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Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They? pp 137–160Cite as

Flocking Together? The Breakdown and Revival of Political Clientelism in Italy and Japan

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Part of the book series: Perspectives in Business Culture ((PEPIBC))

Abstract

This chapter explores the development of political clientelism in postwar Japan and Italy. The authors argue that the differences in the form of vote-gathering machines and the structure of party competition framed by the party systems and state institutions, in addition to the need for fiscal consolidation in the 1980s and 1990s, are crucial in explaining the paths followed by the two countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Our research is primarily focused on the comparative analysis of Italy and Japan, it is not a detailed case study of local political machines.The Italian part of this paper was funded in part by a Senshu University research grant for the academic year of 2013 (Takeshi Ito, The Comparative Analysis of Clientelism in Advanced Democracies: From Post-institutionalist perspective) and by the JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (c) (Takeshi Ito, No.26380186: The Resurgence of Clientelism in Southern Europe: The Comparative Analysis in a Post-insitutionalist Perspective: 2014–2018).

  2. 2.

    We can draw on Tarrow (1990) to argue that soft-hegemony of dominant parties in Italy and in Japan should be especially endurable.

  3. 3.

    As Kitschelt and Wilkinson (2007) argue, political clientelism is one type of principle linkages between parties and voters. Kitschelt (2000) lists program (programmatic linkage) and charisma as other types of linkages between citizen and parties.

  4. 4.

    They thus had enough seats to prevent the amendment of the occupation-made constitution, to the chagrin of the conservatives.

  5. 5.

    Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter, clientelism is said to have existed in central Italy, which has been called a ‘red zone' (‘zona rossa') where leftist parties dominated. The PCI in particular was very strong at the local regional levels. Some of PCI-led municipalities, cooperatives, and unions governed distribution of local public works and they sometimes did so in a partisan way.

  6. 6.

    In the end, nineteen areas were selected for support after fierce lobbying by the prefectures, diluting the actual support to be effective for industrial development. The public money still benefited local construction companies considerably.

  7. 7.

    How could this system be compatible with the image of Japan as a ‘developmental state', guided by a strong bureaucracy? The answer lies in the administrative reform conducted by the Occupation. It abolished the once-powerful Home Ministry (Naimusho), which oversaw a wide range of domestic affairs, such as agriculture, construction, and labor. The weakening government body created room for politicians to intervene in policymaking in these policy areas (Calder 1988, pp. 151–154). On the other hand, economic ministries, such as the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI, formerly the Ministry of Commerce and Industry) were left mostly intact by the Occupation. Those ministries kept relative autonomy from political intervention (Johnson 1982).

  8. 8.

    In 1980, the number of workers in the construction industry was almost the same as that in the agricultural sector (Curtis and Ishikawa 1983, pp. 119–120).

  9. 9.

    Politicians started to set up kōenkai after the end of the Second World War. In the prewar period, in rural areas, landowners were local notables and could influence voting behavior of the people in their rural community. Thanks to the agrarian land reform implemented by the Occupation, this structure was destroyed, and politicians could no longer rely on landowners for gathering votes. Instead, they established inclusive kōenkai to cultivate support (Curtis 1971).

  10. 10.

    Later, Tanaka went on trial and was convicted in October 1983 on the bribery charges.

  11. 11.

    Collateral organizations such as the Catholic Action lost more than half of its membership since 1960s (Allum 1997).

  12. 12.

    Many of them, especially younger ones, joined religious revival movements. The best example is the Comunione e Liberazione (the Communion and Liberation), which gathered Catholics who were dissatisfied with corrupt practices of the DC-led regime.

  13. 13.

    The US government had made such calls in a series of trade talks with Japan. In Japan, the Study Group on Economic Structural Adjustment for International Harmony, appointed by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, issued an influential report (known as Maekawa report) in 1986, which called for the expansion of domestic demand.

  14. 14.

    The end of the Cold War weakened the incentives for conservatives to stick together in the same party.

  15. 15.

    The CDP was privatized in 1999, and the Crediop was acquired by the Dexia, French public investment bank in 1999.

  16. 16.

    The right minority of the party broke away with the majority and formed a new party, Centro Cristiano Democratico (CCD: Christian Democratic Center). The remaining majority renamed the DC to Partito Popolare Italiano (PPI: Italian Popular Party), which was taken from a prewar party (Ito 2008b).

  17. 17.

    A small party, Sakigake, also joined the LDP-led coalition. The Prime Minister initially came from the Socialist Party (Tomiichi Murayama).

  18. 18.

    By contrast, debtor countries should keep sound macroeconomic policy to keep foreign investors financing their economies. An exception to this theory is the US. Even though it is a debtor county, it can afford running huge budget deficit for years thanks to the special position of the US dollar as the world’s key currency.

  19. 19.

    The real challenge to the existing clientelist structure came from Koizumi reforms after 2001, as we discuss in the next section.

  20. 20.

    According to existing studies on the voting behavior in the South (Diamanti 2003), the region has a pro-government tendency.

  21. 21.

    Core members of the party were pro-reform former LDP members and former socialists.

  22. 22.

    The Lower House selects the Prime Minister.

  23. 23.

    Ozawa, who joined the DPJ in 2003, was Secretary-General of the LDP in the early 1990s. He was the president of the DPJ from 2006 to June 2009, when he resigned as a result of a money scandal. After the DPJ’s victory in August 2009, he became the secretary general of the party. For more on Ozawa, see Masahiro Matsumura, “Ozawa: Japan's secret shogun,” Japan Times, February 4, 2010.

  24. 24.

    The DPJ government allocated a road-building budget for the fiscal year 2010 based on electoral needs and requests from its support groups, not on cost-benefit calculations. “Minshu yobou de haibun ni kakusa”, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, February 12, 2010, p. 1, “Uwazumi gaku kyuwari chinjo wo hannei”, Asahi Shimbun, February 16, 2010, p. 8.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Senshu University, Tokyo, Japan

    Takeshi Ito

  2. Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Masako Suginohara

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  1. Takeshi Ito
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  2. Masako Suginohara
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Correspondence to Takeshi Ito .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Silvio Beretta

  2. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Axel Berkofsky

  3. Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy

    Fabio Rugge

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Ito, T., Suginohara, M. (2014). Flocking Together? The Breakdown and Revival of Political Clientelism in Italy and Japan. In: Beretta, S., Berkofsky, A., Rugge, F. (eds) Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They?. Perspectives in Business Culture. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2568-4_9

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