EDITORIAL: Public's role in politics

The first sentence of the preface to the Constitution says we, the Japanese people "do proclaim that sovereign power resides with the people and do firmly establish this Constitution."

Last summer, the Japanese people made a historic decision. They voted out the government led by the Liberal Democratic Party, which had long ruled the nation, and brought the Democratic Party of Japan to power. The Japanese people clearly expressed their intention to change the way the nation was governed and thought they had achieved that.

During the eight months since then, however, public support of the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has been falling quickly. A growing number of Japanese are feeling that politics is not working in the way they expected. Many Japanese are probably beginning to ask themselves whether they really have the power to shape their own destinies.

Politics divorced from the people

These are indeed tough times for politics.

Accelerating economic globalization is making people's livelihoods more vulnerable to what happens in huge markets. It is not easy to stop the huge demographic trend of the nation--the rapid aging of the population amid low birthrates.

Clearly, the nation is facing a raft of formidable political challenges. But the political scene created by the Hatoyama administration has left Japanese feeling a strong sense of deja vu. The government has failed to demonstrate a strong commitment to tackling the challenges posed by this era of violent changes.

The administration has been shaken by scandals concerning the role of money in politics. Its propensity toward politics of patronage and its policy platform filled with promises not supported by solid funding plans indicate that the political leaders of the ruling camp believe they can still use state money to buy voter loyalty.

Politicians become more divorced from the public as they focus more on efforts to garner votes. Yet we cannot turn our backs on politics itself. We cannot stop using our sovereign power.

How can we re-establish our productive relationship with politics? There are local governments that are using their own small "constitution" to overcome this political crisis.

Fukushima in Hokkaido is a town of about 5,000 people facing the Tsugaru Strait. The town's population is expected to decline to 2,000 or so in 2035.

This small town's assembly, however, constantly receives visits by people from across the nation to learn about reforms in Fukushima carried out over the years as well as the "constitution," a basic assembly ordinance that has been established through these reforms.

Democracy based on public debate

The Fukushima town assembly has been making special efforts to get a broad range of townspeople involved in the decision-making process.

The town is in dire fiscal straits. It is crucial to set clear budget priorities to ensure that limited financial resources are used in the most effective manner. The assembly needs to hold serious discussions with the residents to make viable decisions on such issues.

A committee comprising all 12 members of the assembly has been set up to listen to the opinions of the townspeople about each policy issue, such as child-care support.

A resident lodging a petition is invited to explain his or her proposal at the assembly. Town residents attending a sitting of the assembly are allowed to take part in the debate.

These measures offer opportunities for the assembly members to hear the views of people in the town that are different from those expressed by supporters in their constituencies in elections. These steps have gradually changed the debate among assembly members. One result was the assembly's decision to scrap the municipal government's plan to build a town-run hotel featuring a hot spring.

Another was the replacement of a plan to install a sewerage system in the town with a less costly project using septic tanks. In making these decisions, the assembly focused on eliminating wasteful expenditures instead of serving special interests.

Another basic ordinance, the "constitution" of the city of Tokyo's Mitaka, also says municipal policymaking should be based on cooperation between the assembly and citizens participating in the process.

In an initiative in line with this principle, the city has established a system for debate among citizens on key policy issues. Randomly selected citizens engage in discussions after being briefed on relevant matters and conditions for forming a consensus.

This plan allows the municipal government to listen to the judgment of a group of people reasonably representative of the citizens after they have carefully weighed the pros and cons of important issues.

Through this system and other opportunities for participation, like local discussion meetings, a wide range of citizens in Mitaka will get involved in the formulation of the fourth basic development plan for the city, which is to be introduced in fiscal 2011.

Citizens will help improve the plan by using materials based on the mayor's election manifesto. This approach reflects the recognition that voters have not necessarily supported all the details of the manifesto. Mitaka's system for discussions among citizens is modeled on a plan devised in Germany.

The Nazis established their dictatorship through elections. The German scholar who invented the program tried to figure out an effective way to revive democracy based on the lessons learned from the nation's traumatic experiences in the Nazi era.

Creating a new public sphere

This is an era when it is hard to read public opinion. When the nation enjoyed continued healthy economic growth and the state budget kept expanding, there wasn't much public revulsion against politicians using their positions to throw patronage to their supporters.

Now, however, providing pork for some people inevitably means a raw deal for others. The days are long gone when it was said that all Japanese belonged to the "middle class." Income gaps in Japan have widened sharply, while people's values have diversified.

The policies demanded by one area or one generation could be the exact opposite of those demanded by another. Elections are the basic system for the public to express their will, so the disparity in the weight of one vote among electoral districts must be rectified swiftly.

But further efforts are needed to ensure fair elections. One important question is what kind of election system is best suited in an era when there is an even sharper conflict of interests between generations than between areas. Some experts propose generation-based electoral districts. Debate must also start on the future of the bicameral legislature sooner or later.

But even a fair election system won't solve all the problems. Public opinion is not something that is there to be discovered. It is usually formed gradually through discussions on certain issues among people who didn't have firm opinions or accurate knowledge about the subject matter.

If so, elections alone are not enough to build a public consensus. Various channels of communications between politicians and voters need to be established to form public opinion.

The "constitutions" of Fukushima in Hokkaido and Mitaka in Tokyo are designed to increase such channels. Nearly 100 discussion meetings among citizens modeled on Mitaka's system have been held in various parts of the nation.

The central government is also making some moves in line with the trend. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, for instance, has created an online forum on policy issues among the ministry's top three elected officials, teachers, students and parents. During the two weeks since the forum was set up, there have been more than 1,700 posts at the site.

To ensure that the people will retain their sovereign power, efforts must be made to create a new public sphere to form public consensus so that the people's opinions not reflected in election outcomes can be a driving force of politics. This process itself will help restore public confidence in politics and lay a solid foundation for democracy not spoiled by populism.

--The Asahi Shimbun, May 3