Dear Forum Members,

Thanks to Erika Alpert for questioning whether we should characterize the expansion of police and military powers during the Abe administration as "accomplishments," as I did in an earlier posting. Ordinarily, most of us view "accomplishments" as positive achievements that do some good for ourselves or society. On the other hand, I assume most Forum members (including me) generally view expansion of those police and military powers in a negative way, a sign of trouble to come.

In Mr. Abe's case, however, I use the word accomplishments because he worked to achieve longstanding goals of the Liberal Democratic Party.

For example, in 2004 the Koizumi Administration submitted a bill to the Diet to create the crime of conspiracy, but it was subject to several revisions and then abandoned. Regarding state secrecy powers, this has been a common theme at least since the Nakasone administration in the 1980s, when LDP leaders called for an "Anti-Spy Law" that would create severe penalties for those who leak confidential government information. Like the Koizumi conspiracy bill, however, public opposition was too great, so LDP leaders of the 1980s abandoned the effort.

Article 9 of the Constitution was opposed by conservative leaders from the very beginning and the LDP has repeatedly called for its revision since the Party was formed in 1955. Abe himself unceasingly called for constitutional revision but never did submit a revision bill to the Diet. Instead, in a clever maneuver, he pushed through legislation that authorizes foreign deployment of the SDF abroad. Most Japanese constitutional scholars think the legislation is unconstitutional, but never mind, it is now national policy.

Where Nakasone, Koizumi, and others failed, Abe succeeded. Throughout his term of office expansion of police and military powers was the highest priority in the LDP legislative program. He continually mustered the solid support of his party and showed the strength and conviction to ignore domestic opposition in order to achieve these goals. Future historians will have much to say about the significance of these extraordinary achievements.

By the way, I'm not aware of any efforts to "de-fund" the Japanese police. If any Forum members do know of such a development, please send a message.

Larry Repeta


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From: ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp <ssj-forum-bounces@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp> on behalf of SSJ-Forum Moderator <ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2020 8:38 PM
To: ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp <ssj-forum@cal.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
Subject: [SSJ: 11165] Re: Assessing Abe

From: Erika Alpert <erika.alpert@gmail.com>
Date: 2020/09/18


With all due respect, in this political moment of widespread rethinking
of the role of police in society (and not only in the US), should we
really characterize the expansion of police and military powers as
accomplishments?

All best,
Erika

Dr. Erika R. Alpert (she/they)
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
School of Sciences and Humanities
Nazarbayev University
On Sep 17, 2020, 09:13 +0600, SSJ-Forum Moderator
<ssjmod@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp>, wrote:

From: Lawrence Repeta <repeta55@live.com>
Date: 2020/09/15


Dear Forum Members,

The Abe administration achieved great success in expanding police power
by passing legislation that LDP leaders had sought for decades. Key
achievements:

Expanded wiretapping authority, 2) formally recognized plea
bargaining (first employed in the Ghosn case); 3) expanded state secrecy
powers, backed by sharply increased penalties against leakers and
others; 4) legislation creating the crime of "conspiracy."

The Abe team managed to achieve all this despite opposition from the bar
associations, much of the news media and public intelligentsia, and tens
of thousands of protesters that repeatedly gathered before the Diet. I
think the polling data was nearly uniform in showing majorities opposed
to all of these initiatives. Abe managed to push all this through while
winning every election.

At the same time that he bolstered police powers, Abe managed to bypass
Constitution Article 9, first by the 2014 Cabinet resolution and then by
the 2015 package of national security laws.


This is a tremendous record of achievement.

Larry Repeta


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www. lawrencerepeta.com
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