A Whole New Wardrobe

In most "teen" American movies, when the show is about make-overs it always means a whole new appearance, a whole new attitude and a whole brand new set of clothes. It entails that, without changing the way you appear in front of people, change is impossible. However, shows like these are sometimes commented to have been focusing too much on the physical rather than the ideologies, principles and feelings of a person. This "make-over" is somehow the way I see Japan right now.

For many years the LDP has been ruling Japan and pushing reforms for what they say is for the development of the country. However, a decline in the services given to the people has been observed throughout the years. It may have been caused by international external factors or maybe the faulty decision making by their politicians. Not all decisions are made wrong, some are necessary, however some are made without considering other necessary factors.

15 years have passed since Ichiro Ozawa left the LDP in order to push his own reform. A Normal Nation, Proper Politics, and Genuine Politics are the descriptions he used to describe an ideal change for Japan. A Normal Nation is becoming a responsible member of the international community; Proper Politics centers the people and aims in putting people's lives first; and Genuine Politics serves with passion together with the people. This is how Ozawa sees the awaited change for Japan. These are the prospects for Japan's Political reform.

Ozawa gave 4 specific ways on how Japan should be reformed:
1. Break the power of the bereaucracy
2. Deregulate and open up the economy
3. Create a genuine two party political contest
4. Expand japan military role under UN's supervision

Looking at all these options it shows that for a reform to take place, every single body in Japan would have to be responsible. If, together with the politicians, everyone cooperates then different results would most likely to be observed. I think that Ozawa was right when it comes in putting the people first because Politics should serve the people. Decentralization of Japan is an option that is considered in order for the regions to have the ability to make their own stand, handle regional disputes and make decisions together with other regions.

Japan does not necessarily need a new set of clothes, rather, change in principles and putting what is most important is the first step towards a change for a better Japan.

Jiminto

The Jiminto or the Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) has been the largest center right, conservative party in Japan ever since its foundation dating back in the year 1955. Within four decades of power the LDP has established a stable process of policy formation. Despite the stable ruling, LDPs popularity gradually declined leading to its "momentarily" disbanding from 1993 to 1996. It came back to power as a majority party. In 1998, the DPJ or the Democratic Party of Japan was formed and it was the beginning of the formal opposition against the LDP. Through the years, persistent opposition against the LDP has been observed throughout Japan, however, no opposition has been successful in overthrowing the Jiminto.

This irony regarding the LDP has often led to the question which is:

Why is it that, despite the oppositions, the LDP still emerges as the most influential party in Japan?

At first, I thought that the reason is that it is in Japan's culture to not oppose something dominant and/or influential. I thought that for the Japanese, as long as they think that the party is doing something beneficial they wouldn't strike a stone against it. When I watched Professor Ethan Scheiner, Ph.D. 's discussion about the failure of opposition failure in Japan, it all made sense. Majority of the people in Japan are opposed, but because they make rational decisions for the country, the LDP ends up winning.

Professor Scheiner, Ph.D. gave on why the LDP continue to be powerful. The first significant reason is that the LDP has more "quality" or experienced candidates. They are candidates who were former local office holders, or in other cases candidates who inherited their seat from a family tie. In Yamauchi Kazuhiko's case, he is a graduate of a prominent university which is Tokyo Daigakku or frequently addressed as ToDai. Many bureaucrats are from this university. This maybe the reason why Yamauchi was chosen. Even opposing parties confirms that the LDP do have candidates that have quality and in a basic notion quality and experience is a key to party success. The significance of the candidates' quality to the people is evident in elections because when it comes to candidate voting the LDP gains much support compared to party voting where they only get around 20% to 30% of support.

Clientelism and Financial Centralized System are the other significant factors. Clientelism refers to a patron-client relationship wherein the patron provides the needs of the client. Financial Centralized System is the allocation of the central government to the Subnational and Local areas. Professor Scheiner, Ph.D. said that "To gain central funding, local politicians have incentive to ally with national ruling parties" which in this case is the LDP. The Link to national budget is important and every areas/prefectures is dependent on the central government thus people tend to vote for candidates who they think have or known to have bonds with the national politicians who can mitigate with the central governement.

