(Page 19 of 22) - Economic Accountability and Strategic Calibration in Japan's Liberal Democratic Party authored by Burden, Barry.

public is displeased with its leadership. This account is satisfying because it applies to the first
system of 1955 – when the economy and electoral system also advantaged the LDP – as well as
the second party system of 1993 – when existing theories have difficulty explaining LDP
dominance.

Conclusion

When Prime Minister Mori gave way to Koizumi in 2001, the cabinet’s support ratings
skyrocketed overnight. Although every leadership change is unique, the ways in which the LDP
initiated that happy transition are consistent with a more general strategy of calibration. When
frequent reshufflings of the cabinet failed to raise public support, Mori stepped down despite
having been in office less than a year. Koizumi, in contrast, managed to serve a year and half in
office before even juggling the cabinet for the first time. While he sometimes irritated fellow
LDP politicians by challenging party norms, they tolerated the maverick prime minister in
exchange for greater public support for the party that he delivered.

This strategy should not be confused with the simple tendency of a party to jettison unpopular
leaders. I found no evidence the party or cabinet ratings affect staff changes directly. Because
of the asymmetric relationship between the two, it is relative support that matters. At least this
has been the pattern from 1960 to 2004. The emergence of a truly multiparty system might
exhibit different dynamics and should be the subject of future research. In a new party
environment it would be imperative to whether strategic calibration failed to prevent the
ascendancy of the opposition or opposition success lead to the demise of a strategy that has
worked so well when the LDP faced a splintered opposition.

This paper should not be read to say that prime ministers and cabinet ministers are replaced on
when relative support drops. My models showed relative support to be key explanatory models,
but entering party and cabinet support nearly reached conventional levels of statistical
significance, and the models’ explanatory power was not great. Changes in personal respond to
many factors including factional conflict, interpersonal disputes, and party norms. An
exhaustive account would need to consider many influences simultaneously through a
combination of quantitative and qualitative research.

Japan is unusual among industrial democracies not because its citizens are unresponsive to
changing economic times (although economic accountability is weak) but because of the
dominant party’s ability to take strategic advantage of situations. In the unfiltered context of
mass public opinion, support for the cabinet is indeed dependent on unemployment and inflation
plus other idiosyncratic factors. Yet discontent stops short of contaminating the party’s image.
Because the party can replace its leader, but the leader cannot change his party, the prime
minister or his cabinet are replaced strategically to calibrate higher party ratings with lower
cabinet ratings. It is this strategic calibration in the face of negative relative support that permits
the LDP to maintain reasonable public approval despite scandals and poor economic
performance. Although biases in the electoral system, missteps by opposition parties, and even
culture all surely play a role in maintaining LDP hegemony, I have demonstrated that the party
itself often intervenes before these factors even have an opportunity to act.