Japan's premiers doomed to failure
By Yasuhiro Tase
The successors of prime minister Junichiro Koizumi - Shinzo Abe and Yasuo
Fukuda - both resigned after just a year or so in office, and incumbent Taro
Aso looks to be heading the same way. I started covering Japanese politics in
1972, and have had the honor of interviewing 21 prime ministers over 36 years.
Since the quality of Japanese politics never improves, I never run out of
material as a political critic.
Why do Japanese prime ministers have such short terms in office? People often
attribute it to the quality of the politicians, but is this true? I cannot
assume that the qualifications of Japanese politicians are much worse than
those of American politicians. I met four American presidents; Ronald Reagan,
George H W Bush, George W Bush and Bill Clinton. They were all great
communicators with charisma, but when it came to their qualifications as
national leaders, I thought there was not much difference between them and
their Japanese counterparts.
Consider US president-elect Barack Obama. He was an obscure figure a decade
ago. He does not have much experience as a senator either. Why, then, was not
much concern raised about his experience? With a change of American president
comes a turnover of several thousand staffers at the White House, allowing
professionals in various fields picked from around the US to assist the
president. As a reporter who covered the White House during the Reagan era, I
am surprised to see Reagan now so honored as to have an airport and a street
named after him.
When he took office in 1981, no one would have imagined that Reagan would be
ranked as one of the historic presidents. He was prone to slips of the tongue.
What made it possible for him to navigate that difficult time at the end of the
Cold War was the persistent assistance of such talented aides as George Shultz,
Howard Baker and Caspar Weinberger. Such is lacking in Japan. Japanese
ministers appointed by a new prime minister have to dive all on their own into
ministries filled with competent bureaucrats. In the United States, secretaries
throw in their lots with the president; in Japan, even the secretary to the
prime minister tends to work to protect his own position, rather than the
premier's, for he is slated to rise to the highest rank of the bureaucracy.
How can a prime minister achieve anything outstanding under such circumstances?
Except for the secretary in charge of political affairs, the staff members
gathered around the prime minister have usually never met the prime minister
before. The most important tasks for the newly elected prime minister are a
policy address and a press conference where he presents his ideas to the
public. There are no professional speech writers in Japan, however; the prime
minister's speeches are written by bureaucrats. The main task of bureaucrats is
to explain why they cannot execute such and such policies. How can they write
for the prime minister a speech that appeals to public sentiment?
Furthermore, far from everything is ready for the prime minister, who has come
to the Prime Minister's office all on his own. When Keizo Obuchi, the former
prime minister, died while in office, it was agreed to assign a doctor and a
nurse to the PM's office, but no such arrangements have been made. The prime
minister is supposed to live in the designated official residence, but no cook
is assigned there. To entertain guests, he must use outside catering or demae
food-delivery service, often considered casual dining in Japan.
Public polls conducted every month by media outlets are another factor
contributing to the short lifespan of Japanese prime ministers. The Japanese
media meticulously follow how the PM's approval ratings fall from the first
week of the new cabinet. A 100-day honeymoon in the United States sounds
dreamlike; some Japanese cabinets have lasted less than 100 days. Approval
ratings are more affected by the PM's personality, the way he responds to TV
cameras, and his facial expressions than by the content of policies, but only a
few politicians can manage to succeed in all these areas.
As a result, the PM's approval rating falls day by day. The market is sensitive
to this figure, leading to drops in the Nikkei Stock Average, which in turn
pulls down the PM's approval rating. Japanese politics is caught in a vicious
circle. A Japanese prime minister is expected to do an impossible job of
implementing policies welcomed by the public, maintain a lovable character and
exercise strong leadership on the world stage at the same time. This results in
prime ministers with an annual income of approximately 30 million yen
(US$325,000) being criticized by TV presenters earning hundreds of millions yen
in income as "thoughtless of the public". The day might come soon when no one
wishes to become prime minister in Japan.
Yasuhiro Tase is a professor of the Okuma School of Public Management at
Waseda University and a contributing columnist for The Nihon Keizai Shimbun. He
worked for The Nihon Keizai Shimbun for 39 years until 2006, covering Japanese
politics for 36 years, including stints as Washington bureau chief, editorial
writer, editorial board member and columnist. The views expressed in this piece
are the author's own and should not be attributed to The Association of
Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies.
(AJISS-Commentary is an occasional op-ed type publication of The Association of
Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies (AJISS) consisting of three leading
Japanese think-tanks: Institute for International Policy Studies (IIPS),
The Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), and Research
Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS). Used by permission.)
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