Two Party System: Narrowing or Polarizing

I just read an interesting editorial at Japan Today, which apparently first appeard at Metropolis (although I was unable to find that link). The writer, CB Liddell, argued that the emergence of a two party system in Japan would raise new dangers. He claims that:

“As we see in the West, it is likely to lead to a narrowing of the political spectrum, as the two major parties fight for the all-important center ground”.

He further states that:

“The effects of this can already be seen. In terms of hard policy differences, there is little to separate the two parties… This leads us to the real dangers of Japan’s new political system. With two alternating parties going head-to-head, what you get is less a debate on the best way to raise the overall fortunes and quality of a country, but instead a competition to offer voters more benefits at less cost. In essence this means a cut-tax-and-increase-public-spending approach”.

I find myself disagreeing with Liddell here. I’m not sure exactly which ‘West’ he is talking about, because in my experience the two party system is much more polarizing than narrowing. Perhaps he is coming at this from a European perspective, where, to some extent, there does seem to have been a narrowing of political expression over the last several decades. But in other Western countries such as the US, Canada and Australia, I do not believe this to be the case.

There may have been populist and ‘center-left’ victories in some places in recent times, but this has more to do with the ebb and flow of politics in my opinion, than any marked direction towards some elusive center and away from debate. Indeed, since recent elections in Australia and the US (the two countries whose politics I am most familiar, after Japan), the debate has been hightened, with conservative and American liberal ideas being debated at great length. This has long been the case in these two countries, and I see no major changes. It may be popular to suggest that the US, for example, is moving more to the ‘center’ than in the past, but the polls do not show this. Indeed, still a polarity of people consider themselves ‘conservatives’, while the liberal voice is also as strong as ever.

Getting back to Japan in particular, I also reject the premise of this article that this new two party system has somehow led to a narrowing of the debate. It is not the two party system that has done this in Japan, but on the contrary, it is the one party system that has had this result. For decades, Japan was goverened by one party, with only shades of grey on all of the major policies. Indeed, as I’ve said here before, in the most recent election, we saw the Liberal Democratic Party up against the recently merged Liberal and Democratic parties. Their ideologies were so similar until recently that the DPJ had to really work hard to develop policies that would differentiate them in some way. It is only since their growth as a political force that they have actually been able to differentiate themselves. Thus the result of the growing two party system here in Japan, in its early days at least, has been an attempt to have more of the debates and to find more of the differentiated positions that Liddell says are in danger of disappearing.

Liddell also argues above about the emergence of a cut-tax-and-increase-public-spending approach through the two party system. But this has long been a feature of politics everywhere. It has always been the function of government to balance inputs with outputs in a way that will a) gain them the most votes, and b) achieve the greatest effect. I don’t see anything sinister or dangerous in political parties attempting to cut taxes while at the same time trying to offer more to the public from what revenues they have. On the contrary, this is a good thing.

Liddell also argues that the reason for the LDP’s massive spending in economic stimulus packages was because of their lack of security in power. Apparently “if the LDP grip on power had been as secure as it was in the ’60s and ’70s, such economic mismanagement would have been unlikely”. Unfortunately I think this point misses the mark as well. Indeed, the recent LDP stimulus packages were not particularly popular, and their driving up of debt could be seen as a major reason for losing the election. And it was the LDP spending masses of money in the ’70s and ’80s and earlier that was a major factor in the financial woes of the ’90s and ’00s, including the famous ‘lost decade’ and ‘burst economic bubble’. That is not to say that the policies of the DPJ will necessarily be any better. But the point is that it is not a two party system that has created these events.

Liddell finishes the piece with this choice for the LDP, if it wants to regain power:

“either reposition itself as the Draconian party of fiscal responsibility, get annihilated at the next election, but have the last laugh when the Japanese economy finally collapses, or beat the DPJ at its own game by suggesting even more publicly funded benefits for voters”.

Again, I reject the premise. For some reason Liddell seems to equate fiscal responsibility with ‘Draconian measaures’. This is a false choice. The Japanese people are still a fundamentally conservative electorate, and unless the DPJ find ways to be fiscally responsible they will not be long for political power. The best chance that the LDP has now, in my opinion, is to reconnect with people by becoming the party of fiscal responsibility, as they watch the DPJ attempt to implement massive global warming taxes, and implement social welfare programs that will cost more and more money in years to come. The greatest chance for the LDP to regain power within the next cycle or two is if the DPJ over-reach and spend too much, requiring tax increases (as I said, large tax increases are already on the table in the name of environmental policy) and making the debt even less sustainable than it already is. The LDP would do well to learn their lessons of the past, and position themselves as a truly fiscally conservative party (something they haven’t been for a long time).