposition to the government was 39.7%. The group replying “Neither support nor oppose” reached 34.3%, however, even if compared with other opinion polls conducted so far these levels of support are strikingly low.
Furthermore, if we compare the expectations that people had at the time of Shinzo Abe’s inauguration and people’s current expectations, adding the answers for “exceeded expectations” (4.6%) and “met expectations” (13.4%), the figure fails to surpass the 20% mark. Options for “fallen short of expectations” and “I had no expectations to begin with” both produced results of 36%.
If we place the results for these 2 questions side by side, then we realize that there is a correlation between the change in support for Shinzo Abe’s government and the change in people’s expectations. That is to say, from the group of people who had some form of expectations of the government to begin with, many of them have not had their expectations met during the first 100 days and this is linked with the fall in support for the government.
If we look at this in a little more detail we can see that there are two particular characteristics of this low level of support and people’s falling expectations. First of all a striking contrast was that, whilst support for Shinzo Abe’s government from those working in the media was no more than 11% (opposition reached 62%), support from government officials was 44% (opposition being only 12%). 25% of students and 26% of the group of well-informed individuals claimed to support the government, which meant that overall Mr. Abe’s government received a harsh assessment. However, of the groups of respondents the level of opposition that Shinzo Abe’s administration received from the media really stands out.
To a certain degree it is quite appropriate that the media continue to view the government from a critical point of view, however, it is necessary to look at the details more closely to find out why their assessment was critical to the degree it was. We shall pick up on this again later.
44% of government officials support the government but personally I don’t view this to be particularly high at all. If the level of opposition to the government amongst those government officials who are propping up the current administration was as high as that of the media’s then that would be a serious problem. What is rather more concerning is the equal 44% who replied “Neither support nor oppose”. If this is analyzed in conjunction with question 2 concerning the change in people’s expectations of the government, then we can begin to see the signs of something brewing under the surface amongst the government officials. If we compare all respondents, then we find that 46%, almost half, of government officials replied that Shinzo Abe’s administration had “fallen short of [their] expectations”.
The fact that government officials, who are meant to be the supports of Shinzo Abe’s administration, are losing hope in it clearly poses organizational management problems. A large majority of those respondents are government officials of core ministries and agencies.
From the results for support for Shinzo Abe’s government, what is of great concern is the almost 40% of respondents answering “I had no expectations of the government to begin with.” Of particular note was the media of which 48% answered “I had no expectations from the beginning”.
Was Shinzo Abe’s government really inaugurated into such a strong headwind?
We shall begin the next part of this analysis by taking up this question.
投稿者 gnpo : 05:15 PM
January 17, 2007
Yasushi Kudo’s Opinion Poll Analysis: Part1 – Two Things to Note Before Analyzing The Results of the Opinion Poll.
During the busy period at the end of last year, many people took the time to answer our opinion poll and even now, well into the first month of the New Year, completed surveys are still being sent to our office. Eventually we intend to incorporate these into our analysis too but for now, please allow us to publish the compiled results for the first 350 respondents to our opinion poll.
When conducting an opinion poll it is sometimes very easy to become over critical, all the more so because Japanese people find it difficult to praise people. However, even if we put this characteristic aside we can still see that discontent has spread to many other aspects of Shinzo Abe’s government. The greatest reason for this, as was also made clear by our opinion poll, was the lack of a strong and clear message from the government to the Japanese people.
That governing is not just a case of rhetoric, eloquence and style was demonstrated by the fact that the only area in which the Mr. Abe scored highly in our opinion poll was in the point “The Prime Minister’s Personality”. Essentially people can still not see what Mr. Abe’s agenda is, what he has to say as an individual politician and of course how he is going to accomplish these policies.
In this point, we again and again received particularly harsh comments from the respondents. “It’s obvious that the government lacks the ability”, “Rather than his opinions, all I can make out are his tactics to win July’s House of Councilors election” and so on and so forth. I personally am not inclined to condemn the government in this way just yet, however, numerous mistakes such as the town meetings issue and the ensuing disarray of the creation of a core leadership team in the Prime Minister’s office have deeply disappointed respondents to the point where they are no longer willing to forgive this game of trial and error.
Before embarking on the analysis of this opinion poll, please allow me to say two things.
Firstly, strictly speaking, this opinion poll itself was less an assessment of the first 100 days of Shinzo Abe’s government than it was a first impression of it.
