After decades of one-party rule, the Liberal Democratic Party falters

In the United States last year, “change we can believe in” became a national catchphrase. In Japan this past August, the slogan of the victorious opposition party was seiken kotai, meaning “political change.” The triumph of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which won 308 of 480 seats in the powerful lower house of Parliament, marked the end of over 50 years of nearly uninterrupted rule by the center-right Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

Observers in the West heralded the change as a landmark in Japanese politics, but were skeptical about the DPJ’s commitment to reform. The Washington Post, for instance, applauded the end of one-party domination while lamenting that the DPJ had “bought the votes of farmers with money and protection.” In addition to ushering in an era of increased political competition, however, the party has begun to push for substantial, long-awaited reforms in the Japanese political system and a new, more independent approach in relations with the United States, promising signs that the DPJ may substantiate its promises.

Bureaucracy, Technocracy, and One-Party Rule

Japanese politics has historically been dominated by a massive civil service bureaucracy, with over a million employees in various government ministries today. The bureaucrats gained increasing influence over the political decision-making process following World War II, in part due to Japan’s technocratic, government-managed model of economic development. By 1975, the power of the civil servants had grown so much that one minister in Parliament griped that the legislative branch was “an extension of the bureaucracy.”

But in a country known for its conservative political culture, the LDP remained in power even as the bureaucracy mushroomed and the country slogged through the “lost decade” of economic stagnation in the 1990s. During his tenure in the early 2000s, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi battled many of his fellow Liberal Democrats to shrink and privatize the 400,000-member government-run postal, insurance, and financial conglomerate known as “Japan Post.” Although the initiative was ultimately successful, it took years of political maneuvering and intense infighting to pass the legislation.

After Koizumi’s departure in 2006, the LDP was unable to produce another popular candidate. The party replaced its prime minister three times in three years, foreshadowing its landslide defeat at the hands of the DPJ in this year’s elections. The new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, appears to have a mandate for change with an approval rating hovering around 70 percent.

The DPJ includes many former LDP members, but the parties diverge in their governing style and foreign policy orientation. Gerald Curtis, professor of political science at Columbia University, said in an interview with HPR, “the differences are very coherent and dramatic. It is the biggest change in more than half a century in Japan. The two parties have totally different views on how to govern.” Although the DPJ has center-left roots, it has taken a hard line on taming the bloated bureaucracy and crafting an Asia-centered foreign policy.

Taming the Bureaucratic Monster

In its first months in power, the DPJ has faced the challenge of reforming the Japanese civil service head on. The party leadership has focused on increasing accountability and transparency in the government by restoring power to appointed ministers. Michael Green, Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the HPR that the DPJ “has been trying to give politicians more control, and leave the bureaucrats in a more implementing role.” Whereas the LDP lacked the political will to confront its allies in the bureaucracy, the DPJ’s plan has achieved considerable success in a short period of time. “The DPJ has managed in only a month in office to fundamentally change this system … . In today’s climate, if bureaucrats actively oppose a policy, they will lose their jobs,” Curtis explained.

With the influence of the bureaucracy in check, policymaking has become less opaque. Prior to the recent elections, top civil servants in each ministry were allowed to hold weekly decision-making meetings without the participation of politicians. The DPJ quickly banned those meetings, to the acclaim of most of the Japanese public.

The Beginning of a “Different” Friendship

The DPJ has also gained popularity for its new approach to foreign policy, which many Japanese had perceived as too dependent on the United States. Hatoyama has repeatedly declared that he will pursue a “more equal relationship” with America. This attitude stems in part from a sense among left-leaning politicians in the DPJ that close ties with the U.S. have not sufficiently benefited Japan. In particular, they point to Japan’s extensive cooperation with the Pentagon and the establishment of dozens of American military bases on the Japanese islands. The largest set of bases, in Okinawa, occupies 18 percent of the island’s territory. Located close to residential areas, they are unpopular among the public. The DPJ’s vision of an “equal relationship” with the United States entails the removal of many of these bases. In another sign of the new order it wishes to establish, the DPJ has reduced Japan’s involvement in Afghanistan. The DPJ recently ended the controversial refueling of NATO ships in the Indian Ocean.

Japan’s consul general in New England, Masaru Tsuji, downplayed the changes in an interview with the HPR. “Although American relations remain a cornerstone for the country, the new regime wants to emphasize equal partnership. Both countries have a new administration and thus require a new type of cooperation,” Tsuji argued, noting that Japan remains the third largest contributor to economic reconstruction in Afghanistan.

Yet there is little doubt that there has been a shift in rhetoric and policy. Shoichi Itoh, an expert in U.S.-Japan relations at the Brookings Institution, told the HPR that the DPJ “desires a more independent foreign policy,” and would be less deferential to Washington than its predecessor. 

In a pre-election op-ed in the New York Times, Hatoyama called for a “new path for Japan” and the creation of an “East Asian community” for collective security. “We must not forget our identity as a nation located in Asia,” Hatoyama wrote. “I believe that the East Asian region, which is showing increasing vitality, must be recognized as Japan’s basic sphere of being. … The financial crisis has suggested to many that the era of U.S. unilateralism may come to an end.”

Hope and Change

The DPJ has thus begun to give seiken kotai concrete meaning at home and abroad. Its victory portends not only an era of increased competitiveness and accountability in Japanese politics, but also a significant departure from the LDP’s domestic and foreign policy. Prime Minister Hatoyama seems set to pursue many long-anticipated changes as a reformer. But the real test for his party may be whether reform produces renewed economic growth and a new model of capitalism for Japan. If he is successful, the Japanese may soon see the benefits of their more competitive democracy in a tangible way.

