2 Background

In April 2001, Koizumi Jun'ichirō rose unexpectedly to presidency of the LDP, and hence also to the premiership of Japan. Through a political platform of structural reforms of Japanese government and markets and an explicit willingness to reform politics-as-usual, Koizumi was able to defeat his main competitor – former Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryūtarō – in the internal LDP election. Koizumi continued to emphasize his fight for reform against forces of resistance while being the head of the Japanese cabinet. When his postal privatization bill was rejected in the Upper House in August 2005, Koizumi could have chosen to give into the majority of politicians. Instead, however, Koizumi used his right as a prime minister to call for a snap election in the Lower house – a rare move that early into the Lower House term, a mere two years after the former election. In addition, Koizumi exploited his role as the party leader in an even rarer move, to not let the LDP opposition politicians campaign as LDP members. In districts with such anti-Koizumi rebels, Koizumi and the LDP identified ‘assassin candidates’ (shikyaku kôho) to compete against the rebels in the upcoming election. As a result, Koizumi was able to divide the political landscape into pro- and anti-reformists. The August 2005 election campaign became, therefore, to a great extent an election for or against the politics of the prime minister, probably the first of its kind in Japan's postwar democracy. It is no secret that Koizumi was confrontational. But was his ideology, his rhetoric, or his political practice populist? If populism is to be employed to describe ideology, rhetoric, political practice, political style, etc., there is a need to identify the specific content of this political concept.

It is not only Koizumi who may be interpreted as a populist politician in Japan. The 2000s have seen a number of potential populist politicians advance into positions as mayors and governors at the local and regional levels. Most famous among them, Hashimoto Tōru (Osaka) and Ishihara Shintarō (Tokyo) have exploited these positions in order to direct harsh critique of the central government as well as to attack the political establishment. In 2012, Hashimoto's Osaka Restoration Party went national as the Japan Restoration Party and merged with the Sunrise Party (guided by Ishihara). Later the same year, Ishihara joined the party when he stepped down from his 13-year long period as Tokyo mayor and became a co-leader of Japan Restoration Party. The relationship between the two prominent Japanese populists lasted until 2014, when Ishihara and his supporters left the party.

Populist research has great potential in terms of empirical cases. In addition to Hashimoto and Ishihara, several other politicians have anti-establishment outlooks that make them candidates for research. These include Kawamura Takashi (Nagoya), Takehara Shin'ichi (Akune), and Nakada Hiroshi (Yokohama). Also, during the 1990s, many mayors and governors were elected outside of the LDP network and these politicians exposed a reform-orientation to politics and economy (see, for instance, Dunlop, Reference Dunlop2011).

A major component in the ‘earthquake’ election in 1993 – when the LDP fell from power – was the defectors from the LDP who campaigned on an anti-LDP message in their newly established parties. Hosokawa Morihiro of the Japan New Party became the prime minister of the non-LDP coalition. Was he a politician exploiting the anti-LDP sentiments with populist rhetoric? Moreover, the defection of LDP prince Ozawa Ichirō and his call for politics based on ideology, not only factions competing with each other for electoral purposes, had populist traits. Together with Ozawa's depiction of himself as a friend of the people, attacking LDP politicians for being egocentric and without real principles, we may term Ozawa a populist. If we let the search for potential candidates for populist research go further back into postwar politics, perhaps the former prime minister and LDP faction leader Tanaka Kakuei should also be included in the scope of populist research. As an uneducated, self-made politician attacking the Tokyo University graduate bureaucrats-come-politicians, he placed the people as key to his fight for redistribution from industrialized urban areas to rural areas. In fact, in Jacob Schlesinger words, Tanaka was ‘Japan's first true, successful populist’ (Schlesinger, Reference Schlesinger1999: 53).

In light of the emergence of a number of politicians, mayors, and governors, and the inclusion of the Japan Restoration Party in the national party system in Japan, it is timely to take a step back and discuss thoroughly how populism can be conceptualized and researched in Japanese politics. Let us first have a look at the arguments in the academic research on populism in Japan.

