jpoliticsfinal

Green Cross

• A Japanese healthcare company that became embroiled in scandal in the late 1980s because it gave hemophiliacs and others in need of blood blood infected with HIV; up to 3000 Japanese contracted HIV. • Green Cross employed many retired officials of the MHW, and it turned out that members of the MHW, specifically the chief of the Pharamaceuticals branch ignored warnings about untreated blood at Green Cross because he wanted to get a job there after he retired • The Green Cross scandal resulted in a major loss of legitimacy for the bureacuracy in the mid-90s, in a time when Japan's path forward was a bit ambiguous. o However, the head of the MHW, Kan Naoto, launched a full-scale investigation and apologized for it. He gained a lot of popularity for this move, and later became a DPJ PM.

Gaiatsu

• A Japanese political tactic in which a small, disenfranchised group is able to use "international shame / embarrassment" to embarrass the Japanese government into adopting policy on its behalf. • Women's groups in particular used Gaiatsu in the last thirty years, notably for the EEOL, and for the legalization of contraception • One of the drawbacks with international embarrassment is that once international attention draws away from the issue and it becomes time for the law to be negotiated, the politically weak groups do not hold much sway over the law, which can result in a law that appears to address the problem without actually doing so; this was exactly the case with the EEOL in 1985.

MHW

• A bureaucratic organization to provide for Japanese peoples' health and social welfare • They are responsible for providing GMHI and NHI, and also write social welfare legislations to provide for different groups (e.g. children, handicapped, low income, etc.) • Has been in an historical struggle with the MoF over extending benefits and trying to keep costs down

Strategic State

• A foreign policy paradigm in which a state is always planning out its next move; the state sees things in the long-term rather than the short-term. • Political system: Elitist "Japan Inc" • Policymaking: opaque but efficient • Underlying national interest: technonationalism or defensive realism • Trade and foreign economic policy: strategic trade--aggressive mercantilist • Defense and national security: Free-riding; covert building of large milit. power

Takashima/Dokdo

• A group of islands that Korea has always controlled or mostly controlled / used and Japan has only recently begun to care about because there is oil in the area. • Korea has controlled the islands since the 1950s. • Japan has tried to get Korea to submit the islands to international arbitration but Korea has rejected this time and time again. • The most significant "fever pitch" in this dispute was the South Korean PM visiting in 2012, which caused Japan to temporarily withdraw its ambassador to Korea

Yasukuni Shrine

• A shrine in Japan that commemorates anyone who did in the military service on behalf of Japan. • The spirits of the deceased, according to tradition, are housed at the shrine • The shrine is of political significance because in addition to the 2+ million soldiers whose spirits are there, there are also over a dozen class A war criminals whose spirits reside there • Thus visits of the shrine by Japanese PM's appear to other countries, like China and Korea, to be showing cavalier indifference to Japan's transgressions during imperial conquest and in the war. • The Yasukuni shrine has a great deal of symbolic importance and is still politically relevant; as recently as 2013 ABE visited the shrine and China, Russia, and the US admonished him

PISA tests

• A worldwide exam given to the 15-year-old pupils of OECD nations • Tests math, science, and reading • Japan scores very well in all areas of PISA, scoring near the top of all assessments in the 2012 PISA • According to the OECD report based upon the most recent PISA, key findings for Japan are that Japanese students have very low self-efficacy, there is no statistically significant difference in advantaged and disadvantaged schools in their allotment of resources, and Japanese classrooms are very conducive to learning.

Article 9

• Bans the development of military forces and eliminates Japan's sovereign right to wage war • Despite this, Japan still has a defence budget of over $50 billion, putting it near the top of the world • Article 9 was recently reinterpreted such that a military can be used for "collective self-defense," i.e. self defense of allies • Article 9 is currently one of the larger political issues in Japan; thought most people oppose changing it, ABE remains steadfast in his preference for changing the law

Burakumin

• Burakumin refer to people in Japan descended from leather workers, executioners, prison officers, groups of people who made a living primarily from the land, and other groups that were officially marginalized between 1720s and 1871. • Even though Burakumin could no longer legally be discriminated against, discrimination continued and still does. • Discrimination against Burakumin mostly still occurs in employment and marriage • The Buraku formed the Buraku Liberation League in 1955, which has served as the main group on behalf of Buraku • The Japanese government has actually done a good job dealing with the issues of Buraku; after finding that Buraku and especially Buraku children had far worse opportunities than other Japanese children, it has instituted significant education programs, housing programs, and grants to help Buraku communities. • Despite the huge sums spent on improvement projects, the Japanese government still has no legislation making anti-Buraku discrimination illegal.

