By Misa Murohashi, translated by Bruce Rutledge

In late August, the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), scored an impressive victory over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the lower house election. On September 16, the DPJ ushered in political change in the form of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and his new Cabinet. According to several newspaper polls, the new Cabinet’s approval rating was more than 70%, the second highest such rating, topped only by the Koizumi Cabinet of 2001, which ranked in the 80% range. The Hatoyama Cabinet even outpaced the Cabinet of Morihiro Hosokawa, which ended 38 consecutive years of LDP rule in 1993.

This time, political change was triggered by the global recession and resistance to the LDP’s push during the Koizumi years for policies that embraced market fundamentalism. The trend was for voters to favor the more liberal DPJ, but taking a longer view, it was also about moving away from the so-called 1955 System, which refers to the year when two parties merged to make the LDP. To put it roughly, Japan has been moving from a political system suited to the postwar years of long-term economic growth to a system more suited to tackling the problems of an economically advanced nation.

The 1955 System refers to the year when the Socialist Party united under one umbrella an array of political parties once driven by divisions, while the conservative Democratic Party and Liberal Party combined to make the Liberal Democratic Party, thus bringing about a two-party structure. The debate at the time centered on the Constitution, which was written while Japan was under the influence of the US-led military occupation. The Liberal Democratic Party wanted to revise the Constitution, but the Socialist Party fought to preserve it because of its clear repudiation of war. In the 1958 election, the LDP, unable to reach its goal of constitutional revision, won 60% of the seats and secured its place as the ruling party. From then on, the LDP, while never able to revise the Constitution, continued to rule year after year. The LDP supported the presence of the US military in Japan, relying on the US to take care of security issues while it focused Japan’s national spending on economic policies. This put the country on the path of economic growth and created a wide base of support for the party. Meanwhile, the Socialists continued to oppose the US military and support the Constitution. The party went into decline after the Cold War came to an end.

By 1955, Japan’s economy had recovered to prewar levels. After that, it began to achieve miraculous growth. By 1968, Japan’s gross national product (GNP) trailed only the US among capitalist economies. The oil shock and a rapid rise in the value of the yen in the first half of the 1970s brought an end to that miraculous growth when, in 1974, the Japanese economy experienced a contraction. But after that, the economy settled into a period of stable growth. The LDP continued its long reign during this period by closely cooperating with bureaucrats and large corporations, protecting export-related businesses and supporting large-scale public-works projects. It also took a protective stance toward local farming. The party successfully raised the overall standard of living, controlled the wealth gap and kept regional differences from arising. These were the positive attributes of the 1955 System.  Americans might tend to see the DPJ as the liberal party and the LDP as the conservative party, but historically the LDP has been an aggressive proponent of large public-works programs (i.e., “big government”) and has taken a middle road on economic policy. The LDP changed course and focused on “small government” in 2001 with the induction of the Koizumi administration.

The negative side of the 1955 System started to appear in the second half of the 1970s, beginning with the Lockheed scandal of 1976, which tied then Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka to bribery and influence-peddling. After that, other large corruption scandals were revealed, implicating elements of the LDP, the bureaucracy, some corporations and organizations in the politics of greed. The party had held onto political power for so long that it had started to rot. The LDP’s over-reliance on the bureaucrats called into question its independence. The voters watched as their elected leaders — who were supposed to be drawing up laws and policies — planned things with the bureaucratic leadership. The people began to criticize this system as “bureaucratic politics.” Additionally, the party was criticized because the factions within the LDP created an opaque governing style where the voters’ opinions weren’t reflected and each faction positioned itself to get its candidate nominated as prime minister. The Bubble economy of the late 1980s burst in 1991, quickly leading to a long stretch of difficult economic times. This led to dissatisfaction with the LDP’s economic policies, which was compounded by the distrust voters were feeling toward the party. Yet political change was not on the horizon just yet because the Socialists were collapsing and the opposition parties were splintered. No viable alternative appeared. Also, the new electoral system with multiparty districts tended to favor the ruling party.

Around 1990, the necessity for election reform and political reform was clear, and young lawmakers within the LDP began to push it. From this point, attempts to get out from under the 1955 System started to occur at a more frequent pace. In 1993, when some bills related to political reform were scrapped, young lawmakers within the LDP, including current Prime Minister Hatoyama, broke from the party, submitting a resolution of no confidence in the LDP government. The defiant lawmakers formed two new parties. In the next election, the LDP lost its majority, and a coalition was formed by the two new parties and other opposition parties to usher in the Hosokawa administration. But just a year later, the LDP launched an unusual plan to regain power: It teamed with its one-time arch-enemy, the Socialist Party. Yet the political reform bills passed during the Hosokawa administration are directly linked to the regime change we saw in 2009. But the LDP would rule for 16 consecutive years before that would happen, largely thanks to the new voice of Junichiro Koizumi, who in 2001 vowed to destroy the old LDP, conduct structural reform without sanctuary, take a critical eye to public-works projects, which had become a hotbed of corruption, and deregulate the marketplace. In 1996, the DPJ was formed. While it battled against Koizumi’s popularity, it kept its aim on regime change and gradually grew stronger. The Koizumi administration came to an end of its term in 2006, but after the next two prime ministers resigned, people started to sense the confusion at the heart of the LDP, leading to the events of this year. When you compare the events of 1993 to the events of 2009, it’s clear that this time, the Japanese have taken a clear step away from the 1955 System.

Since the Bubble economy burst in the early 1990s, the economy has had trouble shaking off its slump, deficit spending has swelled, young people have no job security and the country is graying while young couples are having fewer children. It seems the country is plagued with a host of problems.  Japanese society seems adrift and pent up these days. The recent political change isn’t going to solve all this, but the people of Japan have high hopes because this change has come after waiting for such a long time. They are looking to the DPJ, which has no ties to the past, to organize a political system that solves problems in a timely manner and reforms the current system, which has calcified and no longer has room for public opinion as it’s dominated by the bureaucratic leadership. The country also expects reform within the vastly depleted LDP. The Japanese are now hoping for the establishment of a mature democratic system.