INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN PRACTICES

P. S. VARYUSHIN

Graduate student

I. S. TIKHOTSKAYA

Candidate of Economic Sciences

Faculty of Geography, Lomonosov Moscow State University

Keywords: Japan, political modernization, political model, political system, electoral geography, USA

Japan has the oldest traditions of parliamentarism among Asian countries. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, European influence has been great, and in the course of the post-war democratic transformations, which took place with the active participation of American specialists, the Japanese political system absorbed concepts inherent in the American political system. As a result, the parliamentary system of this country simultaneously includes both the features of the European, primarily German and Westminster, and the American parliamentary system.

The current Japanese Constitution, adopted in 1947, guarantees citizens the right to form political associations and, in fact, determines the creation of a multi-party political system. However, in reality, only one Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained in power there for almost the entire post-war period.

In recent years, Japanese society has been actively discussing the elimination of third parties from the political process and building a two-party system on the American model, as well as building parties with clearly defined programs aimed at a certain electoral resource, on the model of European political associations.

THE JAPANESE POLITICAL MODEL

Since 1947, when the first elections to the post-war Parliament were held, and until the reform of 1993, voting in elections to the House of Representatives (the lower house of Parliament) was held in multi-member districts using the single non-transferable vote system*. That is, voters could vote for one candidate, and several people won in each of the districts (according to the number of mandas).-

* This system continues to be partially used to this day in elections to the House of Councillors (upper house of Parliament) (author's note).

those who received a relative majority of votes. At the same time, the party affiliation of candidates was not taken into account, the elections were held "on an individual basis".

One of the advantages of such a system is that it combines both the advantages of majority and proportional systems. On the one hand, it helps to minimize the loss of votes (which can reach 50% or more in a majority system, but tend to zero in a proportional system), and, on the other hand, it is better to evaluate specific candidates, which is typical of a majority system, but is not assumed in a proportional system.

The system used in Japan should have taken into account the best practices of both European parliamentarism, which is based on the principle of proportional representation, and the American one, which is based on the concept of "winner takes all" (as a result of majority voting).

The European system allows achieving the most objective representation of all social trends and political forces in a representative legislative body. The wide range of political views formed in parliament in this case usually leads to a relatively lower stability of the government, a more complex process of reaching a political compromise.

On the one hand, the electoral system chosen in Japan contributed to the formation of a political system based on the confrontation between the LDP and a group of opposition parties that are trying to seize power without much success. At the same time, one cannot deny the influence of the country's cultural characteristics (high ethnic homogeneity, preservation of traditions, including subordination to superiors, strict discipline, unquestionable authority, compliance with regulations) on the current political situation.

Since the 1980s, when Japan ended a period of rapid economic growth, which smoothed out the shortcomings of the country's political model, this system began to cause many negative reviews in Japanese society, which ultimately led to its reform. One of its main drawbacks is the very high personalization of elections - the orientation of voters, first of all, to the personal qualities of candidates. This is also due to the weakness of parties that act not as ideologues of certain political platforms, but as political associations created to promote candidates and provide administrative support for elections, ¹ as well as the weakness of political programs of parties that, as it seemed to many, did not meet the requirements of modern liberal democracy of the Western type.

The existence of dual competition - between parties and between candidates-has led to an increase in campaign spending, and elections, as noted by Columbia University Professor J. R. R. Tolkien.Curtis ², turned into a competition between candidates in the size of the electoral fund. This opinion is also ingrained in the public consciousness of the Japanese.

The single non-transferable vote system and multi-member districts made it difficult to form large factions in Parliament. To gain a majority in the House of Representatives, the party had to elect at least two parliamentarians in each district, but this is a difficult task when candidates from one party have to compete with each other and the level of internal competition is very high. ³ For a long time, this affected the political life of Japan only indirectly, since the country has been managed by the LDP*.