3 Japanese scholarship on populism

Ōtake Hideo has authored some of the most central contributions to the study of Japanese populism (Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2003, Reference Ōtake2006). With a particular interest in the sudden rise of Koizumi within the LDP, Ōtake finds that contemporary Japanese populists (a) present themselves as outsiders, (b) reduce politics to a fight between the morally good and bad and (c) exploit mass media through a ‘theatrical style’ (Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2003). It is an important point that the populists attempt to be seen as outsiders (amateurs, underdogs, etc.) in contrast to the political establishment which consisted of professional politicians and bureaucrats. In this way, populists legitimate their radical proposals as reform of the status quo.

Koizumi developed, according to Ōtake, the fight against the elite into a political style termed a ‘theatrical style’, where the attacks on the elite attracted massive attention from the media. The Hashimoto faction and zoku politicians became the main targets for Koizumi's neoliberal critique of government and governance. Other populists may have other enemies. The point is, however, that populists portray their enemies as evil politicians who personally reap benefits from their policies and who are responsible for the troubles of Japan's economy and the future of Japan.

The media plays a significant part in the making of the drama. Although Koizumi may have developed and refined the populist style to unprecedented levels, Ōtake argues that many politicians have used a populist style (Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2006); Koizumi just sustained the popularity for a longer time period than most others. From the fact that several contemporary populists have proposed neoliberal reforms, Ōtake derives an argument that the current populist wave is neoliberal. In addition to these neoliberal populists, he finds a different group of politicians – first and foremost former prime minister Tanaka Kakuei – defined as interest-led (rieki yūdō) populists. Interest-led populism is oriented towards the development of a welfare-state, the creation of (geographical) redistribution mechanisms, and is reliant upon heavy public spending, especially construction spending. It is a populism enmeshed in interest-led politics (rieki yūdō seiji) and redistribution-to-local-areas politics (jimoto kangen seiji) (Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2006). Neoliberal populism is, on the other hand, a populism that places neoliberal reforms as fundamental, but also mixed with other ideologies. According to Ōtake, in other areas – social and cultural matters – neoliberal populism is rather conservative since it stresses tradition and the state (Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2003).

Another contributor to the understanding of Japanese populism, Yoshida Tōru (Reference Yoshida2011), also argues that contemporary populism is concerned with neoliberal reforms. More specifically, Yoshida (Reference Yoshida2011: 36–58) finds that contemporary populism is defined by (a) placing business ideas as fundamental for politics (neoliberalism), (b) the execution of a story-telling politics (monogatari no seiji), and (c) ‘making-enemy politics’ (teki zukuru no seiji). Furthermore, Yoshida (Reference Yoshida2011: 57–60) links former prime minister Koizumi Jun'ichirō's politics to these populist traits, and argues that Koizumi also emphasized the antagonism between the bureaucracy and the people as well as operated with a moral division between the good and the evil. For both Ōtake and Yoshida therefore, populism in Japan is characterized by the division of the political landscape into good persons (themselves and their supportersFootnote ²) and bad persons (their enemies).

Matsutani Mitsuru (Reference Matsutani and Tanabe2011) finds that, in later years, Japan experienced the rise of many individual populist politicians, and terms the 2000s ‘the era of populism’. He studies the emergence of Koizumi, Ishihara, and Hashimoto in depth. The populists’ common points are that they clearly express who their enemies are and that they strongly oppose their enemies and identify their position of opposition (Matsutani, Reference Matsutani and Tanabe2011: 189). Matsutani is here aligned with Ōtake and Yoshida. Matsutani disagrees with the view that the electorate supports these populists due to a feeling of insecurity (which is often found in the literature on populism), and backs up his argument with a quantitative analysis of which socio-economic groups vote for the populists. Based on the findings of his analysis, he argues that neoliberal policies acquire support from the middle and upper classes, while the emphasis on state and tradition make them interesting for the conservative stratums (Matsutani, Reference Matsutani and Tanabe2011: 191). Matsutani is one of a few contributions on Japanese populism that turns the focus from interpreting the populists’ rhetoric and style towards analyzing the characteristics of populists’ electoral support quantitatively.

