Minimum income research in Japan: its development and political implications

Author(s):  
Aya K. Abe

This chapter provides an overview of the current state of reference budget research in Japan. It reviews the first “Minimum Income Standards Japan” (MIS), which was conducted between 2010 and 2013 and detailed all things that are necessary to live in a manner that is minimally acceptable. It also describes how the research initiative and results have influenced the context of the political debate around social security in Japan, which have not resulted in political action to strengthen social protection systems. The chapter analyzes the MIS research that originally formed part of the wider review of social security in Japan, under the centrist Democratic Party. It also points out how the momentum for social security reform was lost after the Democratic Party lost the 2012 election to the current conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny

Case studies of Indonesia and Japan illustrate that party-system stability in patronage democracies is deeply affected by the relative autonomy of political brokers. Over the course of a decade, a series of decentralizing reforms in Indonesia weakened patronage-based parties hold on power, with the 2014 election ultimately being a contest between two rival populists: Joko Widodo and Subianto Prabowo. Although Japan was a patronage democracy throughout the twentieth century, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained robust to outsider appeals even in the context of economic and corruption crises. However, reforms in the 1990s weakened the hold of central factional leaders over individual members of the LDP and their patronage machines. This was instrumental to populist Junichiro Koizumi’s winning of the presidency of the LDP and ultimately the prime ministership of Japan. This chapter also reexamines canonical cases of populism in Latin America.


2015 ◽  
Vol 07 (02) ◽  
pp. 109-116
Author(s):  
Tai Wei LIM

A 2011 earthquake damaged the Fukushima nuclear reactor and provided a galvanising point for anti-nuclear resistance groups in Japan. Their public cause slowly faded from the political arena after the Democratic Party of Japan fell out of power and anti-nuclear politicians lost the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election. The current Liberal Democratic Party Prime Minister Abe holds a pro-nuclear position and urges the reactivation of Japan's nuclear reactors after all safeguards have been satisfied.


2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-331
Author(s):  
Masaru Kohno ◽  
Atsuko Suga

On April 5 2000, the Diet elected Yoshiro Mori as Japan's 55th prime minister. His predecessor, Keizo Obuchi, had suffered a stroke and became unable to carry out his official responsibility. Mori, who was the former Secretary General of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), inherited the three party coalition between the LDP, the new Komei Party and the Conservative Party, and reappointed all of Obuchi's cabinet members. Yohei Kono was reposted as the Minister of Foreign Affairs; Hideo Usui as Justice; Kiichi Miyazawa as Finance; Hirofumi Nakasone as Education, Science and Technology; Yuya Niwa as Health and Welfare; Tokuichiro Tanazawa as Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Takeshi Fukaya as International Trade and Industry; Toshihiro Nikai as Transport; Eita Yashiro as Posts and Telecommunications; Takamori Makino as Labor; Masaaki Nakayama as Construction; Kosuke Hori as Home Affairs, Mikio Aoki as Chief Cabinet Secretary; Kunihiro Tsuzuki as Management and Coordination; Tsutomu Kawara as Defense; Taichi Sakaiya as Economic Planning; Kayoko Shimizu as environment; and Sadakazu Tanigaki as Financial Reconstruction.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
JAMES BABB

AbstractThis study examines the extent to which there has been a rise in ideologically based politics in Japan due to the decline in factionalism in the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The study is based on two cases studies. The first is based on the notion of ‘Koizumi's children’ recruited by former Prime Minister Koizumi and his allies, who were heavily discouraged from joining a faction. The second model is based on an analysis of a junior MP groups which have played a role in the internal management of the LDP independent of established party organizational structures.


2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshimi Shun'ya ◽  
Shi-Lin Loh

With the earthquake of March 11, 2011, and the expanding nuclear disaster that followed, our “affluent postwar” has finally reached a decisive end. Indeed, this closure had been clearly augured since the 1990s. The collapse of the bubble economy, the close of an era of single-party rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, and the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and Aum Shinrikyō sarin gas attacks that came in rapid succession in 1995—these events forced upon us the reality that the “affluent postwar” was over.


Sowiniec ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (46) ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Marcin Kluzik

The Liberal Democratic party “Niepodległość”/“Independence” was a radically anti-communist party and its aim was to overthrow the communist regime and make Poland an independent country, for the party had no doubt that other elements of its agenda could be realised only after Poland achieved independence. Its uncompromising anti-communist stance made the party reject the agreements made at the Round Table. The LDPN advocated political and economic liberalism, combining it with an attachment to a conservative and Christian canon of values.


Author(s):  
Ana Rita Ferreira ◽  
Daniel Carolo ◽  
Mariana Trigo Pereira ◽  
Pedro Adão e Silva

This article discusses the ways in which the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic has embodied to the political choices made during the process of creating and defining a democratic welfare state and how the various constitutional principles are reflected in the architecture of the system and have gradually changed over the years. The authors argue that when Portugal transitioned to democracy, unlike other areas of the country’s social policies the social security system retained some of its earlier organising principles. Having said this, this resilience on the part of the Portuguese system’s Bismarckian template has not prevented social protection from expanding here in accordance with universal principles, and has given successive governments manoeuvring room in which to define programmatically distinct policies and implement differentiated reformist strategies. The paper concludes by arguing that while the Constitution has not placed an insurmountable limit on governments’ political action, it has served as a point of veto, namely by means of the way in which the Constitutional Court has defended the right to social protection, be it in the form of social insurance, be it in the imposition of certain social minima.


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