Another factor is that the LDP hold more local offices than the oppositions. There are two cases in which parties can gain strength, according to Professor Scheiner,Ph.D., first is that parties cannot be influential in the national level without gaining at local level and the other case is that parties cannot gain strength at local level without holding power at the national level thus the opposition could not successfully overcome the LDP. In addition, the LDP continues to dominate rural areas.

The Jiminto or the Liberal Democratic Party might continue to be the dominating party in Japan unless changes occur such as decentralization movements, anti-clientelism or the rise of another oppositional party like the DPJ. However, as long as the situation remains the same the Jiminto or the LDP will continue to be the powerful,yet unpopular, party in Japan.

Change: For Better of For Worse?

Since the enactment of Japan's constitution in 1947, it has never been amended even though desires for constitutional change within the country has been present ever since the constitution was enacted.

Japan's constitution birthed from the Potsdam Declaration signed by the United States, the United Kingdom and China. The declaration, in simple words, requires Japan to surrender. It outlines the terms and condition by the Allied powers of the surrender of Japan. If Japan does not abide by the declaration, it would cost them "prompt and utter destruction". Japan, at first, ignored the declaration but eventually accepted it when Japan experienced the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also because the Soviet Union already joined the war. Japan was defeated and became under the Allied Occupation headed by the United States. The allied powers did not directly gave Japan their own constitution and even encouraged Japan to make their own democratic reforms. However, McArthur rejected a first draft of a constitution created by the Japanese and ordered his staff to write a new draft. Although written by non-Japanese, the writers of the draft considered the Meiji constitution and other significant sectors of Japan.

The first attempts for revision was driven by the desires to make the constitution more "Japanese" however there has been many difficulties particularly in the amendment process. Amending the constitution should be approved by 2/3 of both houses of the National Diet. There is also the great numbers of opposition and even for the LDP the constitution was to their advantage.


On the pro-constitutional changes side, revisions means that Japan will be able to contribute more to the world and be assertive. Some say that it is time that Japan lets go of the "embarrassment" that whenever they are opposed by forces they have to call to other countries for help. Revision would not mean that Japan will go berserk again and go on occupying countries such as China again but revision would be a chance for Japan to help lessen and prevent international crisis such as Terrorism. It would also make the SDF or Japan's Self-Defense Force feel that the people will trust them and they belong to the people because they will have the chance to really protect them in any form of coercion against Japan.

For those who are against the constitutional change, Revision would mean that Japan will completely lose its independence. America share the same interest of constitutional change and if so, it will just make way to a new "pax American way". Following the present and peaceful constitution is idealistic and realistic. Another reason given for being against the change is that Japan has already been demilitarized as military budget declines every year so if revision would be made, another concern would be the financing of the Military.


Debates regarding the constitutional change still goes on up to date and as long as the real intentions of the revision is not identified people will have doubts and different perspective s regarding the issue. In my point of view, what Japan needs to do is evaluate and assess what is good for the whole country and be cautious of external forces that may influence them and be of hindrance in making the right decision.

It may be more than just a movie...

There are three significant observations that I made from the movie, Rashomon:

First, the author/director did a great job in making sure that the reader/viewer of the story/movie would have a hard time figuring out who the real killer is and the main reason for this are the different sides of the stories of the characters. A movie review that I read says that through the different sides of the story, viewers (or maybe the readers of the story also) were able to see in different eyes and feel each characters feelings because all stories seemed true, of course the cinematography adds to the effect to the viewers but still it leaves the viewers thinking and wondering which one really is true. If we think of Japanese Politics as the movie Rashomon, we can see that how different the viewers of the movie of react is just as the same on how the Japanese reacts to their politics. There are some who are proud of their politics but there are also those who thinks that there is something wrong. Everytime they change their prime ministers, there are many different response by the public. The Yasukuni representatives, for example, thinks that there is a failure in Japan's Foreign Policy regarding the enshrinement of the war criminals in Yasukuni.

