Third force

Since the 2010s, the Innovation Party has emerged as the third force in Japanese politics. It has been especially dominant in Osaka. This section revisits its history.

The prologue began at the 2008 Osaka gubernatorial election. Osaka is the core of the Kansai region, which is the second largest conurbation after the capital area in Japan. A governor is the executive of a prefecture, which is the upper tier of Japanese local governments. The lower tier is a city, a town, or a village, whose executive is a mayor. At this election, the nationally governing Liberal Democratic Party supported Toru Hashimoto, an independent, and he won the governorship.

However, the honeymoon between him and the Liberal Democratic Party did not last long. While he was willing to confront the prefecture’s debt, the party as a whole disagreed with his pursuit, although some Liberal Democratic members of the prefectural assembly favored it. Ultimately, he founded a party called Osaka Ishin no Kai (大阪維新の会) with them in 2010, whose English name was unspecified. In 2011, he resigned as governor during his term to synchronize the gubernatorial election with the scheduled Osaka mayoral election. Then, he stood at the mayoral election rather than at the gubernatorial election to serve a full term. Even if he had won the gubernatorial election, the term would have expired in 2012 because, in the case of the reelection of a candidate at an election triggered by the candidate’s resignation as governor or mayor, the term expires on the original date (Koshoku Senkyo Ho [Public Offices Election Act]: 259-2). He won the mayoralty, while Ichiro Matsui from this party won the governorship.

The assumption of both the governorship and the mayoralty encouraged this party to advance to national politics. In 2012, to expand outside Osaka, members of Osaka Ishin no Kai founded a party called Nippon Ishin no Kai, whose English name was the Japan Restoration Party (hereafter Restoration Party). Soon afterward, it absorbed national politicians, many of whom had seceded from the Liberal Democratic Party. At the general election for the House of Representatives later that year, the Restoration Party won 54 of the 480 seats, the third largest number of seats after the Liberal Democratic Party, who has governed since then, and the Democratic Party, who had governed until then. Hashimoto and Matsui themselves stayed in their respective offices in Osaka.

However, the Restoration Party derailed. An intra-party conflict between originators from Osaka and established politicians in Tokyo was so serious that it split in 2014. Main members from Osaka cooperated with another group of national politicians to form a party called Ishin no To, whose English name was the Japan Innovation Party (hereafter Innovation Party), whereas others formed another party. At the general election later that year, the Innovation Party’s number of seats was 41, a decrease of a quarter in comparison with its predecessor’s number of seats at the previous general election in 2012.

Meanwhile, the party was troubled by the fiasco over the reform of local governments in Osaka. Its eye-catching proposal was to restructure them into Tokyo-style local governments. Tokyo’s structure is unique, where Tokyo Prefecture and the City of Tokyo were reorganized into Tokyo Metropolis and special wards in the 1940s. The special wards lack some of the authority that cities possess, which is instead vested in Tokyo Metropolis. This party’s proposal was to replace the City of Osaka with special wards, where some of the city’s authority would be transferred to Osaka Prefecture and not to the special wards. The party insisted that the purpose of this reform was to make local administration efficient and to improve public services (Osaka Ishin no Kai 2011). In 2014, Hashimoto resigned as mayor during his term to trigger an election. Then, he stood at the mayoral election, claiming the mandate for the reform. Other parties ignored this election, and he easily beat fringe candidates. Nevertheless, this proposal was narrowly rejected by referendum in 2015, which is legally required for such a reform (Daitoshi Chiiki ni Okeru Tokubetsuku no Secchi ni Kansuru Horitsu: 7). The next Osaka mayoral election was due later that year because of the aforementioned rule about reelection. Hashimoto quit politics, admitting responsibility for the failure of the referendum. Still, the Innovation Party held both the governorship and the mayoralty, as Hirofumi Yoshimura from this party won the mayoral election, while Matsui won the simultaneous gubernatorial election for a second term.

The Innovation Party was dealt a further blow by another intra-party conflict between those from Osaka and those in Tokyo. Main members from Osaka formed a party called Osaka Ishin no Kai (おおさか維新の会) in 2015, whose English name was the Initiatives from Osaka. Please note that the characters for the word “Osaka” are different from the characters used in the name of the party founded in 2010. After the dissolution of the Innovation Party in 2016, the Initiatives from Osaka was renamed Nippon Ishin no Kai, although its English name did not revert to the Restoration Party but the Innovation Party, whereas others merged with the Democratic Party. The Innovation Party underperformed at the 2017 general election, as it won only 11 seats, being placed sixth.

