POINT OF VIEW/ Hiroshi Hirano: Parties must kick the purse-string politics habit

Not many Japanese bother to register as members of political parties. According to published data, the Liberal Democratic Party has slightly more than 1 million members, while registered supporters of the Democratic Party of Japan number less than 300,000. New Komeito and the Japanese Communist Party each have about 400,000 members. The Social Democratic Party's membership is less than 20,000, while the People's New Party has about 250,000 members. When we take into account that there are more than 100 million eligible voters in the country, people who belong to political parties are clearly a minority.

Underlying this political aloofness is a deep-rooted view among the Japanese people that they should distance themselves from politics. Public opinion polls looking at people's political awareness show that many of the respondents do not want to get involved in politics.

I was one of a group of researchers who conducted a public opinion survey after last year's Lower House election and asked citizens about political activities they had engaged in over the past five years. While more than 90 percent said they voted in elections, only slightly more than 10 percent referred to signing petitions, making donations and taking part in rallies. The results clearly show that for most people voting is the only way they participate in politics. No wonder political parties have small memberships.

In Europe, people traditionally formed groups as a result of social cleavages, such as discord between urban and rural communities and between employers and employees. Political parties emerged to represent the interests of such groups. These parties are more deeply rooted in society. By comparison, in Japan, ties between political parties and the people are weaker.

Under the LDP regime that spanned half a century, the key role of politics was to efficiently allocate resources to promote industries and redistribute the wealth yielded. Many people joined the LDP because they wanted to be part of the distribution networks and receive their share of profit, rather than because they supported the LDP's political philosophy.

LDP membership peaked at around 5.47 million in 1991, but since then the number has declined. I believe the trend is a result of the LDP's inability to properly distribute resources after the collapse of the asset-inflated economy as well as the growing fluidity of the political world.

The former Japan Socialist Party, when it was the largest opposition party, relied on labor unions as a support base and did not have many members to begin with. It contented itself with being the "receptacle" of LDP criticism and did not work hard enough to spread support outside the party to expand its membership.

Meanwhile, former Komeito and the Japanese Communist Party succeeded in accepting certain groups of people who were not part of the LDP networks. However, their strong political ideologies hindered them from recruiting large numbers of supporters.

While sometimes benefiting from a party politics exclusively devoted to the distribution of profit, many voters developed an aversion to such politics and kept their distance from it. The situation remains unchanged, even after last year's historic change of government.

As can be seen in the recent decline in the DPJ's public approval ratings, many people who cast their ballots for the DPJ in the Lower House election have since turned against it. Apparently, few people are eager to take part in the DPJ's project by becoming members of the party.

However, this attitude among voters could be seen as taking a free ride. They leave troublesome affairs with the ruling parties and merely criticize those parties. Properly speaking, that is not how democracy ought to be. With the change of government, voters and parties should strive to develop new relationships.

For that, the politics from which voters have estranged themselves needs to undergo a drastic change. Political parties should be the primary agents of this change. Specifically, they need to part with the old politics of providing profits in exchange for votes.

During the 1990s, the election system was reformed under a slogan of allowing governmental change. But getting and keeping power became the overriding purpose of the DPJ and the LDP respectively. It was unclear what their purpose was for seeking the reins of government or what kind of politics they wanted to pursue.

As things currently stand, it cannot be helped that voters don't want to join or support political parties. It is time for the parties to act.

When putting together manifestoes and budgets, parties should come up with a system that enables them to listen to a wide range of public opinions and reflect those opinions in their policies.

When that starts to happen, more voters will be eager to stop taking free rides and to develop ties with political parties, even if that means shouldering costs and accepting risk. This change will also require political parties to accept more accountability for their actions.

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Hiroshi Hirano is a Gakushuin University professor specializing in the study of political behavior and process.