Japan's Democracy in 2025

Happy New Year to my readers

Screenshot by author.

It just passed midnight in Japan, so I would like to wish all of my readers 明けましておめでとうございます and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2025. I am grateful for all of your support for my work as I took to writing full time in 2024, during what proved to be an extraordinarily momentous year for Japan's politics.

I am still taking a little break to recharge before the new year but in the meantime I would like to share the text of a brief article I wrote for Newsweek Japan’s 31 December issue on Japanese politics in 2025 (available on Kindle here). As I have argued for most of the past year, Japanese democracy has transitioned to a new era, and one of the biggest questions heading into the new year is whether we will start seeing a more substantive discussion about political reform, particularly in light of what this year’s elections have said about the frustrations of many voters. I will have a lot more to say about this in 2025, not least because I am contemplating putting some thoughts in this vein into a book for a Japanese audience.

At any rate, enjoy your holiday and see you all again in the New Year. And stay tuned for more information about another Zoom conference call for paid subscribers in January.

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(This is the English text of an article that appeared in Japanese in the 31 December issue of Newsweek Japan)

If Japan’s politics in 2024 were marked by the Japanese people joining the global anti-incumbency wave and forcing the LDP and Komeito to govern without a majority in the House of Representatives, Japan’s politics in 2025 will be shaped by the tension between two competing forces.

On the one hand, the undercurrent of discontent with the political establishment that contributed to the LDP’s defeat and the rise of Tamaki Yuichiro and the Democratic Party for the People, Ishimaru Shinji’s shocking second-place finish in the Tokyo gubernatorial election, and Saito Motohiko’s unexpected comeback after resigning as Hyogo’s governor has hardly dissipated. There is still plenty of frustration with political corruption, pressure on household incomes, and a widening “information gap” separating elites from many voters that could deliver similar shocks in this year’s elections, particularly the upper house elections.

However, the aftermath of Japan’s general election has also shown that Japan’s multiparty democracy is surprisingly resilient. The birth of a virtually unprecedented LDP-led minority government has not resulted in political gridlock but has led to greater flexibility by and cooperation between the government and opposition parties. Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru’s government has acknowledged that it cannot govern without the consent of opposition parties and has made institutional concessions – ceding control of the lower house’s budget committee to the Constitutional Democrats – and policy concessions – agreeing to the DPFP’s demand to raise the so-called “1.03 million yen barrier” starting in 2025 – in order to perform the most basic work of government. The opposition parties have, in turn, responded to these gestures by negotiating in good faith, acting as partners in a kind of Japanese-style “cohabitation” than trying to destroy a weakened LDP-led government. The CDP is even using this moment as an opportunity to press for a more fundamental change to Japanese democracy, arguing for a greater role for the Diet in policymaking after decades of growing centralization in the prime minister’s office.

The contrast with other democracies – like the United States, where Donald Trump is promising retribution against his political opponents; South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol responded to his frustrations with cohabitation by declaring martial law; or in France, where a minority government collapsed under pressure from the left and right – is striking.

Japan’s new cohabitation is undoubtedly fragile. Ishiba and his counterparts among the opposition parties all face pressure to demand more from the others, to be less accommodating, to take a harder line in negotiations. No party, perhaps with the exception of the DPFP (which will enter 2025 with Tamaki suspended as party leader due to a sex scandal), is immune from public frustrations with the political establishment and all have to worry that political outsiders could sweep them aside. With no party wielding a majority, all are now responsible for demonstrating that Japan’s democracy can deliver policies for the Japanese people that improve their lives. As other democracies have struggled under similar pressures, Japan’s political leaders have an opportunity to demonstrate to the world the resilience not only of Japan’s democracy, but of democracy more generally despite the rise of populism, growing inequality and economic hardship, and the growing threat of social media-fueled disinformation and misinformation. There is no guarantee that they will succeed, but the resilience shown by all of Japan’s parties following the general election suggests that there is some reason to hope that in 2025 that Japan will show that multiparty democracy can still deliver for the people.