[paper] How Should the Koizumi Government Resolve the Essential Contradiction?

Jun Iio

Professor Iio is currently a professor of National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, GRIPS. He was born in 1962, and received his doctorate in Current Japanese Political Theory from the University of Tokyo. He is the author of The Political

There are several reasons why Koizumi's personal popularity has such a high rate of approval.

In part, it is a reaction to Koizumi's immediate predecessor, Prime Minister Mori, in that the general voters are eager for "a normal democratic politician" at all costs. One phenomenon created by such eagerness was the "quasi-participant consciousness" of many voters in which they shared the challenge of Koizumi as he contested the LDP's presidential election for Mr. Mori's replacement. Prime Minister Koizumi has the motivation and skill to govern (to a point), and has an ability to communicate his appeal directly to the public in general. Further he gives us the impression that, as a politician, he may have ability to embody his own way of thinking. But even if all these attributes are all that he is, he would be just an average politician when judged by the criteria of most developed democratic countries. Since Prime Minister Koizumi keeps on claiming that he will implement major reforms, which would be epoch-making policy under current Japanese political circumstances, he had better not be just an average politician or Japan will be in trouble. Further, Prime Minister Koizumi stands on clearly contradictory ground in that he is attempting to realize structural reforms but his, and the LDP's, base has not been tested as there has not been a general election since the change of leadership.

Now, let's take a look at what measures and effective approaches the Koizumi government can take to resolve Japanese political issues somehow utilizing the currently developing flow of changes.

Three Approaches

The first approach is to create a brief that will support his reforms. The brief should not be full of just formal, empty expression such as "with indomitable will and determination," but should have pragmatic, measurable contents that can be assessed while moving toward reform.

The reason why his reforms appear fragile is the lack of concrete examples that give clear actions, responses, and results, and are based upon his values of reform.

Second, he has to recognize that some features of reform may create a variety of outcomes with different characteristics, and he has to be concerned about the details of their interrelationships. Presently the relationship between "structural reforms and economy" is an important topic, and will be discussed now that the House of Councilors election has been concluded. At any rate, his policy of maintaining reforms even though they may mean economic hardships in the short-term future is a good indication of his determination.

But the factors that rule the economy and structural reforms are not in a simple either/or choice even though they do have a deep mutual interdependence.

Important here is the difference of the time frame between the structural reform and the measures to pep-up the economy. The former has redundancy of time while for the latter timing comes first.

If he pays attention to this, various policies related to the structural reforms can be allowed to have some flexibility in implementation as long as it occurs within a strict framework.

There will be conflicting pressure from those, on the one hand, who promote to proceed with reforms to the point of no return while, on the other hand, those who oppose his reform agenda believe that they can be thwarted, at least insomuch as they can protect their own specific interests, if the speed of reform can be slowed.

But reform plans formed under such mutual antagonism may lack flexibility. In order to solve such a hard problem the reform agenda should specify budget measures and specific amendments to laws, as well as determining the basic direction of reforms by clarifying the standards from which he will derive concrete policy decisions.

Third, he must undertake reforms to the political and administrative systems that will support the economic reforms. The situation of the "bureaucratic cabinet system" has improved significantly, and the absolute positioning of both the Prime Minister and Cabinet are being solidified. The remaining obstacle is the "duality system of government and ruling party" in combination with the "bureaucratic cabinet system."

A parliamentary cabinet system is designed to control the administrative organization through a cabinet composed of the representatives of the ruling political party that attains a majority of seats in the parliament. In this system, the leaders of the ruling party are the government, thus the government and ruling party should be united. In Japan, it is necessary to absorb the ruling party into the cabinet in order to create one institution that holds all responsibilities.

How to Resolve Contradictions in the Koizumi Government

Other than such general issues, there are issues inherent to the Koizumi cabinet. Even though Prime Minister Koizumi has been selected as the president of LDP by an overwhelmingly majority of party members, it is he himself who is creating the essential contradiction in that he is getting his popularity by criticizing the LDP. However, the LDP is not changing its policies and interests, thus the policy direction of the LDP and the Prime Minister's political direction do not necessarily coincide.

This distortion of the parliamentary system can only be resolved if Prime Minister Koizumi controls the LDP, or creates a new foundation for his political power by putting together a support group whose policy is similar to his. This would naturally mean a significant reorganization of the political world. If neither of these two things happen the differences between his support base and their alleged reform direction will cause his reform movement to end as a lot of empty and contradictory slogans. Thus his alternative would be to make use of a bipartisan agreement.

Thorough Debate is Necessary

When Japanese policy is at the stage of "creative destruction," the above-mentioned distortion is indispensable. The contradictions inherent in the Koizumi cabinet must be forwarded to promoting this process. It is at this point that the opposition parties must be posed to take advantage of the situation.

The opposition parties should make common cause with Prime Minister Koizumi because his policies are nearer to those of the opposition party. They must not be overly critical or set unreasonable conditions for cooperation with the Prime Minister simply to be opposed to the ruling party. If the opposition parties do not succeed in using this opportunity to make common cause in areas where their policies and the policies of the Prime Minister coincide, they will continue to be irrelevant and Japanese policy will lose the tension that is driving it forward.

It is hazardous in dual meaning to " Taiseiyokuseikai" and there is some suspicion that Prime Minister Koizumi's sky-high personal popularity may lead to a situation not unlike that under the Japanese national control organization during the Second World War.

There is a danger that freedom of speech and writing will be substantially limited and that the government will develop an attitude that they can practice anything they want to by taking advantage of the situation, and that an organic consensus will also be harmful for reforms.

It is necessary to have questions such as " Why are the reforms significant in comparison with conventional ways?" without which the contents of reform would have no focus.

A healthy clash of opinions is necessary for a policy to be effective.

Only if there is a through discussion regarding the contents of the Koizumi cabinet's reform policies this government have any substantial meaning