IndexIntroductionParticularities of the Japanese Political SystemPolitical Reforms in the Heisei Era and ConsequencesConclusionIntroductionDuring the first year of the Heisei Era, Japan was unveiling its ambitious political reform program, which was supposed to bring democracy Japanese on the same level as the main Western countries. In 1989, the LDP declared in its political reform scheme: “We are now ready to show the people our political conscience and our sense of responsibility by pledging to shed blood and make sacrifices.” What remains today of the ambition of Japanese politicians to reform the country? Although significant changes have occurred since the establishment of democracy in Japan after World War II, the fundamental characteristics of Japanese politics remain intact. Indeed, the LDP's central role in politics is stronger than ever, monetary policy is still rampant, and excessive bureaucracy prevents Japan from carrying out major reforms. In the wake of declining interest among young people in politics and national discontent with economic policies, it is necessary to reflect on what the key characteristics of Japanese politics are today and how political reforms in Japan have failed to bring about substantial changes in the Japanese politics. We will proceed by first analyzing the current state of Japanese politics today, its particularities, and how it compares with other advanced democracies. Next, we will look more closely at the reforms that emerged, especially after 1989, and their impact on Japanese politics to this day. Finally, in this essay we will seek to understand the extent to which these changes failed to achieve their goals and did not, as LDP leaders desired at the time, shake the LDP's stronghold on Japanese politics. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Peculiarities of the Japanese political system After 1947, Japan was forced to adopt a democratic parliamentary system under pressure from America. Emerging from corporate leaders, the conservative LDP quickly became the major political party in Japan. This brings us to a first characteristic of the Japanese system: one party exercises excessive power compared to the others. Although the socialist-leaning Social Democratic Party held a large number of seats and clashed with the LDP in the early years of Japanese democracy, opposition parties have since become more divided. The main opposition party has changed its name several times and is currently known as the Democratic Party for the People. However, the multiplicity of small parties makes it difficult for any single party to be equally represented in parliament, especially in light of the current voting system. As the LDP's support weakened after the bubble burst and economic crisis in the late 1980s, the LDP has usually maintained power through a coalition of right-wing conservative parties. Despite brief transitions in 1993 and between 2009 and 2012, the LDP has always sent its leader as Prime Minister to lead the country. Even in the wake of numerous scandals and unpopular economic policies, support for the LDP has remained strong since 2012 and is unlikely to be challenged in the foreseeable future. This highlights the key aspect of Japanese politics: it favors stability in terms of the ruling party, and changes most often come from frequently changing prime ministers. In fact, in the last 20 years alone, 16 different prime ministers have governed the country. Therefore, although the LDP is the inevitable partypolitician in power, there are multiple factions within the party and a great diversity of people are represented. Rather than a change from ruling party to opposition party, Japanese politics is characterized by a smooth transition within the LDP between party factions and leaders. A second key aspect of Japanese politics is its single-voting system which favors one-party dynamics. The most important elections are those of the House of Representatives, since the leader of the political party that had the highest turnout gets to govern the country. The House of Representatives is made up of 465 members, of which 176 are elected by proportional representation and 289 by single-member constituencies. Since it is only semi-proportional, it tends to favor the LDP and its hegemonic position. Although composed of several factions, the LDP's strong hold on Japanese politics has led some scholars to question the fairness of the Japanese political system in representing citizens' opinion. Third, Japanese politics suffers from low voter turnout and declining interest in elections among younger people. generation. Indeed, Japanese voters appear disenchanted with politics and only 53.68% turned out to vote in the 2017 general election, the second lowest voter turnout in post-war Japanese history. One reason for this lack of political participation compared to other advanced democracies may be the lack of real change, given that the LDP has almost always won and few are willing to challenge its position. Since older people are much more likely to vote and are increasingly numerous, political parties tend to favor them at the expense of younger voters. This has created a situation of “silver democracy” that undermines the credibility of Japanese politics. If left unchanged, this situation could place a greater burden on Japanese democracy and its effectiveness. Finally, Japanese politics is dominated by the central bureaucracy. The role of bureaucracy in Japan is important, and Japanese elected officials arguably have less power than traditional bureaucracy. It is said that “80% of policies come from bureaucrats and 20% from elected national leaders”. This dates back to the Meiji era, when aristocrats looked down on common people and supported the slogan “Revere the bureaucrat, despise the people.” Bureaucrats hold discretionary power, licensing and approval power, issuing formal and informal regulations, etc., making them the “third legislative house”. Heavy rules and regulations in Japanese society ensure that they maintain their authority. One may ask how such a concentration of power and decision-making in the hands of elites can be considered democratic. Furthermore, the LDP has been involved in numerous scandals since the 1990s (Recruit Scandal) which revealed the porous ties between the administration, bureaucrats and business leaders. Therefore, we can conclude that the four key characteristics of Japanese politics are in order of importance: a hegemonic political party (LDP) with frequent internal transitions, a semi-proportional voting system in favor of one party, a relatively low vote participation rate of the population to politics and, finally, an excessively powerful bureaucracy. Political Reforms in the Heisei Era and Consequences Aware of the need to reform politics and avoid single-party rule, successive governments conducted several reforms to cement democracy in Japan. One of the main political reforms approved in 1994, after years of debate, was the change to the electoral system. Since the