The prolonged stay in power of one party and internal competition for votes led to the fact that the LDP had to sacrifice cohesion - a large number of factions were formed: in different years - from 6 to 13. Each of them was largely autonomous, had its own leader, its own program and its own views on the future of the country. The number of factions ranged from 1-3 to hundreds of parliamentarians.

This, by the way, is one of the important features of the LDP and its "unsinkability" - in fact, it met the interests of "both yours and ours" (and was not a party in the classical sense). As noted by Harvard Law School Professor M. Ramseyer and Yale University Professor F. Rosenbluth in his study "Japan's Political Marketplace", LDP members consciously promoted the formation of factions and koenkai (personal support groups for politicians) - in order to be re-elected ⁴.

A high degree of factionalism within parties leads to the fact that the process of political decision-making goes beyond the public plane and becomes a subject of trade within the party. This reduces the degree of voter confidence in parties, affects their credibility as organizers of the country's political life, and can lead to a political crisis, such as in 2005**, when the parliament was dissolved and early elections were held. This decision was caused by the refusal of the ruling party deputies in the Chamber of Councillors to support the government's project on the privatization of mail, which was personally defended by the then Prime Minister of the country Dz.Koizumi.

Another feature of the Japanese political system that led to its reform is the high localization of political support for candidates and members of the House of Representatives. As shown by a professor at the University of Chicago, Nobel Laureate in Economics R. Myerson ⁵, the system

* The LDP held a majority in the House of Representatives and formed a government from 1955 to 2009, with the exception of 9 months in 1993-1994, when it ceded power to a coalition government of 7 opposition parties, and in 1994 - 1996, when it was part of a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party of Japan (author's note)..

* * Despite the fact that this example refers to the period after the reforms of the 1990s, the factionalism of parties, as will be shown later, remains relevant today (author's note).

The lack of a single non-transferable vote has contributed to the formation of an electoral landscape characterized by a very high concentration of political support for candidates around their native localities. There were cases when 2/3 of the votes cast for a candidate fell on the territory that was about 1/3 of the area of the electoral district, and this politician won.

This is due to the fact that the country's electoral system allowed winning with a relatively low percentage of support. To do this, it is enough to concentrate your efforts on a small part of the electoral district, where the candidate has the greatest support. Therefore, despite the responsibility of parliamentarians to make decisions for the benefit of the whole country, they often represent only a small part of their constituency. ⁶ This leads to the manifestation of the so-called "pork barrel" practice* - the activity of a deputy to attract as much state funds as possible to his home region. To this end, deputies support projects that benefit each other's "home region".

As a negative feature of the Japanese electoral system, the presence of disproportions in the weight of votes among residents of different regions of the country was often noted. The electoral districts formed after World War II reflected the territorial organization of the settlement of those years when 2/3 of Japanese were residents of rural areas.

Despite repeated district reforms, the imbalance between the weight of votes in rural and urban areas persisted. A striking example is the comparison of the Kaganawa prefectural electoral district, which includes the second largest city in the country, Yokohama, and one of the Nagano prefectural districts, located mainly in rural and mountainous areas. In the early 1990s, there were 427.7 thousand voters per member of the House of Representatives in the first of these districts, and 142.9 thousand in the second.

ELECTORAL REFORM OF 1993 AND ITS RESULTS

Under the pressure of accumulated problems, the ruling LDP carried out electoral reform, the main goal of which was to change the form of territorial representation, strengthen the role of parties and create a two-party political system similar to the example of the United States. It was assumed that this would make the country's political life more transparent and controlled, and the work of the legislative and executive authorities more efficient. During the transformations of the 1990s, the LDP had to make decisions that obviously worsened the party's position in elections (the introduction of a mixed electoral system with voting on party lists, the revision of the boundaries of single-member districts, the rejection of multi-member districts).

According to the acts adopted during the reform, both houses of the Japanese Parliament were elected by universal suffrage under a mixed system. About half of the deputies were determined by national voting according to the proportional scheme, the second half - by districts. The lower house was elected in single-member districts, while the upper house continued to use the single non-transferable vote system.

