Is Japan Losing Its Vitality Because of Dynastic Succession in the Political Class?
With so many scions of Japan's political family dynasties vying to become the next prime minister, the ruling party's selection process has raised questions about whether new blood is needed.
What’s new: After Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced his intention to step down, Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), known as Jiyu Minshu To (自由民主党) or simply Jiminto (自民党) in Japanese, began a two-week campaign to elect his successor on September 27, 2024. The intention is to overcome a series of scandals that have caused his administration to lose popularity and regain public support. As several of the leading candidates to replace Kishida are the sons, grandsons or even great-grandsons of former high-ranking politicians1, including former prime ministers, the debate in Japan over whether such multi-generational political "machines" do more harm than good has been reignited.
Disclaimer: I realize that the reaction of many readers may be, "Well, that's rich coming from someone named Kennedy who's from Chicago, where the Daley political family dynasty ruled the city for decades.” First, I have no relation to the Kennedy family of Boston. Second, yes, I am from Chicago, but I have no relationship to the Daley "machine" that dominated the mayor's office for so many years. I am, however, highly skeptical of any family dynasty that tends to lead to uncompetitive advantages for the incumbent and their family members.
Catch up quick: The LDP is in the midst of a two-week campaign to choose its next leader to succeed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida2. A record 9 candidates are vying to take over Japan's top political post later this month. While power brokers behind rival factions within the LDP used to decide which candidates would receive their endorsement - often based on seniority - reforms were recently introduced in the wake of a fundraising scandal that led to the dissolution of all but one of the former factions. As a result, a record number of candidates have emerged.
Why it matters: Looking at the results of public opinion polls, the names mentioned as some of the most likely candidates are Shinjiro Koizumi, Shigeru Ishiba, and Taro Kono. All of these politicians are popular and have a track record of legislative accomplishments, but what is a little worrying is that all three of them have parents who were Diet members. This situation has led some to conclude that Japan's political ecosystem is calcified and is the main factor that has kept one party in power for so long.
By the numbers: By examining some key statistics on how many hereditary legislators and prime ministers Japan has, a huge red flag becomes apparent.
One-third of postwar prime ministers were hereditary members of the Diet.
Similarly, 30% of the LDP candidates in the last House of Representatives election in 2021 inherited their seats.
Both the father and grandfather of current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were Diet members.
The late Shinzo Abe, who served as prime minister for the longest period after the war (September 2006 ~ September 2007 and December 2012.12 ~ September 2020), also had a father who was a Diet member and a grandfather who was a former prime minister.
There have been 36 postwar prime ministers, from Prince Toshihiko Higashikuni (August ~ October 1945) to Kishida (October 2021 ~ present). Of these, 12, or one third, are hereditary politicians.
There were 27 prime ministers who took office in the 20th century. Of these, 6 were hereditary politicians, accounting for 22%. Thus far there have been 9 prime ministers who took office in the 21st century, of which 6 were hereditary politicians, or 67%. The only non-hereditary politicians who took office in the 21st century were Naoto Kan (June 2010 ~ September 2011), Yoshihiko Noda (September 2011 ~ December 2012), and Yoshihide Suga (September 2020 ~ October 2021). Of these, Naoto Kan and Yoshihiko Noda were prime ministers of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, or Minshuto (民主党) in Japanese3.
Looking only at LDP-led governments, five of the six prime ministers in this century were hereditary politicians: Junichiro Koizumi (April 2001 ~~ September 2006), Abe, Yasuo Fukuda (September 2007 - September 2008), Taro Aso (September 2008 ~~ September 2009), and Kishida.
The number of prime ministers who are members of political family dynasties has increased since the 1990s. The prime ministers who held office in the 1990s were Kiichi Miyazawa (November 1991 ~ August 1993), Morihiro Hosokawa (August 1993 ~ April 1994), Tsutomu Hata (April 1994 ~ June 1994), Tomiichi Murayama (June 1994 ~ January 1996), Ryutaro Hashimoto (January 1996 ~ July 1997), and Keizo Obuchi (July 1998 ~ April 2000), four of whom were from political families. Hosokawa's father was not a member of the Diet, so he does not meet the definition of a hereditary prime minister, but his grandfather was Fumimaro Konoe, who served as prime minister before the war.
