Karen and I mentioned that the deposit figure was raised at the time of the 1994 reforms as part of a set of reforms designed to strengthen the party leader by making independent candidacy less attractive. Under the old electoral system, ambitious new conservative candidates denied an LDP endorsement often ran as independents, siphoning off votes from the LDP-endorsed candidates. Party leaders trying to maintain backbencher support for Diet votes couldn't gain much leverage from threats to withdraw the party endorsement because that candidate could then run as an independent and have a good chance of winning--both because the bar was lower in multi-member districts (often 15%) and because the deposit fee was lower. So independent candidacy was seen broadly at that time as a source of the poor functioning of Japanese democracy: it made factions and backbenchers and zoku too powerful relative to the party leader, so that parties lacked coherence and were unable to offer bold leadership.

The 1994 reforms made life more difficult for independents by: 1) forcing them to win a plurality in an SMD and giving them no chance to get in off the PR list because they could not run as dual candidates (I think this is the point Ehud is remembering); 2) putting them under stricter spending limits than candidates supported by a party; 3) depriving them of the public subsidy that went to candidates who were members of qualified parties (as Jun Okumura explains); AND 4) making them pay a higher deposit. When Koizimi kicked out the postal rebels in 2005, you could see those left as independents struggling with all of these disadvantages. In my view, the deposit was the least of their problems. Having to win a plurality in districts with established candidates with subsidies, higher spending limits, were probably the biggest deterrents.

What is surprising to me is not that the system includes these incentives to belong to a party (which many nations have found to be the best way to organize democratic politics), but that despite all of these disincentives to run, Japan still has so many independent candidates in the SMDs! And that bold leaders have nevertheless been rare, despite the example Koizumi set in using the power afforded by these institutions to offer stronger leadership.

The recent record suggests that the flaw in the reforms--in terms of their ability to give party leaders the leverage to lead--was that they discouraged independents but left the door open to micro-parties composed of disgruntled back-benchers. Noda might have been able to show stronger leadership (e.g. forcing his party to back his TPP plans and implement the consumption tax increase with less drama and rancor) if his DPJ rivals had not had the safety net of landing in a micro-party that could avoid most of the sanctions on independents put into the 1994 law.

Len Schoppa