Prospects for Japan's Political reform

The prospects for political reform in Japan has been triggered by some reasons. The first reason would be the entrenched corruption specifically highlighted in the last few decades by several major scandals. These involved both LDP politicians and opposition leaders. Another reason would be the slow pace of economic reform. Japan has recently making large trade with the western countries,especially with the US which some politicians could perceive this as a tremendous threat to Japanese economy.

There were a lot of reformers who had made efforts to restructure Japan’s political system. However almost none of them had made to change the political system. These movement failed to implement their purpose to destabilize LDP and to weaken the bureaucratic power. Koizumi has done efforts to reform the politics specifically the LDP. First, he tried to weaken the factional powerbrokers and the tribal politicians but until this moment, Japan could still see same faces in the government.

The great possibilty of political reform can be done if the people would start to loose their strong attachment to the status quo. Politics as well as History is being propelled by the culture of the people. It may be difficult to legislate a reform right a way. Now that Japan has been encountering changes specially with the youth, eventually, a great reform will come that will best suit the society.

International Cooperation ; Its Achievements and Drawbacks

International Cooperation is often associated with global economic, scientific, environmental, political and security issues. Whenever cooperation initiatives fail, discourses arise to determine the reasons for the failure by studying the roles of the main actors of cooperation, namely the public and private sectors. Yet, despite numerous discussions, problems not only remain unresolved, they have worsened too and often it is the common people that carry the burden of no resolution. If it is the public that is greatly disadvantaged, then what is the role of the common people in International Cooperation? What areas of International Cooperation are most people worldwide involved in?

The expansion of communication and transportation is one of the main goals of International Cooperation. It stimulates a global approach to the most important problems and builds bridges of cooperation between nations. This has proven highly effective in environmental issues. Environmental problems spread from one country to another. These issues urge every nation’s active participation. For example, Japan is well known for mutagenicity and Australia for the studies of the effects of UV radiation. The synthesis of these studies can prove to be essential in addressing environmental problems in the future.

Most of International Cooperation activities for the environment are successful due to the incentives it offers for all nations involved. These include cost sharing, the emergence of global scale issues, diffusion of scientific competence, and above all, increased awareness of the common people on the necessity of environmental preservation and protection.

However, International Cooperation does not always thrive as expected. National objectives are not identical, opportunity costs differ from country to country, and even government structures are not parallel. For large cooperation projects, addressing the question ‘who benefits more?’ in dividing gains according to individual contribution hinders cooperation. All these obstacles are apparent in the study of US and UK programs for the conversion and downsizing of nuclear weapons in Russia. One of the major problems was lack of coordination among US and UK cooperation programs. On the domestic side, there was a lack of complete Russian political-technical programs for the resolution of nuclear proliferation in closed cities. It seems that less attention is paid to the impact of International negotiations on domestic politics and how it affects the Russian people. As such, the program ended as an excessive emphasis on immediate marketing on technological products rather than minimizing the nuclear weapon in the country.

International cooperation on Politics and Security is a very complex issue for it entails vast awareness and comprehension from local citizens. This case in Russia shows that some International negotiation has a subtle reciprocal effect on domestic decision making in the state that participates.

Unlike the results on the issue in Russia, much of the success of International cooperation in Tourism has presented how each country showed interests in studying each other’s culture. In order to establish cooperation with another country, it is necessary to know more about their culture and their indigenous capacity to obtain sustainable development. One good example is Egypt, which is known for its tourist attraction, has achieved so many successful agreements with different countries. The 'Pyramids of Giza' is considered as a World Heritage Site and more tourists world wide are coming each year to experience and appreciate the Egyptian culture. Egypt has used this opportunity to develop and enhance the Egyptian economic relations with other countries of the world, as well as invest Egypt's international relations so as to serve development targets and merge them with world economy. Egypt has received billions of grants from US China, Japan, Canada and some countries in Middle East and Europe in exchange of scientific and historical researches in their country.

International cooperation in Tourism, just like environmental issues, received greater response because of how it directly affects and benefits the citizens. Tourism gives out employment and economic opportunity to the common folk. It also opens smaller countries to greater prospects to get along with larger countries.