ABE Shinzo

• Current Japanese PM; has been elected PM three times • Has several key parts to his policy as PM o Abenomics • Three Arrows • Fiscal stimulus o printing ****tons of money • Monetary easing o lower interest rates • Structural reform o deregulation, liberalization, womenomics • Japanese foreign policy / Article 9 • Gutted the "peace clause" of Article 9 in July 1, which would allow Japan to go to war on behalf of "collective self-defense" o Nationalism • Apologist for Japan's wartime history (e.g. comfort women) • It remains to be seen what exactly will Abe's long-term legacy be: will it be the Article 9 stuff, or the economic stuff? Is one just a cover for the other?

EHI

• Employer-based Health Insurance o Large companies o Paid into by employees and employers

Reactive State

• Foreign policy paradigm that means a state is somewhat clueless o A "reactive state" is a state in which there is fragmented policy, insular political leadership, and factional and bureaucratic infighting • Political system: patterned pluralism • Policymaking: Fragmented and prone to paralysis; relies on gaiatsu • Underlying national interest: narrow national interests; antimilitarist • Trade and foreign economic policy: protectionist-mercantilist • Defense and national security: limited national capacity; alliance-centric

GMHI

• Government-managed Health Insurance o small-medium sized enterprises, farmers o Paid into by govt, employees, employers o Managed by MHW

Hinomaru/Kimigayo

• Hinomaru / "Kimigayo" are the Japanese national flag and anthem, respectively. • Unlike in America where people are very passionate about the flag and anthem, most people in Japan don't care much for it. • Thus, the flag and anthem are only politically significant issues for nationalists who have many times tried to pass laws or regulations (and succeeded in Tokyo) that require schools to have students sing the anthem and that classrooms have the flag in them. • Other Japanese consequently do not care for the flag or anthem because they are symbols of nationalists • In some ways, the fact that the use of the flag and anthem in Japan is such a big deal is good as it indicates that many of Japan's "nationalist problems," excepting Article 9 are objectively quite trivial.

The Angel Plan

• Hoping to encourage more births, the government instituted the "Angel Plan" in 1994 to assist couples in raising children. • The program tried to make raising children less stressful by offering counseling to couples and encouraging fathers to take an equal role in childrearing. • In 2009, Japan introduced a much broader version of the Angel Plan, recognizing that its past attempts to encourage childbearing had shown few results. • The new program intends to remove "workaholic" aspects of Japanese society that are often blamed for its very low fertility by making society more conducive to the sharing of childrearing and household duties, encouraging men to spend more time at home, and allowing mothers with young children to remain in the work force. • Part of the plan involves having all employees use all of their leave, increase the time husbands spend on child-rearing and housework, and to half the proportion of people working 60 hrs of week or more to 5.5%. • MHW estimates it can increase the fertility rate to about 1.8 if it can realize its goals

Gross National Cool

• Idea from Douglas McGray in 2002 in which he wrote about how cool and popular Japan was and how influential Japanese culture has been worldwide. • Subsequently, Japanese policymakers tried to tie the concept of GNC to their policies, and see how they could profit or benefit from GNC • GNC has also since been picked up by IR theorists with respect to soft power • Though it is hard to see how Japan's soft power that could be accrued by GNC could translate into consequential political gain, we can see how the idea of GNC and soft power can be influential not in how one country benefits from their own power, but how one country writes policy in accordance with their perception of their own soft power or coolness.

MURAKAMI Haruki

• Japan's most famous current author • Novelist and short story writer who writes surrealist / postmodern fiction • Is an important public intellectual in Japan and abroad, and is often considered a potential frontrunner for a Nobel Prize in Literature • A purveyor of Japanese soft power and, though typically apolitical, from time to time comes out in support of political causes

NAKASONE Yasuhiro

• Japanese PM in the '80s • Had a close relationship with Reagan and was very pro-privatization of business • Ended up losing his seat in the LDP in the 2000s due to the imposition of age limits by Koizumi Junichiro, in what was a targeted attempt to get rid of the old guard in the LDP.

