Many thanks to Peter for launching this thread. Of course, those of us on the West Coast know that the US and Japan face some stiff competition in the Political Dysfunctionality Olympics. In fact, the results have just come in! Bronze Medal - United States (I should note that the US made up a lot of ground over the past few weeks and just missed the Silver.) Silver Medal - Japan Gold Medal - California

I have just sent off a piece for Current History (September issue) in which I try to address Peter's questions. In essence, I argue that the DPJ took power on a platform that was heavy on political change and thin on policy substance. And once in power, DPJ leaders continued to put top priority on changing politics rather than on improving policy. But the DPJ approach meant circumventing the career civil servants, the very people with the requisite policy expertise and experience in coordinating the policy process. In short, the combination of weak top leaders + lack of experience in government + a war on the bureaucrats was toxic. I would give less emphasis to the structural problems of the Japanese political system than others on this forum simply because the DPJ's flaws were fully evident before the 2010 Upper House election, and in fact the party might very well have an Upper House majority today if it had performed better in its first year.

On the medium-term future, I am cautiously optimistic.
The 2009 election did bring competitive politics to Japan, and while the first two years have not been pretty, the competitive dynamic is likely to force the major parties to differentiate themselves on policy lines a bit more over the longer term. Hence my prediction would be that by the Lower House election after next, we should see the major parties devoting more attention to policy issues and maybe even proposing better policies. If the next Lower House election is in 2013 (and not 2011), we should probably see some early glimpses of improvement then. One other reason for a morsel of optimism - the March 11 disaster was sufficiently devastating that it will generate sustained demand for new thinking on government policies. That certainly does not mean the government will always get it right, but it does mean that when government proposals are inadequate then there will probably be someone around sufficiently motivated to say so.

Steve Vogel