Second, is that the characters have different versions of the incident. The characters relates the incident coated by his own selfishness. In every story, the character narrating it makes it look like that he is innocent and that all the wrong doings are done by the other characters and never by himself. Also, even the samurai, who was murdered, may be biased on his own welfare when he tells his narration through the medium (miko). This is why I think it is difficult to identify the murderer because the murderer himself may be seen as being truthful when he narrates his story. Japan itself and, to be specific, its politicians and bureaucrats are comparable to the characters in Rashomon. The characters in the movie are motivated by their own interests and they tell their stories for their own protections just as how the politicians and bureaucrats in Japan (and in other countries as well) acts. The only difference of Japan from other countries is that even though their politicians and bureacrats are driven by personal interests there is still a high level of nationalism in Japan which, for years, help prove that Japan is a strong country.

And third, is that the real intention of the killer is not identified since the killer is not identified. This observation reminds me of the Honne and the Tatemae because even if the murderer is identified he may state a different reason from his real intentions on why he killed the victim. For example is saying that it was "accidental" rather than "purposive". This observation also entails not admitting to one's own faults just as how Japan refuses to say "sorry" to the countries it has victimized, maybe for the reason that they have taken responsibility to most of the countries who were devastated by Japan.

Because its a Start...

...to compare is to be human.... - Todd Landman

Todd Landman, author of the book entitled Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics, mentioned that "making comparisons is a natural human activity" and I think that I and the rest of the people in the world are living proofs of this statement. I make a lot of comparisons everyday and I think everybody does because it’s basically part of decision-making. But I never really noticed the significance of comparison until it was brought up in class.

What I basically learned in reading the first chapter of Landman's book is that a comparison made by an average person in his everyday life is essentially but not exactly the same with comparing politics and that its differences are the intensiveness of how the comparison is done and how detailed the objectives are when it comes to comparing politics. Landman gave four objectives of comparing politics which are contextual description which describes politics and its concepts, classification which, according to Landman, makes the world less complex, hypothesis-testing which disproves other rival reasoning and helps build or establish general theories and prediction for future outcomes. Comparing will help distinguish the similarities and differences between politics. I strongly agree when Landman said that scholars compare in order to avoid their own ethnocentrism because I think that part of what we can get from comparing is the moral to be able to understand how other things or events came to happen with being able to give respect but we must first be open-minded to able to understand. As I was also reading the chapters, an everyday quote came into my mind which is:

“Learn from your own mistakes.”


and I thought that maybe in comparing it can also be:

“Learn from your own mistakes and others’ mistakes too.”

this came into my mind because I was reading I was trying to come up with my own example and what I imagined was two states that are experiencing exactly the same crisis (any problem, or whatsoever) and one of the leaders could make the right decision and the other one could make the wrong decision. If these were to happen then the leader of the state that made the wrong decision would be able to compare with the other state the decisions that were made. This event might not really happen exactly in the real world because even if two countries would have exactly the same crisis there would be many factors that could effect decision making such as the laws, the people themselves and so on but still, to some extent, I believe that comparing possible decisions is still of great help for the countries. Landman also mentioned that experimentation is a reason for comparing politics because unlike the natural sciences, political science could not do experimentation through having controlled factors of the matter being observed and thus comparison gives way to experimentation.

"Japan, Land of the Rising Sun"

I was in elementary when I was first interested in Japan and it eventually started with its pop culture but as I grew I started to read a lot and it gave me different kind of reactions. I am happy whenever I learn in my Japanese Language class; I feel disappointment when Japan don’t do so well in negotiations etc., I am always awed whenever I see picture of old castles, temples and other beautiful scenery in Japan and so on. I am saying these things because I expect that Japan politics would also be a source of different reactions for me.

Before I started going to college, Japan Politics was a topic that I wanted to read about but never had the courage to do so because I have always perceived that it would be very complicated . I took up Japanese history class last term and from what I have learned there has been many turning points in Japan’s history that greatly affected its present form of government. From the ruling of the emperor, to the samurais and shoguns and now the prime minister, Japan has experienced a lot when it comes to politics that is why it is very complex.

Studying Japan politics would be an opportunity to understand the relevance and irrelevance of culture to political analysis because for many years the Japanese have been observed of having a strong sense of nationality that is why they were able to preserve the culture that, in my opinion, has been greatly considered in matters of the country.