Nonetheless this impression issues from very close to the political scene. Given that the opinion poll was answered by government officials and a particular group of journalists, then within this evaluation there is a certain degree of opinions based on first hand information. On this occasion distributing the opinion poll to those who are seen to represent the present and future architects of the Japanese political market places limits on the overall impression, however, we really felt it necessary to collate the opinions of those who are currently active in the political arena.
Obviously in order to analyze the results it is essential to have clear evaluation criteria and systemized questions to allow for such an evaluation. We wanted our questions to incorporate in several aspects the criteria that Genron NPO uses for its own manifesto assessment work so that we could come as close as possible to producing a sound assessment. For that reason we decided to apply a scoring system to analyze the opinion poll and in doing so we also succeeded to a certain degree in finding a novel approach to this project.
Each year Genron NPO publishes an assessment of the ruling party’s manifesto and the realization of the policies that it set forth. Essentially the results of this opinion poll are just the electorate’s impression of the present government but we do not intend our project to end there. The outcome of this opinion poll will be incorporated into our real manifesto assessment project in preparation for the July House of Councilors election and then published on our website.
Secondly, this opinion poll was by no means carried out in order to criticize the government. The government is chosen by the electorate and so, we wanted to take this opportunity to encourage the electorate to take part in the government.
In an advanced democratic society the observation of the government takes several forms and not just that of the media. In reality CNN in America carried out a similar sort of assessment of the Bush administration and this is not a rare practice in other parts of the world either. My aims are to create a constructive atmosphere of tension between the electorate and the Japanese government.
Naturally Mr. Shinzo Abe’s government did not expect to be assessed after only 100 days of being in office. However, it is clear that the electorate is extremely critical of his administration thus far. If our opinion poll causes Shinzo Abe’s government to take this into consideration then it will have been a success. Other questions that arise are: How will Shinzo Abe’s administration get to grips with the issues that were raised in our opinion poll before the election of the House of Councilors in July? What issues will be reflected in his policy making process and how will this be done? If these points are not made clear then our assessment will become all the more critical.
Now that I have explained our position and intentions we can begin analyzing the results of the opinion poll.
to be continued...
投稿者 gnpo : 04:16 PM
January 12, 2007
Evaluation of the first 100 days of Shinzo Abe's administration.
As of January 4, 2007 100 days have elapsed since Shinzo Abe’s inauguration as Prime Minister of Japan. In order to find out what well-informed people from various sectors in Japan felt about the government’s first 100 days, GENRON NPO conducted an urgent opinion poll and then published the results on its website.
The opinion poll was dispatched by various means in December 2006 to over 2000 people and was answered by central government officials, newspaper reporters, university students and scholars.
When asked, “What role do you expect of Abe’s government’” many replied “rectify perversions” of current structural reforms and “implement new productive structural reforms”, however doubt exists in the government’s ability to accomplish this.
The number of respondents evaluating the government’s achievements within its first 100 days as having “exceeded expectations” which they had before the present government’s inauguration was a mere 4.6%. Even when combined with the 13.4%, who chose “in line with expectations”, it didn’t manage to exceed 18%. 36% evaluated Shinzo Abe’s administration as not having lived up to their expectations and the same 36% “had no expectations of the government to begin with.”
At this stage the level of support for Shinzo Abe’s government is no more than 24%, with the largest group of supporters being government officials at 44%. Only 11% of the media representatives polled supported Shinzo Abe’s government.
Even after Shinzo Abe’s administration had been in power for 100 days 70% of the people polled replied that they had no idea what policies the government was pursing.
When asked what role people expected of the government, 70% replied that they did not just wish the government to pursue structural reforms that Koizumi had implemented alone but rather to rectify the perversions and implement new productive structural reforms. When asked whether they could expect this of the present government almost 1 in 3 people claimed they “could not expect this” and almost 50% could not reach a decision.
Foreign policy appeared to be the only policy that those polled considered possible to assess from Abe’s first 100 days. When asked about how long they expected the present government to last, almost half of those polled considered that the possibility of the administration changing during 2007 was high whether it was before or after the election of the House of Councilors.
We added the results of the opinion poll again and then combined them with the overall assessment of Abe’s first 100 days carried out by well-informed people from various sectors in Japan. We then published the results. However, in the overall assessment based on a scale of 1-5 the present government only managed to gain 2.2 points. Although many people considered that the Prime Minister had an amicable personality, apart from this, other positive evaluations remained scarce. As far as individual policies were concerned, it was clear that besides diplomacy in Asia, Japan-USA relations and economic growth, there were few other policies that could be positively evaluated.
350 respondents to the opinion poll included amongst others, central government officials and newspaper reporters.
