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.

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