Since the ruling LDP has always relied on a conservative rural electorate for a long time, it was not interested in a radical revision of the electoral district map. The economic and social problems that emerged at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s forced the ruling party to undertake reforms, and the district grid was revised in such a way that the problem of unequal voting in rural and urbanized electoral districts of the country was partially solved.

Although the results of the reform of the 1990s are not recognized as successful by all experts, some tasks seem to have been solved nevertheless. T. Masahiko, a professor at Doshisha University (Kyoto), after analyzing the changes in the behavior of LDP legislators after the 1996 elections, concluded that the reform weakened the influence of the "pork barrel" practice in politics in general, and largely minimized the impact of this phenomenon in such areas as national security and judicial proceedings^..

According to some experts, the electoral reform eliminated the tough internal party struggle, which led to the weakening of factions and the centralization of the Prime Minister's power within the parties. ⁸

The introduction of the proportional representation scheme and the redrawing of single-member districts significantly reduced the disparity in the distribution of mandates between voters in different regions. And the abolition of multi-member majoritarian districts led to a reduction in the level of intra-party competition and party consolidation. As noted by associate Professor at Columbia University S. Hirano ⁹, the reform has reduced the disparity in support for candidates within the district (the factor of support in the" home " region has become less acute).

For more than a decade after the reform, the LDP managed to maintain control of the parliament, but in 2009 there was what can really be called a "quiet revolution" in politics - the LDP's defeat in the ¹⁰ elections-the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power.

With Japan's deep traditions, it takes time and a "critical mass set" to transform "quantity into quality"to make changes in everything, especially in people's minds. The DPJ's victory was largely due to the fact that people had lost faith in the LDP's ability to re-establish its independence.-

* Pork barrel (English-lit. "lard barrel") - funding allocated by the legislative authorities from the state budget for local projects in order to win the sympathy of voters in a given territory. The expression comes from the southern states of the United States, where during the Civil War, slaveholders sometimes displayed a barrel of corned beef to their slaves in order to gain their favor.

many, by their own admission, in conversations with one of the authors of these lines, voted for her out of curiosity.

Under these circumstances, the DPJ's pre-election promises (including raising the minimum wage and supporting families with children and farmers) attracted quite a significant electorate. Perhaps the wider participation of the "lost generation" in the elections also contributed, although young Japanese people are rather apolitical. Undoubtedly, a significant role was played by women who seek to establish a balance between work and personal life. The aging Japanese society is hungry for change! However, the early change of leaders, which was typical for both the end of the XX century and the beginning of the XXI century, continued ¹¹.

After the 2009 elections, many analysts predicted a prolonged crisis for the LDP and talked about the success of the reform, which led to the formation of a stable two-party model. But already in December 2012, the LDP returned to power in early elections, receiving 43% of the vote against the DPJ's 22.8%. Many analysts have pointed out that Japan's two-party democracy has been destroyed in 39 months. ¹² The DPJ lost up to 4/5 seats in the lower house, while the LDP was able to form a majority*.

The reason for such a dramatic failure of the DPJ is due, among other things, to the government's not always effective actions in the context of the global financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009, its measures to eliminate the consequences of the earthquake in March 2011, and the failure to fulfill the promises included in the party's election manifesto (including reducing the tax burden, increasing children, reducing general government spending, etc.), as well as inattention to the problems associated with the American presence in Okinawa.

