著者

Day Stephen Neary Ian

出版者

大分大学経済学会

雑誌

大分大学経済論集 (ISSN:04740157)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.72, no.1, pp.1-28, 2020-05

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Between 2013-2019, opposition parties in Japan have been plagued by fragmentation, electoral failure and transience. Such pathologies have left them languishing in a developmental cul-de-sac, characterized by the qualities that we equate with a `pre-fab' type-party, which has stymied their capacity to institutionalize and project themselves as a credible government-in-waiting. At the heart of this conundrum has been a self-replicating pattern whereby: 1) the weakness of the main opposition party invites challenge; 2) challengers emerge from intra-parliamentary splits and realignments; 3) in a bid to short-circuit the process of party-building (institutionalization) new parties overly rely upon `political celebrity' (charisma); 4) tactical cross-party electoral alliances while seen to hold potential are ultimately half-hearted; 5) the subsequent failure of 3 and 4 leave a litany of failed parties in its wake as deputies prioritize personal survival over party survival via which they start the process all over again. Such a pattern, scripted by political choice and augmented by the inherited political structures that deputies bring with them, have combined to tip the 2012-2019 oppositional story towards ephemerality rather than institutionalization. At the end of 2019, though, incipient signs of a shift beyond this developmental pattern appear to be unfolding.