Osaka’s bid for a World Expo came to the fore during this plight. Although this party had conceived the idea of a World Expo, its activities gathered pace after the 2015 referendum. It insisted that the purpose of hosting a World Expo was to develop Osaka into one of the two international hubs in Japan, along with Tokyo (Osaka Ishin no Kai 2015: 20–21). Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City administered by this party lobbied the national government, which resulted in Japan’s application to the Bureau International des Expositions, the intergovernmental organization for World Expos, in 2017. Then, the body for the bid, consisting of business organizations and local governments headed by Osaka Prefecture, campaigned internationally, which resulted in the approval of Japan’s bid in 2018.

Subsequently, this party’s second attempt at the reform of local governance in Osaka failed. In 2019, both Matsui and Yoshimura resigned as governor and mayor, respectively, during their term to synchronize the gubernatorial and the mayoral elections with the scheduled elections for the prefectural assembly and the city council on the same day. They exchanged the candidacy at each election because of the aforementioned rule about reelection. At these elections, in addition to holding the governorship and the mayoralty, this party won an absolute majority of seats at the prefectural assembly, although two seats short of it at the city council. Nevertheless, the proposal for the reform was again narrowly rejected by referendum in 2020.

Since 2021, this party’s electoral performance has been stable. At the 2021 general election, it won 41 seats, returning to third place. In 2023, together with the governorship and the mayoralty in Osaka, it won an absolute majority of seats not only at the prefectural assembly but also at the city council for the first time. It replaced Matsui with Hideyuki Yokoyama at the mayoral election because Matsui admitted responsibility for the failure of the 2020 referendum. At the latest general election in 2024, it won 38 seats, being placed third again. It dominated Osaka Prefecture, where it won all the 19 single-member constituencies for the first time. However, it won only four single-member constituencies in other prefectures.

Appeal to Osaka’s Pride

Based on the previous section, this section examines the characteristics of the Innovation Party and its predecessors. I extract two features of it from existent studies, namely populism, which is often associated with conservatism (see, for example, Fahey et al. Reference Fahey, Hino, Pekkanen, Pekkanen and Pekkanen2022; Winkler Reference Winkler2023; Eder-Ramsauer and Matsutani Reference Eder-Ramsauer, Matsutani and Wang2024; and Northey Reference Northey2024), and regionalism (see, for example, Vincent Reference Vincent2021). The transnational prevalence of populists has provoked researchers’ concern about this party’s populist features more than about its regionalist features. I agree that both features exist. Indeed, the party’s policies lean toward conservatism, and its repetition of triggering an election by resigning during a term could be criticized as populist tactics. Nevertheless, this article focuses on the regionalist features because they seem to be what distinguishes it from other parties. In Japan, there have been other conservative or populist parties, but no party headquartered outside Tokyo has been as powerful as the Innovation Party. This section highlights its regionalist features by referring to theory and comparing it with foreign counterparts.

To evaluate the position of this party among others, this article adopts the classic theory of social cleavages. It is usually presented with a reference to the masterpiece of Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan (Reference Lipset and Rokkan1967a), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, which has been cited by a large volume of textbooks on politics. They propounded the influential axiom that a party system was determined by social cleavages. They identified four cleavages, namely center versus periphery, state versus church, land versus industry, and owner versus worker (Lipset and Rokkan Reference Lipset, Rokkan, Lipset and Rokkan1967b). Regionalist parties stand on the peripheral side of the cleavage against center. In some democracies, such parties have dozens of seats in the national legislature. Notable examples are the Scottish National Party in the United Kingdom and the Quebec Bloc in Canada. However, in Japan, prior to the Innovation Party, despite the existence of geographically specific parties that had won local seats, none of them had won dozens of seats in the Diet. It had appeared that this cleavage was unimportant in Japan. The Innovation Party’s achievement at national elections, coupled with its supremacy in Osaka in contrast to its performance elsewhere, demonstrates that it can be regarded as the first Japanese party that has utilized this cleavage. Indeed, treating a country’s second largest city, for example, Osaka, as a periphery may meet objections. Nevertheless, if this cleavage is extended to that of the capital versus other areas, this party fits into it.

This party’s trick is to appeal to Osaka’s pride. Eminent regionalist parties usually evoke regional identity. For example, the Scottish National Party has the historical background of the nation having been independent from England, while the Quebec Bloc is grounded in the French-speaking province being surrounded by English-speaking provinces. Likewise, the locals of Osaka have suffered from an inferiority complex after the convergence of business and other national functions in Tokyo for decades. Under such circumstances, the Innovation Party has leveraged the pride of the locals of Osaka.