Asano Masako (Reference Asano, Kawahara, Shimada and Tamada2011) studies the relationship between ‘national populism’ (nashonaru popyurizumu) and the issue of foreigners in Japan (gaikokujin mondai).Footnote ³ Asano discusses whether the nationalist populist concept also entails Koizumi's populism (as employed in Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2003). She concludes that Koizumi's populism was a neoliberal populism (derived from Ōtake) and that Japanese-style populism is not the same as the ‘national populism’ found in Europe (Asano, Reference Asano, Kawahara, Shimada and Tamada2011: 251).

Kobori Masahiro (Reference Kobori2013), on the other hand, finds similarities between the PRR in Japan and Great Britain (represented by the British National Party). Kobori argues that both Ishihara Shintarō and Hashimoto Tōru belong to this rise of populism in today's Japan. Relying on Yoshida (Reference Yoshida2011) as the theoretical foundation for his study of Japanese populists, Kobori discusses the ideological characteristics of these two politicians. While he finds Hashimoto to be neoliberal, Kobori argues that Ishihara's ideological position is nationalist and xenophobic, echoing European research on the PRR. On socioeconomic issues, Kobori distinguishes between the neoliberal populism of Hashimoto and the older right-wing populism of Ishihara. Kobori is also a refreshing read due to his focus on the impact of Japanese populists on contemporary Japanese policy. Kobori argues that these PRR parties in Britain and Japan have even had a greater influence on policies than their sheer size in the parliament, due to their ability to force parties in position to copy their policies, a phenomenon termed ‘blame avoidance’ (Kobori, Reference Kobori2013: 108).

The literature on Japanese populism is, comparatively speaking, small. It consists of several books and articles concerned mostly with Koizumi, but also with contributions on Hashimoto and Ishihara. Although current literature offers variety in terms of research questions raised and research design, there are still opportunities to progress our understanding of populism in Japanese politics. In the next section, I will present the main themes and research contributions to the rise and persistence of contemporary populist movements, parties, and politicians in (Western) Europe.

4 The scholarship on the European PRR

The number of parties in Western European countries, but also Central and Eastern European countries, has increased as PRR parties have been able to establish themselves in the party systems on a longer-term basis (Zaslove, Reference Zaslove2008; Mudde, Reference Mudde2007). In response to the electoral success of the PRR in Western European democracies in the 1980s, the political movements, parties, and politicians involved became the object of academic research from the early 1990s onwards. The literature has grown exponentially ever since and as a result the research community has witnessed a great evolution in terms of theory, methodology, and empirical studies. Theoretically, the literature has focused on conceptual definitions, classification issues, and models seeking to provide explanations. Methodological discussions have involved inference: how to identify valid and reliable results from the research material (texts, electoral data, interviews, etc.). Ultimately, political scientists seek to explain the rise of new parties and their persistent electoral success. Empirically, the literature has grown richer as the breakthrough of PRR parties has taken place in more and more countries in Europe. In this section, I present the main discussions and findings in the study of populism in Europe. The scope for the presentation is the content in the study of the PRR in Europe that is of interest to research on populism in JapanFootnote ⁴: conceptual definitions of populism, classification of populist parties and politicians, and explanations put forward for populist success.

Piero Ignazi (Reference Ignazi1992) opened up the research field with his study of extreme right-wing parties in Europe. He argued that the new parties belonged to two different ideological positions: (a) parties with direct links to pre-World War II fascism and, (b) a new post-industrial extreme right. The latter type of parties is seen as a reaction to the post-material (see Inglehart, Reference Inglehart1977) parties and movements, by combining authoritarianism and immigration opposition, while the former were parties with roots in the fascist era but with revised ideology to fit the postwar European contexts. The link to fascism has been studied thoroughly (see, for instance, Griffin, Reference Griffin2000) but has less of a focus in the current academic discussions on the PRR.

