"ESK: Yes I agree that Mori was not popular but actually 33% was a higher rating than many pre-reform PMs received usually. The difference is that the relative unpopularity accounted for much more after reform in terms of a factor in an election than before reform.
Plus one thing I don't think we've mentioned before is that politicians seem to feel it counts for a heck of a lot in elections these days. Otherwise, why would so many post-reform PMs be removed from office by their own parties once they became unpopular before elections? Clearly they think it counts a lot."

I'm curious which other PMs received something less than 33.9% as the HIGHEST rating of their tenure?
The Asahi TV data does show Uno at 32.7% as his highest, so that might be the single example, although he was only in office for 3 months so it is not clear that Uno is a good comparison. Also, Uno's lowest approval rating was 16%, whereas Mori's came in at 7.2%, lower than that recorded for any other PM after June 1988. Except for Uno, Mori was the only PM in that period who failed to have his shijritsu exceed his disapproval rate even once. In terms of his length in office and his exceptionally low unpopularity, it's hard for me not to think of Mori as in a class of his own.

Incidentally, is it true that PMs have been "removed"
by their party? Ellis undoubtedly knows more about this than I do, but I have a hard time thinking who has been removed. Especially with the strengthening of the LDP executive, I thought the conventional wisdom was that it is harder than ever to remove party leaders?
There was a revolt against Aso because of his low popularity, but he was able to ignore it. Fukuda, Abe, and Mori for that matter, as far as I can tell, resigned of their own volition, not because they were forced to. Of course, that's different from saying the PM's popularity does not matter, or that knowledge of the importance of the PM's popularity did not weigh on these leaders' decisions to resign. Kan might be the single example where an actual revolt did endanger his hold on power, although I am not sure whether he would have had to if he had called Ozawa and Hatoyama's bluff.

Best,

Paul Midford

> That said, I would also add the caveat that the
shijiritsu does not
> necessarily only reflect the PM's personal
popularity. After all, the
> standard question does not ask respondents if they
support the Koizumi
> or Noda PM, but whether they support the Koizumi or
Noda cabinet. The
> follow-up to that question gives respondents a chance
to indicate
> whether their support or non-support has to do with
the quality of the
> PM or other reasons.

ESK: Yes, we agree this is not a perfect question at all and wish we had better data. But support for a PM's cabinet IS, as you know taken as a stand-in for the PM's popularity with some, although i agree not necessarily great, reason: few Japanese know any of the other persons in the cabinet or care much about them unless they are representatives from their own district, and since the PM represents the party and its policies, he is the person that reflects how the voters feel about what kind of leader he is and where he will lead the party and the government.

Best regards,
Ellis