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Japan Social Democratic Party of Japan
The Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ; called the
Japan
Socialist Party until 1991) is the largest opposition
party. It
acquired seventy seats in the July 1993 House of
Representatives
election and joined the Hosokawa coalition. Like the LDP,
the Japan
Socialist Party resulted from the union of two smaller
groups in
1955. The new opposition party had its own factions,
although
organized according to left-right ideological commitments
rather
than what it called the "feudal personalism" of the
conservative
parties. In the House of Representatives election of 1958,
the
Japan Socialist Party gained 32.9 percent of the popular
vote and
166 out of 467 seats. After that, its percentage of the
popular
vote and number of seats gradually declined. In the double
election
of July 1986 for both Diet houses, the party suffered a
rout by the
LDP under Nakasone: its seats in the lower house fell from
112 to
an all-time low of eighty-five and its share of the vote
from 19.5
percent to 17.2 percent. But its popular chairwoman, Doi
Takako,
led it to an impressive showing in the February 1990
general
election: 136 seats and 24.4 percent of the vote. Some
electoral
districts had more than one successful socialist
candidate. Doi's
decision to put up more than one candidate for each of the
130
districts represented a controversial break with the past
because,
unlike their LDP counterparts, many Japan Socialist Party
candidates did not want to run against each other. But the
great
majority of the 149 socialist candidates who ran were
successful,
including seven of eight women.
Doi, a university professor of constitutional law
before
entering politics, had a tough, straight-talking manner
that
appealed to voters tired of the evasiveness of other
politicians.
Many women found her a refreshing alternative to
submissive female
stereotypes, and in the late 1980s the public at large, in
opinion
polls, voted her their favorite politician (the runner-up
in these
surveys was equally tough-talking conservative LDP member
Ishihara
Shintaro). Doi's popularity, however, was of limited aid
to the
party. The powerful Shakaishugi Kyokai (Japan Socialist
Association), which was supported by a hard-core
contingent of the
party's 76,000-strong membership, remained committed to
doctrinaire
Marxism, impeding Doi's efforts to promote what she called
perestroika and a more moderate program with
greater voter
appeal.
In 1983 Doi's predecessor as chairman, Ishibashi
Masashi, began
the delicate process of moving the party away from its
strong
opposition to the Self-Defense Forces. While maintaining
that these
forces were unconstitutional in light of Article 9, he
claimed
that, because they had been established through legal
procedures,
they had a "legitimate" status (this phrasing was changed
a year
later to say that the Self-Defense Forces "exist
legally").
Ishibashi also broke past precedent by visiting Washington
to talk
with United States political leaders.
By the end of the decade, the party had accepted the
SelfDefense Forces and the 1960 Japan-United States Treaty of
Mutual
Cooperation and Security. It advocated strict limitations
on
military spending (no more than 1 percent of GNP
annually), a
suspension of joint military exercises with United States
forces,
and a reaffirmation of the "three nonnuclear principles"
(no
production, possession, or introduction of nuclear weapons
into
Japanese territory). Doi expressed support for "balanced
ties" with
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)
and the
Republic of Korea (South Korea). In the past, the Japan
Socialist
Party had favored the Kim Il Sung regime in P'yongyang,
and in the
early 1990s it still refused to recognize the 1965
normalization of
relations between Tokyo and Seoul. In domestic policy, the
party
demanded the continued protection of agriculture and small
business
in the face of foreign pressure, abolition of the consumer
tax, and
an end to the construction and use of nuclear power
reactors. As a
symbolic gesture to reflect its new moderation, at its
April 1990
convention the party dropped its commitment to "socialist
revolution" and described its goal as "social democracy":
creation
of a society in which "all people fairly enjoy the fruits
of
technological advancement and modern civilization and
receive the
benefits of social welfare." Delegates also voted Doi a
third term
as party chairwoman.
Because of the party's self-definition as a class-based
party
and its symbiotic relationship with Sohyo, the
public-sector union
confederation, few efforts were made to attract nonunion
constituencies. Although some Sohyo unions supported the
Japan
Communist Party, the Japan Socialist Party remained the
representative of Sohyo's political interests until the
merger with
private-sector unions and the Rengo in 1989. Because of
declining
union financial support during the 1980s, some Japan
Socialist
Party Diet members turned to dubious fund-raising methods.
One was
involved in the Recruit affair. The Japan Socialist Party,
like
others, sold large blocks of fund-raising party tickets,
and the
LDP even gave individual Japan Socialist Party Diet
members funds
from time to time to persuade them to cooperate in passing
difficult legislation.
Data as of January 1994
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