Image Credit: m-louis (Flickr)

In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush made a sweeping commitment to global economic development.  In early 2002, he declared, “We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror. We fight against poverty because opportunity is a fundamental right to human dignity.” Development was to be a vital third pillar of national security policy alongside defense and diplomacy, a welcomed elevation after years of trimmed budgets and declining relevance.

Yet despite the enshrinement of international development in the U.S. National Security Strategy of 2002, and the reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. foreign aid policy has only grown more fragmented, limited, and incoherent in the last eight years. While the Obama administration scrutinizes status quo aid policy, fierce debate swirls among academia, the private sector, NGOs, and think tanks about how to correct U.S. aid’s institutional flaws. But there is little debate about one fact: America’s foreign aid policy is in need of repair.

Aid as We Know it

The framework that governs American foreign aid today was formulated during the Cold War, when aid was primarily used as a tool for supporting anti-communist regimes. President Kennedy pushed Congress to create a long-term foreign aid infrastructure, resulting in the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the establishment of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The next and last legislative overhaul came with the FAA of 1973, an effort to reduce reliance on large government-driven aid projects. Since then, however, the recommendations of successive presidential task forces have failed to garner support in Congress. In the 1990s, having lost its anti-communist rationale, American aid fell to its lowest levels.

Only after 9/11 did the Bush administration recognize the development of stable economies and effective democratic states as a key national security priority. Bush expanded the range of agencies dealing with development to include the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, while overseeing an increase in aid from $10 billion in 2000 to $22 billion in 2008.

Cold War Legislation in a Post-9/11 World

Yet the legislative foundation of America’s aid policy, the FAA, remains oriented around top-down Cold War objectives at a time when the newest actors in development are proliferating NGOs and microfinance initiatives. Noam Unger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told the HPR, “Legislation is a key piece of fundamental reform because the FAA of 1961 as amended … has many elements that are obsolete… and overlapping.”

In fact, much of the law deals not with strategies for poverty reduction but with Pentagon assistance to foreign militaries, fragmentary earmarks, and complex aid procurement rules.

Several pieces of legislation moving through Congress now seek to address these problems. Chief among them is the Foreign Assistance Revitalization and Accountability Act, championed by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN). The bill proposes to make USAID the focal point for aid decisions and create a body called the “Council on Research and Evaluation of Foreign Assistance” to evaluate the effectiveness of all U.S. aid policies.

The economic crisis, however, has made it difficult to obtain widespread support. Given “budget constraints and other concerns,” cautions the Congressional Research Service, “…some Members of Congress may prefer a continuation of the existing foreign aid structure.”

A Crippled USAID

At the same time, the Obama administration has failed to capitalize on early momentum to establish a new direction at USAID. As of the beginning of October, more than nine months after Obama’s inauguration, no one had been nominated to administer USAID.

This first year has presented an unparalleled opportunity for strong leadership to reshape a weak USAID and represent aid interests in major policy-making. The White House is in the midst of an aid policy review and the State Department is undergoing its own Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. But in the absence of an Obama-appointed administrator, there is no champion for a national aid strategy, much less an individual to revitalize USAID.

There is also a growing consensus that USAID is understaffed, having seen a large decline in personnel and capability in the last few decades. Joseph Nye, professor of international relations at Harvard, explained, “USAID as an institution has been decimated over the past decade and has now become something of a contracting agency… The number of skillful and experienced USAID officials has been cut dramatically.” In the 1990s, 37 percent of the agency’s workforce left without replacement, and between 2002 and 2005, direct hires working for USAID in the field fell 29 percent.

The organization has become dependent on private mega-contracting, leaving little room for institutional expertise. “The conventional wisdom is that USAID has become dysfunctional as an organization,” said Lant Pritchett, professor of international development at Harvard.

One Voice for Aid?

USAID’s capacity to formulate and guide a national aid strategy has also been sapped by the proliferation of aid bureaucracy. Unger explained, “Our foreign assistance is fragmented across a range of offices and bureaus and departments in the executive branch.” A recent Oxfam study found that the FAA had come to encompass 33 different goals, 75 priority areas, and 247 directives, stretched over 12 departments and 25 agencies.

Many development aid studies have called for the creation of a new cabinet-level agency to represent the United States in all aid discussion, establish coherent development policy, and balance short-term political and security priorities with long-term development goals. This reorganization would counter the rising “militarization of aid” in the Department of Defense as the military becomes the point organization for aid disbursement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.K. adopted this structure in 1997 with the creation of a minister-level Department for International Development. Yet due to the high political and financial cost that a U.K.-style transformation would entail, it is unlikely that the Obama administration will pursue a similar path.

In the near future, a more achievable goal may be to revitalize USAID. Unger advocated an “empowered USAID administrator” that would “represent development considerations in all foreign policy and national security discussions, whether at the National Economic Council or the National Security Council.” An empowered administrator would help to unify aid policy among various bureaucracies and simplify U.S. interaction with multilateral organizations and NGOs.

Today’s incoherent and fragmented American aid policy is the result of decades of neglect and politically driven aid disbursement. Even development’s newfound significance after 9/11 has not led to a sharpened aid strategy. Instead, more funds have been pushed through an increasingly hollow and complicated aid bureaucracy. In an era of failed states, faltering economies, and international terrorism, the development imperative is more pressing than ever. But before the world’s largest aid donor can hope to build effective institutions abroad, it must repair its own foreign assistance infrastructure.