As noted by K. Kawakami, a professor at Meiji Gakuin University (Tokyo), the most important reason for the DPJ's defeat was that during the election campaign, the party actively emphasized its intention to fully implement the program set out in the manifesto, but failed to do so. The problem of maintaining military bases in Okinawa also played a role, of course.¹³ In turn, University of California Professor E. Krauss stressed that the 2012 elections are a lost opportunity to build a real two-party system. The main challenges facing Japan, "including an aging population and a huge national debt, can only be managed if the political system is not as dysfunctional as it is now." ¹⁴

Russian Japanese scholar E. V. Molodyakova believes that the formation of a two-party system is hindered by several factors. The confrontation between Liberal Democrats and Democrats is not so fundamental - they are united by much more than they divide. Everyone has a common political and social background, similar worldview and views. In her opinion, the events of recent years demonstrate that the creation of an effective two-party system of the "American model" in Japan is again postponed for a long time.¹⁵

The problematic nature of the formation of a two-party political system in Japan has led to discussions about the correctness of the chosen path. In the course of the reform of 1993-1994, it was decided to focus on the model formed in Europe at the beginning of the XX century. the classical party system, which involves strengthening the role of parties and reducing factionalism due to the formulation of clearer party programs.

The reforms of the 1990s produced a definite result : in the 2000s, Japan's political system approached the structure adopted in the XX century in most developed European democracies. However, we share the opinion of those researchers (including G. Curtis) who note that Japan mistakenly took as a standard the system created too long ago, which repeatedly showed its backwardness in Western countries.¹⁶

Currently, it is increasingly difficult for parties to create original programs, develop radically different platforms that do not overlap with the platforms of other associations, and find their own electorate, since the main goal is to build a welfare society, and the tasks are almost the same.

In modern European democracies, parties are no longer focused on certain classes that form their electorate, but on the votes of undecided voters. European parties are increasingly moving away from being monolithic and relying on the individual qualities of their candidates. An example is the Labour Party of Great Britain, which carried out a deep modernization in 1994-1997, when it was led by E. Blair. From being a party that relies on a working-class electorate, Labour has become more flexible and has begun to target broad constituencies.

In this regard, we can say that the reforms carried out in Japan, which were, among other things, aimed at creating powerful parties and reducing the influence of individual politicians ' personal qualities, were not quite of a modernizing nature.

While reforming the political system, representatives of the Japanese establishment tried to create their own model of government that best suited local conditions and traditions, while relying on the best examples of the European (continental and Anglo-Saxon) and American political systems. But this "symbiosis" does not always work effectively, which is mainly due to the fact that partial borrowing of political mechanisms violates the existing balance sheet system in the donor country.

At the same time, the transfer of political constructs in general, quite clearly, in most cases does not work. D. Arase, Professor of the Hopkins-Nanking Center at Johns Hopkins University, in his cri-

* The ruling coalition also includes a long - time ally of the LDP, the Komeito Party.

a critical review of the above-mentioned book by M. Ramseyer and F. Rosenbluth emphasized the unproductivity and inadmissibility of mechanically transferring to Japan (and other non-Western societies) the theoretical approaches that are currently popular in the analysis of American politics.¹⁷

At this stage, the Japanese political system faces several challenges: excessive personification of elections, unformed parties, factionalism, overestimated importance of local interests in the work of parliamentarians, and unfair distribution of mandates by district. This indicates that the process of modernization of the party-political space in Japan is not complete, and whether it will go further-bipartisanship or "patchwork coalitions" - is still not clear.

Like all Japanese models (economic growth, labor management, etc.), the political system of Japan stands apart, having a pronounced specificity that distinguishes it from Western political systems. In this regard, it is difficult to disagree with the conclusion of MGIMO Professor Dmitry Streltsov about the possibility of establishing a new model of coalition government in Japan, based on principles that are contrary to the traditional attitudes of "consensual democracy"¹⁸.

The current attempt to imitate the American system to improve the efficiency of the political system may lead to unexpected results. Rather, in the pursuit of efficiency, Japan can achieve greater stability of political governance (typical of the two-party majority model), and this is not the same thing.

In building a party system with well-developed political programs aimed at a certain category of voters, the use of American experience can have the opposite effect. Ideologically, the Japanese parties are very close, the differences relate to specific issues. (In recent years, a similar process of abandoning niche party positioning has been observed in Western Europe.) Japan's inherent problem of unfair distribution of mandates by district can be effectively resolved through the application of the American approach, which consists in legislating the frequency and mechanics of revising the boundaries of electoral districts.