Hans-Georg Betz and Paul Taggart followed up on Ignazi's studies by focusing on the populist aspects of the new rightist parties (Betz, Reference Betz1994; Betz and Immerfall, Reference Betz and Stefan1998; Taggart, Reference Taggart1995, Reference Taggart1996). For Betz and Taggart, the populists mobilize through the idea of a cleavage between the elites and the people. Moreover, Betz and Taggart introduced the argument that the rise of these new populist parties had to be understood in relation to the developments of the post-industrial society and the transformations of the welfare state. Thus, the early wave of scholarly works on contemporary populism in Europe found explanatory power in the economic, social, and cultural contexts under which the populist parties arose. Betz (Reference Betz1994) found that radical right-wing populism had to be viewed as in opposition to the ‘social democratic consensus’ and the failures of the Keynesian economic planning and central governance from the 1970s and onwards. Taggart (Reference Taggart2004), on the other hand, has proposed that the rise of right-wing populism in Europe is integral to the European Union integration project in the sense that European integration is fundamental to populist opposition.

Taggart has also attempted to define populism. Despite the conceptual difficulty involved, Taggart (Reference Taggart2000, Reference Taggart2004) develops a ‘universally applicable approach to populism’. He argues that populism is a product of representative democracy based as it is on its antagonistic relationship to representative democracy's institutions and policy processes. Furthermore, Taggart proposes that populism lacks an ideological core, and thus populism can take any ideological shape. Populists fill their anti-establishment critique with ideological content, dependent on the political context under which the populist project arises. Instead of belonging to any ideological strand, Taggart argues, populism is defined by the notion of a ‘heartland’, a retrospective ideal society inhabited by the people. Populists fight for these people and against any person or group that threatens – in a perceived or real manner – this heartland. Thus, according to Taggart, the defense of a heartland is shared by any populist project, regardless of time, space, and ideological content. Also, populism is based on sentiments of illegitimate rule and often arises suddenly in times of (perceived) crisis. Lastly, Taggart points out that populist movements and parties often rely on charismatic leadership, and thus will often experience troubles with leadership transfers.

While Taggart (Reference Taggart2000) has attempted to find one definition for all variants of populism (regardless of time and space), Betz (Reference Betz1994) defined two ‘faces’ of newer European populism, namely a neoliberal and an anti-immigration, xenophobic populism. He finds that the same party may share both of these ideal types of populism, but, in a particular time period, one of them will dominate the arguments and rhetoric of a given party. Inspired by Betz and Taggart's work on populism, Kitschelt with McGann (Reference Kitschelt and McGann1995) introduced three ideal types of the new right. The first ideal type is anti-establishment populist parties; the second is a radical right combining neoliberalism with authoritarianism; while the third is welfare chauvinist parties. These authors – Taggart, Betz, and Kitschelt – study the same parties but introduced various ways of conceptualizing populism.

In the 2000s, the research field expanded further. New contributions have however either been based on or been positioned vis-à-vis the studies above. As Zaslove (Reference Zaslove2009: 310) suggests, the main ‘parameters’ for the discussions were set. To make the presentation short, I have focused on two of the main contributors to the research: Cas Mudde and Jens Rydgren. In his pan-European contribution – the most systematic and comprehensive attempt to define the European PRR – Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) outlines (a) a definition of the concept, (b) presents a classification system of which European parties should belong to the party family and why certain parties are excluded, (c) the issues defining the party family and (d) an examination of how to explain the ‘breakthrough’ and ‘persistence’ of the parties in elections.

For Mudde, the PRR is defined by its ideological features, namely populism, nativism, and authoritarianism. Instead of defining populism merely as a political style, strategy, or rhetoric, as most Japanese scholarship seems to do, Mudde (Reference Mudde2007: 23) defines populism as a ‘thin-centered’ ideology ‘that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite” and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people’. A thin-layered ideology resembles Taggart's definition of populism as without a core; the implication of both these definitions is that populism is combined with other ideologies. By nativism Mudde (Reference Mudde2007: 19) means ‘an ideology, which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (“the nation”) and that nonnative elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous nation-state’. As for authoritarianism, Mudde (Reference Mudde2007: 23) uses the concept as in ‘the belief in a strictly ordered society, in which infringements of authority are to be punished severely’. In a European context, authoritarianism means to be strict on law-and-order issues, support traditional family values, to be pro-police and military, and usually skeptical regarding gender equality and to gay rights.

