Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
While a high level of pork-barrel politics may quite accurately describe
Japanese political decision-making, this is hardly peculiar to the Japanese case.
Still, Japanese cultural norms have been cited as antithetical to the system of
democracy. Van Wolferen (1989) describes democracy in Japan negatively as a
mass-inclusionary system of the middle classes. At the same time, there has
also been relative economic equality despite the existence of conservative
governments, weak labour movements, low taxation and public spending
all
the factors that are said normally to contribute to inequality (McKean 1989).
Watanuki (1977) argued early on that with relative economic equality came
an absence of con
-
ict over distributive issues, the typical left-wing political
subject in the West. Political con
ict came to centre on ideological issues
rather than issues of distribution. While ideological debates tend to be the
province of the intellectual community, the rising economic disparity in Japan
over the last decade, some would argue, largely caused by economic reforms
(deregulating markets to overcome the e
of the
1980s) has made distribution issues a recurrent political topic. In the Lower
House election of 2009 the perception of rising inequality was one of the
major reasons for the downfall of the LDP.
While economic anxieties spurred some una
ects of the
'
bubble economy
'
liated voters into action and
up to one-third of LDP traditional voters to support the opposition in 2009,
Japanese political culture has been largely seen as attuned to state-driven
harmony, built by consensus-seeking groups of individuals who are restric-
ted by adherence to formalities and social hierarchies (Ide 1997). The
public sphere has been described as impoverished by individual attention to
immediate connections within one
s in-group (uchi) (Schwartz 2003: 5). Much
research on educational experience would support
'
the view that people
emerge ill equipped to be political
(e.g. McVeigh 2000). The impres-
sion of the political world as corrupt and clientelist was found present even
among young schoolchildren (Beauchamp and Rubinger 1989), making it
seem unsurprising that many young people emerge disillusioned with the
existing political order, seeing their own vote as having little impact. The
proposition that while post-war reforms resulted in approximating the model
of Western democracy, civil society was not transformed into
'
actors
'
'
with a sense of ownership towards the political system emerged. Williams
(1994) argues for the feasibility of an alternative political system along lines
of the consensus model (di
'
individuals
erent from the
'
End of History
'
thesis as proposed
by Fukuyama 1992).
In this way, Japanese culture has been represented as a socially shared
system of symbols and meanings, which encompasses language, myths,
rituals, and political concepts that legitimise a particular social structure. By
many of these accounts, one could almost refer to the representation of a
dominant national
that acts as the collective political memory
and political culture (Verba and Almond 1989). Others would say that it is
not possible to view the historical, social, cultural and political contexts of
Japanese socialising institutions and practices as a uni
'
psychology
'
ed process shared by
 
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