Japanese Government and Politics by Lauren McKee

Author:Lauren McKee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Association for Asian Studies
Published: 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 3.3. Campaign bus of Nagashima Akihisa, DPJ candidate for the 2005 Lower House election. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Japan_election_2005_dpj_bus.jpg.

VOTING AND RUNNING FOR OFFICE

Perhaps the most obvious way people participate in politics is by voting, and eligible voter turnout rates in Japan are comparable to those in other democratic states around the world. Between 1946 and 1993, for example, voter turnout rates for general elections in Japan ranged from 64 to 77 percent. In the United Kingdom, another parliamentary system, during the same period, rates ranged from 72 to 84 percent turnout in general elections.6 Lower turnout in the 1996 Japanese general election, the first following electoral reforms, was the result of factors unique to that election (candidates switching parties, general new procedural confusion) and of a long-term trend since the late 1950s.7 Voter turnout for the general election in October 2021 for the Lower House was 55.93 percent, the third-lowest turnout in the postwar era. This confirms a trend in the last four general elections, where turnout has failed to reach 60 percent.

A low birth rate and longer life expectancy mean that a quarter of Japan’s population is over the age of sixty-five, a phenomenon sometimes called the “graying” of society. Just as members of this age group tend to participate in NHAs more frequently than young people, they also vote more consistently as well. In the 2014 election for the House of Representatives, for example, 68 percent of citizens in their sixties went to the polls compared to 32 percent of those in their twenties. While it is more likely that senior voters are retired and have more time to spend on political participation than younger people, they might also feel more personally and immediately affected by the issues on which they are voting. Changes to social security and other forms of welfare spending, for example, would have a profound effect on seniors’ quality of life.

In an effort to combat political apathy, especially among young people, the Diet voted to lower the voting age from twenty to eighteen for general elections in 2015 and for referendums in 2018. The government also created an initiative to enhance civic education in schools and to support young people in exercising their newfound civic duties. According to a Ministry of Education survey, by 2015, 94.4 percent of schools offered political education, ranging from the discussion of political activities to voting simulations.8 Prior to the 2016 general election, the government also enlisted popular figures, like the group AKB-48, to promote voting among young people. Data from the 2016 general election reveals the turnout of eighteen-year-olds (51.7 percent) was just higher than that for forty- to forty-four-year-olds (50.3 percent) and well above those in the twenty to twenty-four age bracket (33.2 percent).

Democracies need voters, but they also need people who are willing to compete for office. Though we often associate lines of succession with monarchies or other forms of authoritarian rule (like the Kim family dynasty in North Korea) hereditary politics exists in democratic regimes too. In

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