SDF

• Japanese Self-Defense Forces • US Requested the formation of the SDF in the outbreak of the Korean War, in which several divisions were sent to Korea. • Despite Article 9, Japanese Supreme Court has ruled that the SDF are constitutional because they are solely used for defensive purposes, and Japan cannot even project its power because it lacks carriers, bombers, or long-range missiles. o Careful wording of the "peace clause" as the clause was being ratified in the House allowed establishment of SDF. • Nevertheless there have been increasingly strident calls for constitutional amendment, largely due to the disparate realities of contemporary Japan and the peaceful constitution. o LDP has gradually tried to break down barriers toward greater "defense" capabilities, and it is looking increasingly likely that ABE might want to make his legacy as PM something about revising Article 9

Wa

• Japanese cultural concept usually translated as "harmony" • Refers to the idea that Japanese people tend to prefer harmony over conflict; this explanation is used to explain things like Japan's low litigation rate • Wa is a concept used to explain a large amount of Japanese social outcomes with little good reason; it is a concept that historians and cultural theorists, based upon teh course readings, seem to use with alarming frequency to explain outcomes in Japan, when in fact explanations that are more evidence-based are more convincing.

Koseki

• Koseki is the Japanese family registry. Japanese law requires all registered households to report acknowledgements of various family developments to their local office so that it may be recorded in the koseki. • Information can be very private, including paternity, adoptions, deaths, divorces. • Koseki used to be used by employers to vet employees until this practice was outlawed. • Until several years ago, anyone who wanted a copy of another family's koseki could request one, but access has since been limited. • There are a number of ways, according to Sugimoto, that the koseki enforces patriarchy and inequality in Japan, including by distinguishing between children born out of wedlock, and also by deterring women from divorce because then the children must move Kosekis o According to Sugimoto, this is evidence of Japan still officially discriminating and still being a deeply sexist, unequal society Ie • The Japanese household system; according to Sugimoto it is appropriate to see it as a kinship unit with a patriarchal head and members tied to him • Historically, the head of the ie had almost absolute power over the other members of the ie, including marriage partners. • Even though the postwar system dismantled the patriarchal system through introducing gender equality, ie ideology still persists by disadvantaging women in many ways in Japanese households o e.g. koseki system distinguishes children born in and out of wedlock o Divorce requires women to update their koseki, and children can only go with one koseki o Koseki requires man and woman take the same name upon marriage o Women traditionally are buried in the "family tomb" with her husband, which shows that she is ruled over by her husband

ASO Taro

• LDP PM for one year and now Minister of Finance for Abe • Called an election in the face of economic collapse and amid many LDP losses in prefectural elections • Ended up losing by a landslide in the election to the DPJ. • Prone to gaffes • Being retained in the current Abe cabinet; did not accomplish much in his short time as a PM, and is now essentially just pushing the work of Abenomics.

Adaptive State

• Like the reactive state model, the adaptive state is basically democratic, but fragmented and prone to paralysis • Political system: Pluralist • Policymaking: Fragmented • Underlying national interest: low-key, liberal • Trade and foreign economic policy: incomplete liberalism • Defense and national security: international contribution w/ shifting limits

Embedded vs Non-embedded Organizations

• Mary Haddad draws a distinction between these two types of organizations when she writes about differences between volunteering in Japan compared with other countries. • An embedded organization is one in which the volunteer organization functions in close partnership with the government, either through funding, communication or management, or all three. • A non-embedded organization is one in which the organization functions with little relation to or partnership with the government, with little to no government oversight or control or funding. • Haddad finds that countries that believe the government should be responsible for dealing with social problems have a much higher rate of volunteering in embedded organizations versus countries like the US where people think the reverse, and more people are in non-embedded organizations • Haddad thus gives a social science explanation for something usually explained as conventional wisdom--that Japanese people don't volunteer--and uses the distinction in organization types to explain Japan's "low" rate of volunteerism (and that surveys of volunteer rates tend to discriminate against countries with many embedded organizations)

NHI

• National Health Insurance o Self-employed, unemployed o Paid into by non-employees and government