I have made space for these definitions of the core ideologies of the PRR, because they say something significant about the difference in the political cultures of Japan and (Western) Europe. In Europe, nativism and authoritarianism can be part of the ideological core of the PRR because they are not part of the core ideologies of the established parties. Instead, ideologies such as multiculturalism and political liberalism play a significant role in the established parties in (Western) Europe. In Japan, however, nativism and authoritarianism may to a larger degree be part of the ideological content professed by more established players.Footnote ⁵

When populism – or a set of ideologies such as the PRR – is defined, Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) sets forth to classify which parties belong or do not belong to the PRR concept. The focus on classification of PRR parties stems from the desire in the literature on European politics to identify party families across countries (see, for instance, Rokkan, Reference Rokkan1970). Many studies on party classification have thus been interested in establishing a PRR party family in Europe (Zaslove, Reference Zaslove2009; Mudde, Reference Mudde2007) or, for instance, in a narrower place like Scandinavia (Jungar and Jupskås, Reference Jungar and Jupskås2014).

Regarding explaining populist rise and persistence, Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) distinguishes between demand-side and supply-side explanations. Demand-side explanations include macro-level explanations, e.g. globalization, modernization, mass immigration, political and economic crises – factors that attempt to explain why the demand for populists has risen in the last few decades. Although not scrapping these a priori, Mudde seems to have stronger belief in supply-side explanations. He splits these into external (institutional, political and cultural contexts, including media) opportunity structures and internal party-oriented (ideology, leadership, organization, internationalization) explanations (Mudde, Reference Mudde2007). The shift from demand-side explanations to supply-side explanations seems to represent a general shift in the literature. Rydgren has also emphasized external and internal supply-side explanations. While he does not neglect the explanatory power of development of ‘societal strains’ that Betz (Reference Betz1994, Reference Betz and Stefan2004) and Taggart (Reference Taggart2000) – post-industrial society, evolution of post-material values – propose, Rydgren has through a series of publications contributed with an analytical emphasis on the ‘master frames’ of the right-wing populists (Rydgren, Reference Rydgren2004, Reference Rydgren2005, Reference Rydgren2008). In order to explain these parties’ electoral success, Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2004, Reference Rydgren2005, Reference Rydgren2008) argues that the development of master frames (similar to Mudde's core ideology) is fundamental to the populists’ success. Whether these are potent relies on the degree they resonate with voters’ understanding of the social and political world. An important point in Rydgren's (Reference Rydgren2004, Reference Rydgren2005) research is that he shows that the parties adopt frames proven to be successful in at least one location and by that right-wing populism has, according to Rydgren, diffused from the Front National in France across Europe to the creation of many successful parties. A difficulty for the PRR has been to overcome the pre-war far right ideology (which has little support in current Europe) and to find a suitable and successful formula in the contemporary period. In this way, Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2005) explains the emergence of a PRR party family more as a learning process than as a reaction to the same demand-side processes (e.g. globalization). Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2005) admits however that such diffusion is (only) a necessary condition for the success of these parties. Hence, Rydgren complements his explanatory model by outlining developments in the political system that have created political opportunities for PRR parties. These external supply-side opportunity structures support the advance of the PRR in Europe as they represent (stable) resources that the parties have exploited.

5 The value of European populist research for the study of Japanese politics

It has been assumed this far that the comprehensive study of PRR parties and politicians in (Western) Europe has value for research on Japanese populism. The strength of the research on Europe is the focus on (a) populism as an ideology combined with other ideologies, (b) classification of parties into party families, and (c) explaining populists’ rise and persistence in the party systems. The question is however how and to what extent these studies can be used to improve future research on populism in Japan.

Populism as an ideological concept

Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) has shown that populism needs to be defined as an ideology and that political scientists studying populist parties and politicians should try to identify the complete set of ideologies that populists make use of. This research strategy seems fruitful also for research on Japan. First, there is a need to define populism. Second, the set of ideologies that populist politicians adhere to needs to be identified. How then are we to define populism in a way that also fits into the Japanese reality? In line with current research on European populism, we should employ a conceptual definition of populism as an ideology. According to the populist ideology, society is divided between the people and the elite, and thus the role of the populist is to fight against the elite in the name of the people (Albertazzi and McDonnell, Reference Albertazzi and McDonnell2008; Mudde, Reference Mudde2007; Canovan, Reference Canovan1999). It is on the (perceived) cleavage between the elite and the people that the populists mobilize political participation and electoral support. This ideological focus also makes sense in the Japanese political landscape. Japanese populists attack the establishment – politicians, bureaucrats, vested interests, labor unions, media, etc. – for protecting a status quo that has led Japan into crisis and misery.