The opinion poll assessing Abe’s first 100 days in office was made up of 12 questions, which were structured to evaluate Abe’s government itself, the Prime Minister’s competency and further more the policies that the government has tackled during the first 100 days since its inauguration.
350 people participated in this opinion poll including 50 officials currently active in ministerial and government offices, 100 national and regional top editorial executives and reporters in the field working for newspaper companies and broadcasting stations and 100 students from Tokyo, Keio, Waseda and Tokyo Medical and Dental Universities. Furthermore 100 well-informed people including corporate CEOs, senior executives and scholars who are actively involved in GENRON NPO’s mission also took part.
Abe’s government was inaugurated in September 2006, but the government is yet to
stand the test of an election and thereby gain the public’s approval.
Once the government’s first 100 days have elapsed it is subjected to the critical eye of the Japanese electorate. The opinion poll that we conducted was an attempt to create a constructive atmosphere tension between the Japanese government and well-informed people who constitute a part of the electorate.
The reason for targeting scholars and other well-informed people, government officials, individuals involved in the media and university students was so that we could establish the trends in opinions amongst the current and future architects of Japan’s policy market and then bring these to bear in our future assessment work and debate aimed at assessing the government.
GENRON NPO has been conducting assessments and evaluations of the Japanese government and other political parties since its establishment in 2001. The results of the opinion poll that we carried out will also be reflected in our political assessment that we will publish this year before the elections of the House of Councilors in July.
The following is a summary of the results of the opinion poll.
《Perceptions of Shinzo Abe’s first 100 days in office》
● Based on the results from all the respondents, support for Shinzo Abe’s government is no more than 24%, with the largest group of supporters being government officials at 44%. However, only 11% of the respondents working in the media support Abe’s government.
● With 36.0% a large number of respondents stated that the performance of the government since its inauguration compared with the hopes that they had before the government came into power had “failed to meet their expectations.” If this total is added to those, who replied that they “had no expectations of the government to begin with” then the total surpasses 70%.
● At this stage close to 70% of those polled still cannot discern what policies the government is pursuing even though more than 100 days have elapsed since the present government came into power.
● Respondents, who wish Shinzo Abe’s government to amend the perversions in Koizumi’s structural reforms and implement new productive structural reforms was collectively just under 70%.
● When asked whether they could expect this of the present government almost 3 times more people replied they “could not expect this” (35.7%) than the 12.3% who replied they “could expect this.” However, the number of those who did not answer this question (25.1%) and those who checked “I don’t know” (18.9%) combined account for almost half of the people polled, who consider it impossible at this point to judge whether the government will be able to fulfill these roles.
● Only foreign policy was considered assessable during Shinzo Abe’s first 100 days. With less than 10%, an extremely low number of respondents considered it possible to evaluate the domestic policies of Abe’s government.
● The top five issues chosen as those that Abe’s government should be tackling were financial restructuring, reform of the social security system, diplomacy in Asia, social inequalities and educational issues.
● As for Shinzo Abe’s aims to create a core leadership team in the Prime Minister’s Office, a large majority of 43.7% considered “Confusion [would] continue and things [would] not go well if the situation remains the same.”
● Those who believed that “The returning of postal reform rebels to the LDP was contrary to the public’s will expressed in the general election” and that they “cannot approve of this and will take this into account during the election in the House of Councilors” was 80.8% when combined. Although 34% of government officials said they could approve of this opinions about it vary across the board.
● The issue of using revenue earmarked for road construction as a source of general revenue which was one of the policies in Abe’s reform package that came under question, was viewed as showing a “limitation of his ability to lead” by a majority of 38.3%.
● When asked about how long the Abe administration would last, 34.3% viewed that it would continue beyond 2008. However combining those who, viewed that it would end this year before or just after the election of the House of Councilors in July 2007, then 50% of people consider a change is possible during this year.
《Overall evaluation of Abe’s first 100 days》
● The overall assessment of Shinzo Abe’s first 100 days shows that besides the Prime Minister’s personality, there are no points that can be merited with a high appraisal. Based on a five point scale, the highest rating was 3.3 for Abe’s personality but otherwise for all other criteria ratings oscillated between 1.5 and 2.5 points. The average was 2.2 points.
《Assessment of individual policies》
● Of the policies that Shinzo Abe’s government has directly addressed or implemented within 18 different sectors, only diplomacy in Asia, Japan-USA relations and economic growth received a favourable assessment.
See the Detailed Results and Graphs here (PDF)
Read The Japanese Version
投稿者 gnpo : 10:03 AM