This party’s strategy is epitomized by the flagship reform of local governments. Apart from Tokyo, the largest cities in Japan have been granted the status of a designated city (shitei toshi) (Chiho Jichi Ho [Local Autonomy Act]: 252-19). Until around the millennium, this designation had operationally been confined to cities whose population is more than a million, including Osaka. In the 2000s, the benchmark was practically relaxed to 700,000, which nearly doubled designated cities. This inflation may have devalued this status, which may have been perceived as symbolizing Osaka’s fall from the second largest city to an ordinary large city. Against this background, this party’s proposal would equalize Osaka’s structure of local governments with Tokyo’s, which may have been perceived as enhancing Osaka’s position as the second largest city. Thus, this proposal seems to have been attractive to those who are proud of Osaka.

One of the other items that this party has harnessed is Expo 2025. The previous World Expo in Osaka took place in 1970, six years after the first Tokyo Olympics. That expo boosted the confidence of Osaka as the rival to Tokyo. For example, Wilson (Reference Wilson2012), an expert on modern Japanese history, states that both the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and Expo 1970 “reflected and helped to shape the ongoing discourse of Japanese nationalism” (160) and that the expo “can also be read as an expression of regionalism, with the Osaka authorities keen to show that their city could put on as good a show as Tokyo had in 1964” (161). This party seems to emulate the sensation of half a century ago. The hosting of the second World Expo in Osaka four years after the second Tokyo Olympics seems to have salvaged the confidence of Osaka. This mood seems to have reinforced support for this party in Osaka because it undertook the initiative for this expo.

Nevertheless, this very same regionalism has hampered the party. Regionalist parties frequently find it difficult to win seats outside their territories. At the 2019 British general election, the Scottish National Party won 81% of seats in Scotland but no seat elsewhere, occupying only 7% of seats in the House of Commons. At the 2021 Canadian general election, the Quebec Bloc won 41% in Quebec but no seat elsewhere, occupying only 9% overall. Similarly, the Innovation Party won all the 19 single-member constituencies in Osaka Prefecture at the 2024 general election but only 4 elsewhere, winning only 8% of single-member constituencies throughout the country. Obviously, this party seems to have noticed this hurdle. For example, its merger with another party twice in the middle of the 2010s may have been a remedy for this constraint, but both attempts failed. Since then, although some established politicians joined this party individually, there has been no case where it merged with another party.

Potential scenarios

Based on the previous sections, this section predicts the Innovation Party’s future. There seems to be a possibility of growth, maintenance of the status quo, or decline.

One of the potential scenarios is this party’s growth. To achieve this, it would need to get the foothold of another cleavage because it already won almost as many seats as possible on the cleavage between center and periphery. For example, it already won all the single-member constituencies in Osaka Prefecture. Out of the three other cleavages, the one between land and industry seems to give it a chance, which can be interpreted as the one between urban areas versus rural areas. It has expertise in canvassing urban electors because its stronghold of Osaka and the suburbs is mostly urbanized. Obviously, it seems to have noticed these targets, as it has proposed policies intended for urban electors. For example, it has conceived the idea of the decentralization to regions (doshusei) (Innovation Party n.d.). Its proposal is to transfer some authority from the national government to newly created regional governments. This proposal seems to be designed for urban electors outside the capital area because the locality selected for a regional capital would accumulate urban functions.

Another of the potential scenarios is that this party will maintain the status quo. This might not be easy because it will no longer have the draws of the reform of local governments in Osaka and Expo 2025. To defend its stronghold of Osaka, it would need to make new policies that captivate citizens there. Obviously, it seems to have noticed this situation, as it has proposed policies intended for them. For example, Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City administered by this party have advanced the idea of designating Osaka as the second capital (fukushuto) (Osaka Prefecture and City of Osaka 2020). Their proposal is to make Osaka the backup for the capital for emergencies in Tokyo. Another example is their plan for an integrated resort at the site of Expo 2025, which will be the first of its kind in Japan. The company constructing the resort has proposed including “international convention and conference facilities, exhibition facilities, accommodations, entertainment venues, and casino facilities” (Osaka IR n.d.). This party seems to use these projects as the centerpiece of redevelopment to mobilize citizens in Osaka.

In parallel with these bright scenarios, there is also a possibility of this party’s decline. The support for it may have reached a plateau. For example, at the latest general election in 2024, it lost three seats in comparison to the previous general election in 2021. A worry for the party is a decrease in proportional representation seats by two fifths. One of the perennial problems for this party is intra-party conflicts. Although they can happen within any party, it is noteworthy in the context of this article that many of those within this party have been caused by its regionalist features. Internal relations have been complicated by the disagreements between those from Osaka and elsewhere as well as between its national politicians and its local politicians because they have different perspectives. For example, some have prioritized Osaka, whereas others have sought its expansion elsewhere. Expo 2025 did not ease this predicament because this event raised the question of how this party collaborated with the national government in promoting the expo despite being in the opposition in national politics.