There are two clear benefits to analyzing populism as an ideology. First, doing so secures a research focus on the ideological totality of Japanese populism. Just as Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) has defined a PRR ideology (populism, nativism, authoritarianism) and Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2005) has defined a right-wing populist master frame (xenophobia, populism), we should seek to identify core ideologies or master frames for Japanese populists. Second, it secures that we take whatever positions a politician or a party argues for seriously. When the emphasis is on ideology, it is easier to avoid normative statements often seen in populist research that the populists employ populist tricks or manipulate the electorate to increase election results. Political scientists should strive to take all politicians seriously, not only those with opinions perceived as acceptable or arguments that are reasonable in logical or rational terms.

Populism is exploited by both political incumbents and challengers.Footnote ⁶ When Koizumi fought faction boss Hashimoto in the 2001 LDP party presidentship election campaign, he was not an incumbent but a challenger. In the 2005 election campaign, however, Koizumi was the prime minister of Japan and populism was still part of the winning recipe. There may be a difference in the populist ideology and how it is exploited by incumbents and challengers. Once in power, populists face the challenging task of convincing the electorate that they are still the underdog fighting the establishment. The difference of being in power (Koizumi, Berlusconi, Sarkozy) and challenging the power (Hashimoto, Ishihara, Le Pen) merits further research.

The focus on ideology does not imply that political style is not an interesting object for political science studies. In fact, political styles, strategies, and rhetoric may also be our study objects, but preferably as the political practice and discourse of a party or politician making use of a populist ideology.

Populism is by itself rarely sufficient for defining the ideologies that Japanese populists belong to. If we understand better what the populists find to be wrong with Japanese politics, society, and economy, and what their visions are for how Japan should be, our knowledge of Japanese populism will grow. It is important to note that Koizumi, Hashimoto, Ishihara, and others do not deliver general critique of existing political actors and structures, but specific critique against specific actors and structures. Together with the visions for how the populists want Japan to be, analyses of the specific populist critique may teach us more about the core ideologies/master frames that the Japanese populists belong to. Yoshida (Reference Yoshida2011) has argued that a defining characteristic of contemporary populism is the politics of making enemies (teki zukuru seiji) and Ōtake (Reference Ōtake2006) has studied whom Koizumi argued was his enemies. It would also have been instructive to understand whom the populists fight for. Canovan (Reference Canovan1999) for example presents three variants of the people that populists make use of. Dependent on the heartland (Taggart, Reference Taggart2000, Reference Taggart2004) of the populists, there is most likely a difference in both the enemy images and the people concepts employed by Japanese populists.

Inspired by the exercise of identifying party families in the literature on European party systems, research on European populism discusses the existence of a PRR party family.Footnote ⁷ Although the Japanese party system is related less to other countries’ party systems compared to Europe, the variety of ways to define party families may have interest for studies of Japanese politics. Betz (Reference Betz1994), Kitschelt with McGann (Reference Kitschelt and McGann1995), and Zaslove (Reference Zaslove2008) focus on how populists may differ to the degree that it is optimal to define several ideal types/faces of populism. A Weberian ideal type of populism is defined so that no politician or party will necessarily take exactly this ideological shape, but all politicians and parties defined within the ideal type share sufficient characteristics to be defined that way. Another strategy is to define one party or politician as the prototypical example, and then find other politicians and parties that resemble the prototype.Footnote ⁸ Mudde (Reference Mudde2007: 14–15) provides a third approach by defining a minimalist and a maximalist definition of the features that the parties have in common. The maximalist definition includes more features (ideologies) and is as such a subgroup of the minimalist definition. Post-Cold War politics in Japan have experienced a range of populist parties and politicians on the national, regional, and local levels. The variation among the populists seems to have been such that to group all together under one type of populism clouds more than it clarifies. Ōtake (Reference Ōtake2003) has suggested a neoliberal and an interest-led type of Japanese populism. Kobori (Reference Kobori2013) also discusses that the populist radical rightists (Hashimoto and Ishihara) differ in their ideological views (and maybe deserve to be defined as different Japanese variants of populism).

