| For only the third time in 55 years, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party failed to win a majority in the October 27 general elections. During the decades after World War II, the LDP led Japan through dramatic growth, as the country transformed from wartime devastation into the world’s second-largest economy by 1968—a status it kept until 2010.
But that was then. Japan’s economy has sputtered through years of stagnation, and in the past few, the country has experienced relatively high inflation for the first time in generations. And then—like the previous two times the LDP lost its governing majority—a corruption scandal tarred the party.
In the recent election, the LDP lost 68 of its 259 seats in Parliament. The party’s incumbent prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, was able to get a new cabinet approved by the legislature in mid-November—but now he and his coalition partner only have a minority in Parliament, creating new uncertainty about the party’s ability to govern. What happened?
Tobias S. Harris is the founder of the political-risk advisory firm Japan Foresight and the author of The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan. Harris says the Japanese people have lost trust in the LDP—but not just the LDP; they’ve lost trust in the formerly cherished state bureaucracy along with it, and in public institutions generally. This growing pessimism is visible in public-opinion polls—and also in persistently low voter turnout over the past dozen years.
Still, Harris says, what’s happening here in Japan differs in one major way from what’s been happening in other advanced democracies facing similar problems since the Covid-19 pandemic: the absence of a populist political reaction. No party has tried to mobilize public anger with anti-elite, us against them rhetoric. The Democratic Party of Japan, which ruled from 2009 to 2012, did have some populist tendencies—but its failures in office were followed by a loss of faith in government so profound that now, there are few voters left who think even populists could fix things … |
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From Tobias S. Harris at The Signal:
- “The nature of Japan’s economy has changed over time. Manufacturing has been offshored and hollowed out. Japan used to be the world leader in many industries, but it’s been losing market share to more competitive economies in the region …. Japan got left behind in much of the high-tech revolution, too, so now they’re trying to play catch-up while facing this demographic problem [the country’s population is rapidly aging—and shrinking], along with enormous public debt. The political leadership has put a lot of effort into addressing this whole complex tangle of problems, but it hasn’t had a lot of success—and voters feel that.”
- “In 2011, Japan was hit by a triple disaster: a magnitude-9 earthquake, a tsunami, and the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. This triggered a tremendous loss of faith in the government and the public utilities. There was a sense that the political system just wasn’t responding to public need.”
- “The big question … is in foreign policy: How can Prime Minister Ishiba, given his party’s weakened domestic base, work with a second Trump administration? He’ll likely have to navigate tariff threats and demands for higher defense spending and higher payments to Washington for hosting U.S. forces. The dynamic was very different in 2016, when Donald Trump was first elected. … The Donald Trump of 2024 is not the Donald Trump of 2016.”
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| NOTES |
The Presidential Pardon Power
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| On Sunday, December 1, U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter Biden for “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” What’s remarkable isn’t just the fact that the elder Biden broke his promise not to interfere in the legal process against the younger—who’s been convicted on gun-, tax-, and drug-related charges—but the sheer sweep of the pardon. Hunter Biden has not only been pardoned for the crimes he’s been convicted of; he’s been given immunity from any potential federal prosecution in connection to his foreign business dealings. On its face, this would all seem highly unusual. But how unusual is it?
No American president has ever pardoned his child before, but several have issued pardons to other family members and supporters. Abraham Lincoln pardoned his wife’s half-sister Emilie Todd Helm, who had sided with the Confederacy. Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger Clinton for drug-related convictions. Donald Trump—who’s expressed indignation about the Biden pardoning—pardoned his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner, who’d been convicted of witness tampering, tax evasion, and illegal campaign contributions.
Jeffrey Crouch’s The Presidential Pardon Power traces the history of how U.S. presidents have used the power to pardon. Traditionally, Crouch says, it was used to grant mercy for essentially humane reasons—but ever since President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon for his involvement in the Watergate burglary, presidents have used it more and more to protect their subordinates and supporters.
—Gustav Jönsson |
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| The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum |
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| MEANWHILE |
- Three hours after South Korea’s president declared martial law on December 3, the country’s Parliament voted to lift the order—and deputies of the opposition Democratic Party vowed to remain in the legislature until the president rescinded the declaration: The party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung, said he and DP legislators “will protect our country’s democracy and future and public safety … with our own lives.” President Yoon Suk Yeol, of the conservative People Power Party—who’d invoked the measure in the name of eradicating pro-North Korean forces and protecting South Korea’s constitutional, democratic order—ultimately backed down.Tensions with the North remain high. Last year, Pyongyang declared it no longer sought reunification with the South and considered it a hostile country—a shift that, here in The Signal, Michael Breen put in the context of a potentially broader transformation in North Korea.
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- The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has said that Christians should not worry about nuclear war—and even look forward to the possibility of it: “Christians are not afraid of the so-called end of the world. We are waiting for the Lord Jesus, who will come in great glory, destroy evil, and judge all nations.” Patriarch Kirill has previously averred that Russia’s nuclear stockpile was created “by divine providence.”
- It was a record-setting weekend at movie theaters in the U.S. over the Thanksgiving holiday, led as one might expect by a slate of blockbusters—but driven significantly also by independent films: “In the weird post-Covid shift, tentpoles can slay, and indies can disappear. This weekend, however, they didn’t. Audiences showed decent specialty support for films from Heretic and A Real Pain to Conclave and even Latvian animated Flow. Three indies graced the top ten.”
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| ELSEWHERE |
- The world of business moves fast, technology especially—tech startups even more so. Need to keep up? Join more than 2.5 million pioneers and pacesetters, and read The Hustle.
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| Join The Signal to unlock full conversations with hundreds of contributors and support our independent new approach to current-affairs coverage. |
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| Coming soon: Adam Tooze on America’s military buildup … |
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