Korean Parliamentary Politics

Abstract

When Japan faced unprecedented and multi-dimensional challenges as those posed by the recovery from the devastations of the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, followed by the subsequent meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, both the leadership style of then prime minister Kan Naoto and the governability of the then ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) were put into question. The main opposition at that time, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), called for the immediate resignation of Kan and the dissolution of the House of Representatives (HR), Shugiin, and maintained that the change of a ruling party by a general election was the only way to restore urgent leadership and governability. Was the indecisiveness in crisis management attributable to qualifications of a particular politician and a lack of experience of the ruling party who had come to power a year and a half before the national disaster? Was it resolved by the replacement of the top leader in power by Abe Shinzo whose LDP swept the general election in December 2012? Or, was the indecisiveness in crisis management more structural in the sense that regardless of who is prime minister, or which party is in government, the same challenges exist? In this chapter, we argue that the continued political immobility of Japan for the last few years was a result of the constitutional crisis caused by a bicameral parliamentary system with a strong upper house.

Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at the 2011 Japan Public Choice Society Annual Conference, Kaetsu University, Tokyo, Japan, July 2, 2011, and the 2012 Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada, March 17, 2012. Financial support from The Japan-Korea Cultural Foundation and the University of Niigata Prefecture is gratefully acknowledged.