In Table 1, five ideologies found in variants of Japanese populisms, the main content of these ideologies, and the contributors are presented. In the table, I have split Ishihara's populism (as found in Kobori, Reference Kobori2013) into three potentially different ideologies: anti-materialism (criticism of greed and materialism), nativism (xenophobia), and revisionism (historical revisionism). These populist ideologies can be seen as resources that politicians may draw upon in the political competition. When these ideologies are turned into critique of the establishment, the populist potency is exploited.

Table 1.

Potential ideologies in Japanese populisms

Classification

A central task in political science is to classify the political phenomena we study. With ideal types of populisms or maximalist/minimalist definitions of populisms in hand – identified through qualitative interpretation of core ideologies or master frames – we should seek to classify Japanese politicians. Parties are usually the unit of analysis in (Western) European populism research. As in Europe, within the populist parties, however, the leaders, e.g. Hashimoto and Ishihara, often play a significant role in ideology formation. In addition, parties have less of a cohesive role in Japanese politics, and politicians can hence play a more individual role. Persons seems therefore to be the best unit for classification of Japanese populism. This suggestion is substantiated by the fact that many populists in Japan are independent mayors and governors.

In Table 2, I have outlined potential populists within the five populist ideologies found in the literature on Japanese populism. Koizumi's focus on neoliberal structural reforms defines his populism as neoliberal (Ōtake, Reference Ōtake2003, Reference Ōtake2006; Yoshida, Reference Yoshida2011). But what role did the Yasukuni Shrine visits and the desire to revise the Fundamental Law of Education play vis-à-vis the emphasis on structural reforms in Koizumi's master frame? Maybe Koizumi did combine several ideologies – for instance, neoliberalism, nativism,Footnote ⁹ and revisionismFootnote ¹⁰ – and, if so, what role did the ideologies play in his electoral support? Hashimoto, Kawamura, and Ozawa also propose neoliberal reforms as the answer to destroy the power of the establishment. Hashimoto has also made major headlines in the media by revisionist views on comfort women. His fight against the teacher labor unions has also involved nationalist (nativist?) initiatives, forcing teachers to stand up when the national anthem is played during school ceremonies. The combinations of neoliberal populism and nationalist or revisionist populism into variations of populist rightist ideologies are yet to be fully studied in Japan. When it comes to welfare-oriented populism, not only is Tanaka an example, but also the DPJ's move from neoliberalism to a welfare orientation combined with Hatoyama's anti-bureaucratic stances may make up a populist example. Anti-bureaucratism seems to be shared by many Japanese populists, including most neoliberal populists. This insight points to the identification of several more potential populists in Japanese politics. For instance, bureaucracy as an enemy image combined with neoliberal ideology played a significant role in Watanabe Yoshimi's break from the LDP (see, for instance, Arase, Reference Arase2010: 41). As we have seen, there is a need to first identify the variety of ideologies that exist in combination with populism in Japan, and then, classify the populists according to the ideologies they adhere to.

Table 2.

Examples of potential candidates for being populists in Japan

Explanations

To explain the electoral breakthrough and persistence of parties and politicians is one of the central tasks of political science. The following is a short presentation of a variety of explanations we can look for in the study of Japanese populism. I follow Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) and his distinction between demand-side and supply-side explanations. Demand-side explanations, on the one hand, concern developments that have made the electorate want (demanding) populist politicians. Supply-side explanations, on the other hand, are instead focused on what it is about the populist parties and politicians that can explain their success (internal) and what the characteristics of the political system are that provide opportunities for the populists (external). In Table 3, I have listed examples of explanations for Japanese populist success within the framework of demand-side and supply-side explanations.

Table 3.