HATOYAMA Yukio

• PM after ASO Taro • Was the DPJ PM from 2009 - 2010 and entered office with a large approval rating • Faced a vote of no confidence, and ended up resigning in under a year; had many difficulties with the faltering economy • Despite his short leadership, he had many accomplishments: o Had many increases in social spending o Extension of employment insurance to all workers o Elimination of age discrimination practices in the workplace o Introduction of free welfare to low-income and disabled people

Juku

• Private schools in Japan that offer lessons during holidays, weekends, or in the evenings • Juku are typically for university entrance examinations; because each university has its own entrance examinations, instead of having standardized tests, students have to spend huge amounts of time preparing for entrance exams with the use of Juku. • There are examinations that students can take that give very good indications of which universities they will get into; while they are no longer allowed to be used by public schools, Juku use these exams. • In 2007, 53.8% of middle school students went to Juku after school. • Class plays a very large role in access to quality higher education in Japan, because attending juku costs a lot of money, and your chances of doing well on a university exam sans juku preparation are slim.

The Fundamental Attribution Error

• Refers to people's tendency to explain a given situation in terms of a person's internal disposition (good, bad) instead of external circumstances

M-Curve

• Refers to the M-shape of the curve that plots women's participation in the workforce versus age • Approximately half of women aged 15 to 65 in Japan are engaged in labor, though the proportion of employed women for each age differs considerably. • Women, unlike men, must make life-cycle decisions at three points in their life: at marriage, following childbirth, and after their last child finishes school o The curve typically reaches its first max just before childbirth (increasing ages 15-30), goes down and levels off (30-40), and then increases (ages 40-50) until decreasing again, more slowly than the sharp increase from 15 - 30. • M-shaped curve began to emerge in Japan with the consolidation of fast economic growth in the 1960s and part-time work as an option for women who want to rejoin the work force; indeed, 7/10 part-time or casual workers are women. • In order to deal with chronic labor shortage, the work force recruited women, and thus got the M-shaped curve

ISHIHARA Shintaro

• Right-wing former mayor of Tokyo • His potentially most significant political proposal / blunder was to personally buy the Senkaku islands on behalf of Tokyo • In order to prevent this from happening, the Japanese government bought the islands themselves and nationalized them • This angered China, which reciprocated by declaring its control over the airspace above the islands • The US responded by quickly flouting this authority, flying jets through the airspace • Just lost in the recent snap election on the side of a right-wing minority party, and has since retired from politics • Provides evidence of Japan as a "reactive state;" one must wonder what role or lack thereof Japan and its diplomats had in causing this problem

Ronin

• Ronin are students who have failed their entrance exam for the next level of schooling, and continue to study outside of the school system in order to advance. • Their name refers to the wandering, masterless samurai. • Sometimes they will retake exams several times. • Ronin are indicative of the significance of attending an elite school in Japan: students who do not get in devote literally years of their lives to trying to get into one or two specific schools.

Equal Employment Opportunity Law

• The EEOL of 1985 was a law that prohibited employers from discriminating against women in job education, training, and benefits, and asked that they make a "good faith" effort for equal recruitment, hiring, promotion, and job assignment for women. • The EEOL forbade discrimination, but employers responded by creating the "two-track" system that made it extremely difficult for women to reach a managerial position (due to their additional family duties) while making it almost necessary for them, if they work full-time, to work a clerical position with no hope for promotion. • Though the EEOL was revised in 1997, the revised EEOL did not address the two-track system, and the concept of "indirect discrimination" still does not exist in the Japanese legal system • EEOL also had no enforcement clause; the reason for its failure is largely to do with the use of kansetsu gaiatsu to force the issue in the Diet.

Senkaku/Daiyu

• The Senkaku/Daiyu islands are uninhabited islands in the East China Sea controlled by Japan. • They are a point of contention between Sino-Japanese relations because even though the islands themselves are no more than several small rocks, the largest of which is more than a square mile, there is oil in the area of the sea around the islands, and owning the islands means owning the area off the coast of the islands. • The United States gained the islands from Japan in the aftermath of WWII, and Japan had gained the islands before WWII, according to Chinese, as one of its imperial conquests. • Thus when the US transferred control of the islands to Japan in 1971, China and Taiwan, both aware of a recent report noting the oil reserves in the area, started to claim the islands themselves • The conflict reached a fever pitch in 2012 when the Japanese government bought the islands to prevent them from being bought by Tokyo's nationalist governor for use as nationalist symbols • In 2013, China put the airspace over the islands in a region that it required other governments to notify it before flying in o The US responded by flying jets through the airspace • In comparison with the Takashima dispute, shows how Japan....