International Cooperation is a very broad global issue. Focusing on the given examples of achievements and drawbacks of International Cooperation, it is important to give emphasis on the welfare of the majority. Just like in a simple group where in the decision of the majority should rule. Therefore,the role of the common people in the cooperation is to become one of the main actors and be the main beneficiaries of the international programs. The government has a huge responsibility in communicating with the rest of the state to comprehend what International Cooperation is all about. This also gives emphasis on the importance of unity. Unity is not about putting all the nations in to one culture but it is about integrating them together by understanding cross cultural diversity and accepting the differences. In bigger projects, it is best to think about what would be the direct impact on the people first, before focusing on the personal gains. It is like giving more efforts on what can be contributed in order to achieve best results. Benefits will always come in the end. International Cooperation entails agreement between countries and this can be achieved with proper communication and understanding on the involved nations’ side.

The Longevity of LDP and the Role of the People

The longevity of the lliberal democratic party is one of the biggest question in
Japanese politics in spite of the fact that it recently lacks favor from the the Japanese population. Based on Ethan Scheiner's discussion there are several reasons why LDP has remained strong in Japan's politics. LDP has certainly helped Japan build sustainable economics and has somehow continually tries to establish good image with the public by resolving social issues like gender gaps. Scheiner also explained the advantages of LDP representative's over other candidates.

Apart from the explanation made by Scneider, I would like to focus on one of the reasons why the LDP has stayed in power for so long - and this is the Culture of Japan Politics. Based on some studies more Japanese have become more conservative and traditional inn choosing their political leaders. Voters who are attached to their traditional cultural values are more likely to entrust the incumbent government rather than throw the incumbent party out of the government. Japanese citizens still considered LDP as long time running prominent political leaders. This implies that those Japanese who would be more submissive to political authority were more likely to vote for the LDP .

In the documentary by Kazuhiro Soda, it gives emphasis on the “desire of people maintain a ‘pipeline’ as discussed by Scheiner. It is important to obtain a linkage between local and national politicians. A local politicial would serve as a connection for local people to voice out their needs to the government. This idea is what LDP is trying to campaign for.

I therefore conclude that the Japanese people have a huge role for the longevity of LDP to Japanese Politics. The party is aware that their dominance would still be based on the voters, that is why their focus is to connect with them. True that as years pass by, LDP has becoming unpopular but the thought of the fact that LDP is still the pioneer and has made a lot of contributions for the nation, the people continuously supporting them and considering them as a strong foundation of Japanese government.

Failure of the Revision of 1947 Japanese Constitution

The current constitution of Japan was made in 1946 and The Constitution came into effect on May 3, 1947, during the Allied Forces occupation after the World War II. With the adaptation of this constitution a lot of Japanese politicians believed that this will eventually be replaced as soon as the occupation will be over. Many have questioned the resilience of Japan to this issue but inspite of this, the efforts of revising the 1947 constitution was never successful.
Some time between 1948 and 1949, General Douglas McArthur had given Japan an opportunity to amend the constitution just to check the response of the citizens. However the Japanese Governement has only presented very few proposals for minor revisions. At the same time the government did not invite the public to respond through a national referendum. With this response MacArthur determined that Japan would eradicate war as a sovereign right of the nation. War would be relinquished as a way to settle disputes with the other countries especially USA and as a means to preserve security. This signifies that Japanese government and people overlooked the opportunity to amend the constitution when invited to do so, indicates an early level of support that renders the claim of foreign imposition.

After the world War and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan was devastated with it great defeat and considered as having a status of ground zero. Being under the US after the war is like being in rehabilitation instuitution. Considering that Japan lacks resources and its military has been disabled, it needed a strong foundation.

Looking at the most recent time, Japan still struggles to stand on its own. Changing the constitution would be difficult for the country. One reason is, it is very arduous to proceed with the revision process for it need s to be approved by at least 80% of the members of the National Diet. Japanese politicians are divided themselves with regards with the issue of revising the constitution. Half would like to conserve their traditional laws while the rest are more concerned in maintaining the peace constitution.

Japan is aware that they need America in some aspects. Why keep the constitution that would keep them from focusing on security? With the current status of Japan, they need to keep their eyes more with their economy. Of course, they need to fabricate strong relationship with their neighboring countries which apparently considered as threats as well. With slight revision of the institution, Japan is quite contented with a defense army, AT THE MOMENT. Keeping the constitution is like making a statement that they follow this because they still respect the agreement with U.S.

In finding out the reasons, it is very important to study the behavior of the state. After the War, Japan was cluttered with woes, regret and a sense of great loss. The nation is dealing what is available in the meantime. Of course, Japan has remained true to its national interests in discreet manner but they cannot let go if their foundation isn’t strong enough.