The LDP has been in power almost continuously since its founding in 1955, with the exception of 1993-1994 and 2009-2012.
Zoom out: What is going on here?
Unfair advantage: To become prime minister, you have to win election after election, but hereditary Diet members can inherit their parents' political base and financial resources, giving them an advantage over candidates who have to build their support from scratch. In Japan, it is said that for a politician to win an election, he or she must have three "bans" or factors to ensure success, that in Japanese are called sanban (三バン), which include "base" or jiban (地盤), "banner" or kanban (看板), and "bag" or kaban (鞄). Base refers to the geography and organizations from which a politician draws support. The stronger the politician's local name recognition and connections, the stronger his base. Banner refers to the politician's name, accomplishments, party affiliation, etc. that voters use as the basis for choosing a politician. Bag is a general term for the resources needed to run for office, such as campaign funds, organizational strength, and media exposure. Hereditary Diet members have an advantage in all three "bans.” In addition, since the 1970s, the LDP has established a system of allocating high-ranking party positions based on the number of times a Diet member has been elected. Thus, those who start early have a built-in advantage. The gap between the political "haves" and "have-nots" is often literally fixed by birthright.
Oyagacha (親ガチャ): This term, which roughly translates as "parental lottery," can be applied to political family dynasties in the sense that when children are born with a silver spoon in their mouth, or in this case, into a family with a legacy of political power, they are groomed from the start to take over the family power base. In a very real sense, Japan now literally has an inherited political class. But this was not always the case. Until the end of World War II, a similar rigid social structure meant that many of the same families alternated positions of power until Japan's defeat overturned everything. Following the war, new, unknown faces emerged, such as one of the most famous, self-made, and outspoken politicians in modern history, Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka (July 1972 ~ December 1974), who had only a junior high school education. In the decades that followed, however, the tendency to rely on the same families to rule reasserted itself as the second and third generations of postwar politicians inherited their positions and built their careers.
Preferential tax treatment: The sons and daughters of a politician can legally inherit the funds of the family's political base without incurring inheritance taxes. The transfer of such funds outside the family would be subject to additional taxes.
Vested interest bias: Hereditary Diet members tend to be bound by various ties and vested interests from the time of their parents, or even their grandparents and great-grandparents. Therefore, they are likely to have a vested interest bias in policy making. It is not uncommon for young hereditary politicians to lament that they didn't really want to be politicians, but that they felt they could not announce their intention to refuse to take over the family “business” in front of the people who had supported their parents.
Potential for being out of touch with their constituents: Self-made politicians, such as local assembly members, are more likely to be tied to local interests because they have to build their own support groups and political funding organizations from scratch. Many hereditary Diet members don't even grow up in their "home" districts, living with their parents in Tokyo and attending elite schools. Sometimes they lose almost all direct ties to the rural districts where their family political "machine" is based.
Commentary: This precedent is not conducive to dynamic political discourse.
Compared with other developed democracies, the proportion of hereditary Diet members in Japan, and particularly in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, is extremely high. Italy is close, and the U.S. is only about 5%.
There are few organizations or groups with such a high rate of hereditary succession. Such levels of hereditary leadership are rare in both listed and non-listed owner-managed companies, traditional performing arts groups, and public organizations such as administrative bodies.
In the case of physicians and dentists, the huge capital expenditures required to run a competitive family practice or freestanding hospital may justify succession planning for development within a particular family. However, the owners of the most successful multigenerational family practices send their sons and daughters to larger teaching institutions to ensure that successive generations develop their skills and knowledge and don't take anything for granted.
The best private family businesses take a similar long-term approach to developing the next generation of leaders, sending them out into the world to learn the ropes in a less forgiving environment before "coming home" to run the family business. Sometimes even this approach does not work, despite the best intentions to foster a strong governance system, and family-controlled companies tend to underperform within the same industry and spend less on R&D.