Fee Schedule

• The fee schedule is a list of every medical procedure and the corresponding price that doctors are allowed to charge for it • The MHW will look at what all doctors for a given year did in procedures, and will actually audit individual doctors to make sure they are following the fee schedule and how they should change the fee schedule • The MHW and healthcare providers renegotiate the fee schedule every year and it is a very big deal • The fee schedule has to be really, really good and accurate, because otherwise doctors will greatly over prescribe in order to make more money • The fee schedule and doctors making more money for more prescriptions explains why Japan has the highest number of prescriptions per person in the world.

Ainu

• The people living in Hokkaido who were not ethnic Japanese • The Japanese government in 1899 bound the Ainu and gave them some parcels of land; land in Hokkaido meanwhile was set aside for Japanese settlement, and many Ainu died in the settlement. • With encouragement from Buraku and Japanese-Korean groups, Ainu have slowly come to officially make demands of the Japanese government since the 1970s. o Made demands including reserved seats in central and local governments, funds to promote economy and culture, and a standing council on Ainu issues. • The Ainu Culture Promotion Law of May 1997 gave formal recognition to the importance of Ainu culture, but it did not recognize them as an indigenous group, which which prevented them gaining rights to some degree of self-determination and to land or resources • Ainu have made impressive progress in the last 20 years; even though they are a small community (24K) it could be very good for Japan's image, and not very expensive, to meet some of their demands.

Todai

• The short name for Tokyo University, the top university in Japan • Todai is highly competitive and very hard to get into; only the best students go there. • Once students are there, they can take a bit of a break for awhile before they have to bust their asses again as bureaucrats or some other high stress, esteemed profession. • Todai was the go-to school for bureaucrats; anyone who wanted to be a bureaucrat literally had to go to Todai otherwise it was almost impossible for them to become a bureaucrat • Access to Todai is closely related to class; the average income of a student at Todai's parents is greater than 150% the average wage of male workers in their 40's and 50's • Todai is still the number one school in Japan and if you can guarantee your success in a career by going there.

KOIZUMI Junichiro

• Two-time PM that was incredibly popular in Japan in the early 2000s • Seen as a maverick prime minister in Japan and said he would leave "no sacred cows" untouched in his reform of the LDP • Had a multipartisan cabinet • Deployed the SDF to Iraq • Was popular because he went against the LDP on many issues on a progressive stance, and then went on the LDP party line on other issues, like sending SDF to Iraq • He was pro-liberalization; one of his biggest changes to Japan was the postal privatization. o This was important for reasons pertaining to liberalization and also for preventing LDP misappropriation of / power over FILP • Japanese businesses were being hit by huge tariffs o He said if the bill didn't pass, he would dissolve the House of Representatives, and replace the rebels with other politicians • This is what he did. • Koizumi's popularity rose by 20 points after he dissolved the House of Representatives • The electorate saw the election in terms of for or against postal privatization o The election was the LDP's biggest victory since 1986, and gave the party a huge majority. • People saw no reason to vote for the DPJ since the LDP was reforming! • Subsequently the LDP was able to pass 82 of its 91 proposed bills. • Koizumi is important for being a maverick and an incredibly charismatic and intelligent politician; he is the epitome of a Japanese PM

Yoshida Doctrine

• Was the "doctrine" of YOSHIDA Shigeru, Japan's first post-WWII PM • The idea was to place the highest national priority on economic development while keeping a low international profile • Yoshida repeatedly rejected American attempts to get Japan to increase its "military" because it would go against the constitution, but in actuality, it would have been very expensive • This doctrine allowed Japan to focus on internal restructuring rather than spending money on a military it did not need. • Japan kept the Yoshida Doctrine alive, and still does today, to a large extent, though towards the end of the twentieth century, and under later PM's like Koizumi, Japan began to have an international military presence