* * *

In order to truly modernize the political model of Japan in accordance with the requirements of the time, it is advisable to move to a broad interpretation of parties as organizations aimed at building a welfare society and forming a consensus on key issues of the country's development. Holding preliminary intra-party elections is a means of separating intra-party and inter-party competition, reducing the level of influence of the personal factor on the choice of a candidate, and strengthening the position of parties. A clear control over the division of electoral districts would allow achieving an even representation of the country's population in Parliament.

The transition to a two-party system, which has been widely discussed in Japan in recent years, following the example of the United States, may not lead to the desired results of improving the effectiveness of the political system without a comprehensive update of the country's political institutions, although some other solutions for American and European political construction can be used with a high probability of success.

¹ Подробнее см.: Carey J., Shugart М. Incentives to Cultivate a Personal Vote: A Rank Ordering of Electoral Formulas // Electoral Studies. December 1995. Vol. 14, p. 429.

² Подробнее см.: Curtis G. Japanese Political Parties: Ideals and Reality // The Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI Discussion Paper Series 04-E-005). 2004, p. 5.

³ For more information, see: Reed S., Thies M. The Consequences of Electoral Reform in Japan // Mixed Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? Shugart M., Wattenberg M., eds. NY, Oxford University Press. 2001, p. 380 - 403.

⁴ For more information, see: Ramseyer M., Rosenbluth F. Japan's Political Marketplace. Harvard University Press. 2009, p. 60.

⁵ Cit. по: Myerson R. Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities under Alternative Electoral Systems // American Political Science Review. 1993, vol. 87, p. 866.

^{Curtis G.} 6 Election Campaigning Japanese Style. NY: Columbia University Press. 1971, p. 87.

⁷ Подробнее см.: Contemporary Japanese Politics: Institutional Changes and Power Shifts. Ed. Shinoda T. Columbia University Press. 2013, p. 88.

⁸ Подробнее см.: Rosenbluth F., Thies M. Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring. Princeton University Press. 2010, p. 95 - 122.

⁹ Cit. по: Hirano S. Electoral Institutions, Hometowns, and Favored Minorities: Evidence from Japanese Electoral Reforms // World Politics. October 2006. Vol. 59, p. 64, 81.

¹⁰ For more details, see: Tikhotskaya, I. "Quiet Revolutions" in Japan / / Japan: Economy and society in the ocean of problems, Moscow, Vostochnaya literatura. 2012, с. 133. (Tikhotskaya I. 2012. "Tikhie revolyutsii" v Yaponii // Yaponiya: ekonomika i obshchestvo v okeane problem. M.) (in Russian)

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Cit. no: Brinsley J., Reynolds I. Two-Party Japan Democracy Undone in 39 Months as DPJ Falls // Bloomberg, 17 December 2012 - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012 - 12-16/two-party-japan-democracy-undone-in-39-months-as-dpj-crumbles

¹³ Ibidem.

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Cit. by: Molodyakova E. Political system of Japan: are radical changes possible? // Eastern analytics. 2012, N 3, с. 38. (Molodyakova E. 2012. Politicheskaya sistema Yaponii: vozmozhny li radikalnye peremeny? // Vostochnaya analitika. N 3) (in Russian)

¹⁶ Cit. no: Curtis G.Japanese Political Parties: Ideals and Reality.., p. 4.

¹⁷ For more information, see: Arose D. Japan's Political Marketplace by Ramseyer M. and Rosenbluth F. (Book review) // Political science quarterly. 1994. Vol. 109, N 4, p. 716 - 717.

¹⁸ For more information, see: Streltsov D. Japan: political Modernization of the Heisei Era. M., AIRO-XXI. 2013, p. 162. (Streltsov D. 2013. Yaponiya: politicheskaya modernizatsiya epokhi Heisei. M.) (in Russian)

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