LDP lost the general electionof 1993, the governing coalition committed to implementing a new electoral system that favored alternating two-party government instead of the hegemony of the LDP, weakened by internal scandals. Voters also hoped that the new system would be more effective in fighting corruption. Previously, voters would have voted to elect one to six representatives for each of the 129 districts. However, under this system, parties would have to find ways to ensure that each candidate gets a minimum number of votes to be elected, in order to maximize the number of representatives they can send to Parliament. Needless to say, this greatly favored the LDP and led to endemic corruption. The reformed electoral system hoped to correct previous failures through its two levels: single-member constituencies (289 seats) and proportional representation (176 seats). Furthermore, he also reorganized constituencies that were poorly distributed, because the Japanese population had moved from rural constituencies to urban settlements that were underrepresented in the previous electoral system. However, the LDP has since regained power and corruption is still prevalent in Japanese politics. Another transition occurred when the DPJ coalition emerged victorious from the 2009 House of Representatives elections. This marked only the second time since World War II that the LDP lost an election (the first being 1993). The DPJ administration promised to fight against the rule of bureaucracy and to move the US Marine base off Okinawa, both of which they have failed to do. Their legislative failure and inability to resolve internal conflicts led to their defeat and the return of the LDP in 2012. The two-party system, which was the goal of the 1990s reforms, failed to materialize and the LDP has an even tighter grip on Japanese politics. To solve the silver democracy problem discussed above and convince younger generations to engage in politics, politicians decided to lower the voting age from 20 to 18. This measure was first implemented in the 2016 House of Councilors elections and led to high turnout among younger voters. Despite public opposition, getting young people more involved in politics is essential to maintaining an effective democracy in Japan. Nonetheless, the consequences were disappointing, with declining turnout among young voters in the 2017 general election and having absolutely zero impact on the LDP's score. Seen as a political ploy, the new voting age has not been enough to rebuild young voters' trust in Japanese politics. Meanwhile, small parties began to proliferate starting in the 2010s, demonstrating the inability of opposition parties to form a coherent political movement and gain consensus. on major policies. The multiplication of small parties has only served the interests of the LDP, which has denounced the unpreparedness of other parties to hold office. The once-ruling DPJ has given birth to two new parties that reveal the inconceivable differences that existed among its members: the Constitutional Party of Japan and Kibou no Tou, led by the charismatic Yuriko Koike. The CDP, together with the communists and the SDP, forms the pacifist coalition, while the coalition led by Koike collapsed following the 2017 general elections. Therefore today there are not one but two major opposition parties: the CDP and the Koike coalition , whose future is uncertain. So far this change in the configuration of the opposition parties has failedthreaten the ruling LDP and convince voters. The latest proposed policy change is decentralization. Decentralization has been enthusiastically promoted since the 1990s in Japan. After the war, Japan had the characteristics of a highly centralized system in which local governments were appointed by the central government and delegated only some minor tasks. In a broader context of political reforms in the 1990s, decentralization was thought to go hand in hand with deregulation which led to the Law on the Promotion of Decentralization in 1995. Other laws followed to transfer more authority to local governments and shift decisions further from local governments. the central authority in Tokyo (e.g. regarding tax revenue, citizen autonomy, etc.). Once again, the results were considered insufficient as they did not contribute to the expansion of the autonomy and independence of local governments. Finally, on the surface, there appear to have been numerous changes in Japanese politics since the first transitional government took office in 1993. Over the past twenty-five years there has been a reform of the electoral system to introduce proportional representation, two DPJ administrations, lowering the voting age and promoting decentralisation. However, the results have been disappointing: the two-party system has failed to develop, the DPJ administration is considered a failure, and voters have never been so distrustful of politicians. After taking a closer look at the past few decades of Japanese politics, it is clear that the overall political system has not evolved dramatically despite its flaws. We will try to understand why it has failed to do so, despite some successes, and how Japanese policy could overcome these problems. Indeed, the electoral system is still highly distorted. The introduction of a semi-proportional voting system did not have much impact on politics, and the LDP still remains in force. The semi-proportional voting system is not sufficient to fairly represent the ideas of Japanese citizens. Many have criticized the reform because it is incomplete and does not implement fully proportional representation. This flawed political system is even more evident when considering the political scandals that continue to plague Japan. In 2018, two major political scandals challenged trust in politicians. These are Moritomo Gakuen and Kake Educational Institution, two school operators very close to Abe, accused of favoritism by the prime minister for the sale of state land and the opening of a new veterinary school. The Prime Minister simply dismissed those scandals and refused to acknowledge his responsibility in the case; thus strengthening the serious mistrust towards the country's politicians. Far from becoming more transparent, the Abe administration has been accused of insincerity and refusing to address the grim reality of corruption in Japanese politics. Meanwhile, opposition parties have also faced scandal, with Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike implicated in the so-called “Olympics corruption scandal”. The practice is so common that the term “monetary policy” has been used to characterize Japanese policy. However, opposition parties remain more divided than ever and have failed to "project a clear vision for the government they wish to form", even as the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Yuriko Koike's movement emerge as potential leaders to counterbalance the excessive power of the LDP. Yuriko Koike's victory in the Tokyo gubernatorial elections was seen as a wind of.