To ensure adequate political discourse, effective decision-making, and dynamic leadership, politicians must have strong leadership skills, a wealth of knowledge, the ability to gain the support of a diverse constituency, and a high level of policy-making ability. While there are undoubtedly examples of scions of political family dynasties who have become effective political leaders, simply being handed everything on a silver platter due to nepotism rarely ends well.
As former opposition Prime Minister Noda has suggested, perhaps a rule should be introduced that forces the offspring of hereditary Diet members to take over a new territory separate from their family’s district if they want to run for public office. In this way, truly exceptional political leaders could apply the soft skills learned from their parents without being unfairly advantaged or burdened by the commitments made by previous generations of their own family.
The Japanese government could apply some of the same principles of selection used to develop bureaucrats to nurture politicians. Anyone can become a bureaucrat as long as they graduate from a university and pass the national civil service exam. In fact, if you look at the backgrounds of senior ministry officials, while the recruitment process is centered on exams, the home environments in which they were born and raised are more diverse than those of cabinet ministers and ruling party officials, which are dominated by hereditary politicians. Some ministries have, in fact, internal rules against hiring the children of their own employees.
Ultimately, it all comes down to money or restrictions on donations to political groups. Some believe that by restricting large donations from certain corporations and groups, the financial advantage of hereditary candidates will be eliminated. While that sounds good, whether such a bold move would actually be effective is “a definite maybe" in my book. I have a feeling that political family dynasties would find a way around such rules.
Perhaps a real structural change is needed. Introducing proportional representation and changing the geographic boundaries of single-member districts would probably make it easier for a diverse range of candidates to be elected. There was some momentum behind this idea in 1993, but the conventional wisdom is that the powers that be in the LDP ensured that it never gained traction.
The introduction of term limits could also have a positive effect.
While my opinion as a foreign guest without the right to vote in Japan does not count for much, I would feel more comfortable with political leaders who were not born into their positions of power. I suspect that self-made politicians, warts and all, would better represent their constituents and the country as a whole.
What’s next: Some of the most popular candidates vying to become Japan's next prime minister are hereditary members of the Diet, including the most prominent and leading contender, Shinjiro Koizumi, the 43-year-old son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. His grandfather and great-grandfather were also Diet members. In fact, the Koizumi family from Yokosuka (near Yokohama) has been in power for four generations - a total of 116 years.
Other leading contenders, including Shigeru Ishiba, 67, Taro Kono, 61, and Yoshimasa Hayashi, 63, also inherited their constituencies from their fathers, who were Diet members.
When LDP lawmakers and party members cast their ballots on September 27, it will be the battle of the three kingmakers, Kishida, his immediate predecessor Yoshihide Suga, and LDP Vice President Taro Aso, also a former prime minister, who will be pulling the strings. Each has their favorites, and the real decision will most likely be made behind the scenes.
The new prime minister will then be formally elected by the Diet on October 1.
What do you think? Is Japan's dependence on hereditary members of the Diet healthy? Are you comfortable with the fact that so many of Japan's prime ministers come from political family dynasties? All answers are completely anonymous, even to the author.
Links to Japanese Sources: https://www.asahi.com/edua/article/15413877and https://www.tkfd.or.jp/research/detail.php?id=2302.
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Hereditary Diet members are called seshu giin (世襲議員) in Japanese.
The role of Japan's prime minister differs from that of the president of the United States. American presidents answer directly to the people as individuals and serve four-year terms until the next election. The prime minister shares responsibility with all cabinet members, and they do not answer directly to the people, but rather to the legislature, known as the Diet. Similar to the way parliaments work in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, and the United Kingdom, Japan's Diet is a bicameral parliamentary system. This means that it consists of two houses: the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. If at any time the legislators no longer support the cabinet, either the cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, must resign or the prime minister must call a general election.
The Democratic Party of Japan was a centrist to center-left, liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016.
Your title, "losing its vitality" implies that Japan had vitality in the first place.
Article 9 ….Abe was right that’s why they killed him.