Tōkyō: Chikura Shobō, 2017. viii, 204 pp. (Illustrations.) JP¥3888, cloth. ISBN 978-4-8051-1112-3.
For a time, Japan appeared to have something like a two-party system, with the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) facing off. One of the most important puzzles facing scholars of Japanese politics is why this almost two-party system collapsed into the current fragmented party system and renewed domination of the LDP. In Party System Institutionalization in Japan, Yōsuke Sunahara provides an important contribution to this puzzle, highlighting the influence of subnational politics on the national party formation.
Sunahara’s primary goal is to identify the institutional factors of Japan’s fragmented party system. In 1994, Japan changed the electoral system for the House of Representatives from single non-transferable vote (SNTV) to a mixed-member majoritarian system (MMM), combining single member districts (SMDs) and proportional representation (PR). Previous studies explain that the inclusion of a PR tier in Japan’s MMM diluted majoritarian competition. Other studies suggest that the DPJ’s lack of internal policy coherence prevented it from becoming a viable opponent in the two-party system. However, Sunahara argues that the continued use of SNTV to elect local legislatures in subnational elections hinders robust party formation at the national level. In addition, Sunahara shows how, under the new decentralized fiscal structure, new institutionalized pork barrel linkages by local legislatures and chief executives of local government have also impeded the DPJ from building local party organization. This finding is also novel because, in previous studies, it is considered that decentralization could undermine the long-lasting clientelism of the LDP, which has played a central role in LDP dominance.
The book addresses three primary questions: 1) how local party institutions of the LDP adopted the new electoral rules and the trend of decentralization; 2) why the DPJ failed to compete with the LDP in local assembly elections; 3) and how local chief executives hindered party formation.
First, Sunahara begins by analyzing cases where local institutions of the LDP at the prefectural level, kenren, were fragmented before the 1994 electoral reform. The empirical analysis indicates that subnational politicians were more prone to create a new group (bunpa) within kenren if they had a strong clientelistic relationship with LDP Diet members. After the electoral reform, Sunahara suggests that the centripetal force of the party, as political analysts predicted, was enhanced to integrate local organizations, especially in urban areas. However, in rural areas, kenren still enjoyed considerable autonomy, partly because local legislators with long-standing clientelistic relationships retained considerable independence from the central party. Kenren remained a centrifugal force by, for example, taking initiative in the nomination of governors and Diet legislators. It is also noted that, in some cases, kenren were also led by governors who had increased their political powers based on the decentralization, creating a new pork-barrel pipeline with local legislators.
Second, by examining local assembly elections after electoral reform, Sunahara argues that while the opposition party had consolidated into the DPJ at the national level, the parties remained fragmented at the subnational level because local assembly elections continued to utilize SNTV. He indicates that, in single-seat districts, party leaders in the DPJ nominated a larger number of candidates than before the reform. However, those efforts were not successful because these districts were less populated and the clientelism of the LDP dominated. Moreover, in multi-member districts, the DPJ struggled to compete against the LDP since these districts allowed other parties to enter the competition. Since some of these parties were more liberal than the DPJ, the spatial position of the DPJ became more vague and less attractive. Moreover, contrary to the LDP, the DPJ politicians did not have strong relationships with local governors; they could not establish the pipelines to utilize pork-barrel benefits in the new decentralized political environment.
Finally, Sunahara further examines the election strategies of the chief executives of local governments and the way in which they have affected party formation. Showing how electoral reform and the trend of decentralization promoted career incentives of Diet members to become governors or mayors of large cities, the author suggests that it became difficult for non-LDP parties to retain their members in the Diet. In addition, the empirical analysis of the local manifestos of local assembly elections in the cities of Osaka and Nagoya—areas considered to be typical examples of a large decentralized city—demonstrates that local politicians tended to appeal to the close relationship with mayors who advocated liberalizing reforms rather than party labeling. It is suggested that since the DPJ lost support from local legislatures, the DPJ failed to form robust local party organizations.
Party System Institutionalization in Japan succeeds in identifying important factors in Japan’s failure to consolidate into a two-party system. However, the book also leaves some questions unresolved. To some extent, the author blurs the function of subnational party organization and the incentives of local politicians. While he discusses the nomination process of national legislators and governors, it is unclear whether the behaviours of a subnational party are compatible with those of national parties that feature vote-seeking, office-seeking, and policy-seeking functions. In addition, only limited data are provided to show the degree of fiscal decentralization and its impact. Although it is difficult to quantify the degree of clientelistic distribution, I wonder how old clients and new local leaders share the benefits from their involvement in the budgeting process.
That said, the book also asks important comparative political questions. The author provides us an opportunity to theorize the conditions under which local distribution (centralized or decentralized), local electoral rules, and a local executive system lead to a clientelistic one-party system or programmatic two-party system. In the Japanese case, we could theorize the different behaviours of kenren across prefectures, analyzing local executive and fiscal structure, and these factors could be used to study local political institutional arrangements in countries beyond Japan. It is worth reiterating that Party System Institutionalization in Japan is an insightful book that sheds light on the importance of analyzing subnational political institutions.
Kenya Amano
University of Washington, Seattle, USA