From: Richard Katz
Date: 2012/02/21

Alex Klein wrote:

>Has there ever been a Prime
>Minister in Japan that the public considered to have
sufficiently
>explained his policy?...Prime Ministers could probably
spend 24/7
>talking about policies and the Japanese "public" would
still feel
>uninformed.
>
>
I'd be curious to see how Noda's is worse than, or just the same as, most previous PMs."

Permit me to provide some perspective. In December 2003, after Koizumi announced the dispatch of the SDF to Iraq, a Yomiuri poll asked Japanese whether Koizumi's explanation had been sufficient. Over 85% answered in the negative. Granted this was an unpopular policy, but if even a politician as gifted as Koizumi produces this sort of reaction, and there is almost no variation in the result obtained, then you have to conclude that the problem is not the quality of Japan's prime ministers, but a methodologically flawed survey question. I wonder why Japanese pollsters continue to use it? Maybe it gives their media bosses another negative talking point vis-a-vis the current administration when they need it?

"And the PM makes a big difference in the party vote."

I agree with Rick's larger point that the communication skills and popularity of the PM does matter, but I would not exaggerate the point. [Incidentally, I wonder if anyone on this forum knows of recent research that calculates the impact of shiji ritsu on electoral outcomes?] Certainly, there are recent cases that raise questions. Most notably, the LDP and Komei were able to win control of the lower house in 2000 despite being led by the very unpopular PM Mori. In 2003 the DPJ did very well and the LDP had a quite mediocre performance even though the much more popular Koizumi was at the helm. Of course, the LDP lost the 2004 upper house election despite Koizumi's popularity.
Finally, I think it is hard to chalk up the DPJ's sweeping 2009 victory merely to Aso's unpopularity, or the 2005 LDP wave to Koizumi's personal appeal. The last two lower house elections in particular were won by a convincing idea that became an ideational wave:
breaking the LDP through postal reform (2005) and regime change (2009).

"I would argue that, whatever one's view of nuclear energy in the long-term, it's a really bad idea to shut down all the nuke plants without a viable, affordable alternative. And yet, distrust is so high, that there are only two left on and even Edano says that all will be shut down this summer. That could mean a 20% cut in electricity in the Kansai area."

What's amazing is that Japan has been able to shut down all but 2 of its reactors (as of yesterday every reactor serving Kansai, the most nuclearly dependent regional grid), without suffering any serious short fall, despite Japan's very dysfunctional grid. And Edano's forecast is even with all the reactors off line this summer Japan will not need to resort to the same kinds of drastic energy saving measures that it resorted to last summer. What this shows is the amazing speed and flexibility by which Japan has brought additional fossil fuel electricity capacity online. This is bad for Japan's trade balance and the environment, but it shows that Japan has more policy flexibility in energy than we had hitherto believed.

Paul Midford