JPOSS

The forty-eighth session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on April 25, 2024. Saori Katada (University of Southern California) chaired the seminar and moderated the Q&A session.

Toshiaki Yoshida (Northeastern University) presented a paper investigating factors shaping the outcomes of anti-nuclear power plant movements. The author focuses on three intermediate goals that are collectively sufficient for the passage of nuclear plants: acquisition of land, fishing rights, and consent from the communities. Using data on movements in 32 municipalities across 17 prefectures, he examines six factors related to the strength of movements in blocking each of the three goals. His analysis identifies hierarchical fishing cooperatives as a significant factor that undermines the success of these movements, particularly because the concentration of power in one leader enables targeting by pro-nuclear actors.

Phillip Y. Lipscy (University of Toronto) and Pinar Temocin (University of Tokyo) offered insightful comments on framing, research design, and clarity of the theory. During the Q&A session, participants furthered discussions on relevant concepts and alternative considerations.

The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/.

The forty-fifth session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on February 1, 2024. Amy Catalinac (New York University) chaired the seminar and moderated the Q&A session.

Jiajia Zhou (University of Toronto) presented her paper which investigates the role of parties in shaping the populist vote. Responding to the literature on growth in electoral support for populism, the author focuses on how parties mediate this phenomenon. Building on theories of local party organizational strength and party-voter linkage, she uses municipal-level data in the case of Japan to tests the place-related hypotheses of populist support. In particular, the author looks at how support for the dominant party, the Liberal Democratic Party, varied during the 2005 Lower House election that received a populist framing as a de facto referendum on a bill struck down in the Upper House. The author finds support for the role of local party organizational strength but mixed results for clientelist party-voter linkage. Upon accounting for urban-rural differences, the results suggest a possible depolarizing role of party organizational strength in reconciling support for the geographically divisive policy.

Paul D. Kenny (Australian Catholic University) and Charles T. McClean (Yale University) offered insightful comments ranging from the concept of populism to framing, theory, and measurement considerations. During the Q&A session, participants furthered the discussion on other confounding factors and alternative sources of data to consider.

The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS:  https://jposs.org/.

The forty-fourth session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on December 7, 2023. Christina L. Davis (Harvard University) chaired the seminar and moderated the Q&A session.

Matthew Morris (University of Nottingham) presented his paper examining the effects of deindustrialization on changing voting patterns over the course of three decades in Japan from 1983 to 2012. Drawing from the literature on economic voting, Morris considers the effect of Japan’s transition from a manufacturing economy to a service economy on shifting patterns of ideological voting. Specifically, he tests his theory at two levels of analyses, the prefectural level and the individual level. At the prefectural level, Morris constructs outcome measures by combining measures of ideological positions from the Manifesto Project with a weighted vote share of parties at the prefectural level. His findings suggest a positive relationship between a decline in manufacturing and support for autarchy. At the individual level, his analysis finds age variations in voting patterns.

Maeda Ko (University of North Texas) and Stephen Weymouth (Georgetown University) offered suggestions on ways to improve the validity of the measures and the statistical model used in the study as well as shared their thoughts on the underlying theory and mechanisms driving the outcomes. During the Q&A session, participants furthered discussions on alternative sources of data and dynamic changes to parties and voters during the period analyzed.

The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/.

The forty-third session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on November 9, 2023. Amy Catalinac (New York University) chaired the seminar and moderated the Q&A session.

Patricia Maclachlan (University of Austin at Texas) presented her paper examining why postal privatization has largely stalled since the beginning of its implementation in 2007. Maclachlan revisits one of the hallmark pursuits of the Junichiro Koizumi government in the 2000s and examines why reforms that were initially expected to be transformational have shown lackluster outcomes. She advances a theory about informal institutions, specifically identifying three practices that continue to exert power in resisting a fulfillment of the privatization agenda. These practices are the private ownership of post offices by postmasters, a range of tacit re-employment arrangements involving public, private, and political positions collectively referred to as amakudari, and the use of employee quotas. Maclachlan shows how each of these practices have been left intact by the reforms and continue to exert power in resisting further reforms on the privatization agenda.

Daniel M. Brinks (University of Texas at Austin) and Steven Vogel (University of California, Berkeley) offered suggestions to clarify and expand the contributions of the paper. During the Q&A session, participants furthered discussions on alternative mechanisms and sources of empirical evidence.

The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/.

The forty-first session of the Japanese Politics Online Seminar Series (JPOSS) took place on August 24, 2023. Phillip Y. Lipscy (University of Toronto) chaired the seminar and moderated the Q&A session.

Takaharu Saito (Nagoya University of Commerce and Business) presented his paper examining the impact of divided governments on unilateral policymaking by executive power. Utilizing a dataset of 790 city governments in Japan, which operate under a presidential framework led by mayors, Saito uses the regression discontinuity method to probe the causal relationship. Specifically, he examines the frequency of unilateral action undertaken by mayors⁠—referred to as “senketsu shobun” in accordance with Article 179 of the Local Autonomy Law⁠—and leverages the as-if random occurrence of divided government measured by the alignment of party affiliations between mayors and city assembly chairs who were elected through narrow winning margins. His analysis finds no significant effect of divided government on unilateral policymaking.

Alex Bolton (Emory University) and Charles McClean (Yale University) offered insightful comments on the meaning of unilateralism and divided government in the context of local governments in Japan, the role of assembly chairs, and electoral rules. During the Q&A session, participants furthered discussions on the concept of partisanship and the relationship between national parties and local politics, and provided additional suggestions for improvement.

The organizers would like to thank the presenters, discussants, and participants, as well as the staff at the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, who provided administrative support. We look forward to seeing you at the next session of JPOSS: https://jposs.org/