Examples of explanations under the types of explanation

Many scholars see the populist success in Europe as a consequence of social, economic, and political developments (Betz, Reference Betz1993; Taggart, Reference Taggart2004). Surely, the lost decade – with its crisis mode, increased insecurity, difficult labor market, and deflation – may have explanatory power for the rise of Japanese populists. In Think Global, Fear Local, David Leheny (Reference Leheny2006) argues that events that took place during the 1990s created a sense of crisis in Japanese society. The post-bubble era, the Hanshin earthquake, and the Aum Shinrikyo terror attack – and, in particular, the politicians’ inability to handle and solve the challenges – turned into ‘a vague anxiety’ in Japan. He argues further that this anxiety has contributed to Japanese politics’ turn to the right. If Leheny is correct, the ‘vague anxiety’ and the new perceptions of the political establishment may also have made more people receptive to the populist message. Furthermore, Gerald Curtis (Reference Curtis1999: 5) argues that the image of the bureaucracy as possessing ‘high morale, a sense of mission, and a reputation for competence and integrity’ radically changed in the 1990s through revelations of corrupt practices and the inability to cope with the economic depression. The failures of the developmental state to cope with the economic challenges since the bubble burst can also be seen as an explanation for why populism has attracted support in Japan. A question for further research is to understand which demand-side variables have a significant impact on populist support and how much explanatory power such demand-side variables have.

Lately, the literature on European populism has focused more on supply-side explanations. Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2005) equates the populist success with the development of ‘master frames’ that resonate with the voters’ preferences. Mudde (Reference Mudde2007) also puts emphasis on the ideology of the parties and politicians. Also in Japan, populists have developed frames to fight the establishment and to win elections. Koizumi's success as a reformer with harsh critique of the political establishment has surely shown others the voter potential of neoliberal populism in contemporary Japan. Just as Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2004, Reference Rydgren2005) links the rise of PRR parties in many European countries to the success of Front National in France, it is likely that many newer neoliberal populists have learnt a lesson or two from Koizumi's ideology, style, and rhetoric. Not only do ideologies play a role in populist politics, leadership has also been an important factor. Koizumi did a splendid job as the leader of the LDP to criticize the ‘forces of resistance’ (teikō seiryoku). When it comes to organization building, however, the skill and capacity to build a potent party organization was never a factor in the story of Koizumi. He stayed within the LDP and made few efforts to institutionalize his legacy. For others, such as Kawamura and Hashimoto, party organization building has played a larger role in explaining their persistent success.

External explanations – as in ‘opportunity structures’ (Rydgren, Reference Rydgren2005) for populist parties – also need closer attention. Many potential external supply-side explanations exist; here are three examples of how the space for populists opened up in the contemporary era (Table 3). First, the breakdown of the one-party dominant party system in the early post-Cold War era increased the likelihood of establishing new, successful parties. The Cold War had acted as a glue to keep the conservatives together in the same party (Green, Reference Green2011). Second, Japanese electorate behavior shows substantial dealignment to former cleavages. While the LDP relied on strong support from farmers and rural areas, urbanization has led to the need for parties to win support from cities. The corrupt LDP pork and barrel politics that were used to satisfy rural constituencies, opened up doors for neoliberal critique of governance, politics, and corruption. Moreover, dealignment along traditional cleavages contributed to a larger share of floating voters liable to change their party support from election to election. This increased voter volatility has helped the populists find support for their cause. Also, a less clientelistic electorate makes ideology more important in the competition between political parties and politicians than in the past. A third explanation for populist success may be the increased importance of TV and the internet as mediums for political messages.Footnote ¹¹ Politicians with less resources, no formal clientele, and without the capacity to exploit the finances of the state for pork and barrel politics (as LDP politicians traditionally have accessed) can, in particular if they are charismatic and gifted with rhetorical skills, utilize the opportunities offered by ‘TV democracy’.

Author profile

Petter Lindgren is a senior economist and political analyst in ECON Management Consulting AS, Oslo. He works with relevant authorities, businesses and organizations, mainly within the petroleum upstream industry. Lindgren holds an M.Phil. in Economics, an M.A. in Japanese Studies, and B.A. in History from University of Oslo. He was visiting research student at Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies (GSAPS) at Waseda University. Lindgren's primary research fields are Japanese politics and East Asian relations, income inequality, and petroleum economics. His current research project on Japanese populism has been funded by the Itō Foundation and the Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation.