The was a centrist to centre-left, liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. It was the main opposition to the Liberal Democratic Party from 1998 to 2009 and from 2012 to 2016, as well as the ruling party of Japan from 2009 to 2012. It is not to be confused with the now-defunct Japan Democratic Party that merged with the Liberal Party in 1955 to form the Liberal Democratic Party. It is also different from another Democratic Party, which was established in 1947 and dissolved in 1950.
The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Party of Japan, which was founded in September 1996 by politicians of the centre-right and centre-left with roots in the Liberal Democratic Party and Japan Socialist Party. In April 1998, the previous DPJ merged with splinters of the New Frontier Party to create a new party which retained the DPJ name. In the 2000 general election, the party won 127 seats, firmly establishing it as the main opposition party. In 2003, the party was joined by the Liberal Party of Ichirō Ozawa and won 177 seats in the 2003 general election. 2004 House of Councillors election, the DPJ won a seat more than the LDP. The party lost 64 seats in the 2005 general election, with its seats being decreased to 113. Nevertheless, the party won further seats in the 2007 House of Councillors election, becoming the largest party in the House of Councillors and creating the first divided Diet since 1999.
Following the 2009 election, the DPJ became the ruling party in the House of Representatives, defeating the long-dominant LDP in a landslide and gaining the largest number of seats in both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. During its time in office, the DPJ was beset by internal conflicts and struggled to implement many of its proposed policies. Legislative productivity under the DPJ was particularly low, falling to levels unprecedented in recent Japanese history according to some measures. However, the DPJ implemented a number of progressive measures during its time in office such as the provision of free public schooling through high school, increases in child-rearing subsidies, expanded unemployment insurance coverage, extended duration of a housing allowance, and stricter regulations safeguarding part-time and temporary workers.
The DPJ lost its majority in the House of Councillors in the 2010 election. The party was ousted from government by the LDP in the 2012 general election. It retained 57 seats in the lower house, and still had 88 seats in the upper house. On 27 March 2016, the DPJ merged with the Japan Innovation Party and Vision of Reform to form the Democratic Party (Minshintō), which in turn merged with the Party of Hope on 7 May 2018 to form the Democratic Party For the People, while a significant amount of members split to form the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on 3 October 2017 and on 15 September 2020.
History
Beginnings
thumb|upright|Headquarters of the Democratic Party of Japan
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was formed on 27 April 1998. It was a merger of four previously independent parties that were opposed to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—the previous Democratic Party of Japan, the Good Governance Party (民政党, Minseitō), the New Fraternity Party (新党友愛, Shintō-Yūai), and the Democratic Reform Party (民主改革連合, Minshu-Kaikaku-Rengō). The previous parties ranged in ideology from conservative to social-democratic. The new party began with ninety-three members of the House of Representatives and thirty-eight members of the House of Councilors. Moreover, the party officials were elected as well at the party convention for the first time; Naoto Kan, former Health and Welfare Minister was appointed as the president of the party and Tsutomu Hata, former prime minister as secretary-general.
On 24 September 2003 the party formally merged with the small, centre-right Liberal Party led by Ichirō Ozawa in a move largely considered in preparation for the 2003 general election held on 9 November 2003. This move immediately gave the DPJ eight more seats in the House of Councilors.
In the 2003 general election, the DPJ gained a total of 178 seats. This was short of their objectives, but nevertheless a significant demonstration of the new group's strength. Following a pension scandal, Naoto Kan resigned and was replaced with moderate liberal Katsuya Okada.
In the 2004 House of Councillors election, the DPJ won a seat more than the ruling Liberal Democrats, but the LDP still maintained its firm majority in total votes. This was the first time since its inception that the LDP had garnered fewer votes than another party.
The 2005 snap parliamentary elections called by Junichiro Koizumi in response to the rejection of his Postal privatization bills saw a major setback to the DPJ's plans of obtaining a majority in the Diet. The DPJ leadership, particularly Okada, had staked their reputation on winning the election and driving the LDP from power. When the final results were in, the DPJ had lost 62 seats, mostly to its rival the LDP. Okada resigned the party leadership, fulfilling his campaign promise to do so if the DPJ did not obtain a majority in the Diet. He was replaced by Seiji Maehara in September 2005.
However, Maehara's term as party leader lasted barely half a year. Although he initially led the party's criticism of the Koizumi administration, particularly in regards to connections between LDP lawmakers and scandal-ridden Livedoor, the revelation that a fake email was used to try and establish this link greatly damaged his credibility. The scandal led to the resignation of Representative Hisayasu Nagata and of Maehara as party leader on 31 March. New elections for party leader were held on 7 April, in which Ichirō Ozawa was elected president. In the Upper House election 2007, the DPJ won 60 out of 121 contested seats, with 49 seats not up for re-election.
2009–2012 government
thumb|200px|DPJ winning the [[2009 Japanese general election|2009 general election]]
Ozawa resigned as party leader in May 2009 after a fundraising scandal and Yukio Hatoyama succeeded Ozawa before the August 2009 general election, – the worst defeat for a sitting government in modern Japanese history. This was in marked contrast to the closely contested 1993 general election, the only other time the LDP has lost an election. The DPJ's strong majority in the House of Representatives assured that Hatoyama would be the next prime minister to replace Tarō Asō, leader of the LDP. Hatoyama was nominated on September 16 and formally appointed later that day by Emperor Akihito in the Tokyo Imperial Palace and formed his Cabinet.
However, the DPJ did not have a majority in the House of Councillors, which was not contested at the election, and fell just short of the 320 seats (a two-thirds majority) needed to override the upper chamber's veto power. Hatoyama was thus forced to form a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party and the People's New Party to ensure their support in the House of Councillors.
On 2 June 2010, Hatoyama announced his resignation before a party meeting and officially resigned two days later. He cited breaking a campaign promise to close an American military base on the island of Okinawa Prefecture as the main reason for the move. On 28 May 2010, soon after and because of increased tensions after the possible sinking of a Korean ship by North Korea, Hatoyama had made a deal with U.S. President Barack Obama to retain the base for security reasons, but the deal was unpopular in Japan. He also mentioned money scandals involving a top party leader, Ozawa, who resigned as well, in his decision to step down. Naoto Kan succeeded Hatoyama as the next President of DPJ and Prime Minister of Japan.
At the July 2010 House of Councillors election, the DPJ lost ten seats and their coalition majority. Prior to the election Kan raised the issue of an increase to Japan's 5 per cent consumption tax in order to address the country's rising debt. This proposal, together with Ozawa and Hatoyama's scandals, was viewed as one of the causes for the party's poor performance in the election. The divided house meant the government required the cooperation of smaller parties including Your Party and the Communist Party to ensure the passage of legislation through the upper house.
Ozawa challenged Kan's leadership of the DPJ in September 2010. Although Ozawa initially had a slight edge among DPJ members of parliament, local rank-and-file party members and activists overwhelmingly supported Kan, and according to opinion polls the wider Japanese public preferred Kan to Ozawa by as much as a 4–1 ratio. In the final vote by DPJ lawmakers Kan won with 206 votes to Ozawa's 200.
After the leadership challenge, Kan reshuffled his cabinet and removed many prominent members of the pro-Ozawa faction from important posts in the new cabinet. The cabinet reshuffle also resulted in the promotion of long-time Kan ally Yoshito Sengoku to Chief Cabinet Secretary, who the LDP labeled as the "second" Prime Minister of the Kan cabinet.
In September 2010, the government intervened to weaken the surging yen by buying U.S. dollars, a move which temporarily relieved Japan's exporters. The move proved popular with stock brokers, Japanese exporters, and the Japanese public.
During its time in office, the DPJ was beset by internal conflicts and struggled to implement many of its proposed policies, an outcome described by political scientists Phillip Lipscy and Ethan Scheiner as the "paradox of political change without policy change". Legislative productivity under the DPJ was particularly low, falling to levels unprecedented in recent Japanese history according to some measures. However, the DPJ implemented a number of progressive measures during its time in office such as the provision of free public schooling through high school, increases in child-rearing subsidies, expanded unemployment insurance coverage, extended duration of a housing allowance, and stricter regulations safeguarding part-time and temporary workers.
2012–2016 return to opposition and dissolution
On 24 February 2016, the DPJ announced an agreement to merge with the smaller Japan Innovation Party (JIP) and Vision of Reform ahead of the Upper House elections in the summer, with a merger at a special convention agreed for 27 March. On 4 March 2016, the DPJ and JIP asked supporters for suggestions for a name for the new party. On 14 March 2016 the name of the new party was announced as Minshintō, having been the most popular choice of possible names polled among voters. With the addition of Representatives form Vision of Reform, the DPJ and JIP merged to form the Democratic Party on 27 March 2016.
The dissolution of the DPJ is mainly attributed to the fact that the reforms that the DPJ advocated for were hard to put into place because of electoral restrictions, economic restrictions, and the fact that the reforms that would reduce the power of the bureaucracy would help deprive the DPJ of the power to implement their other reforms. Other factors that affected the dissolution of the party were the internal conflicts that paralyzed the DPJ and the fact that the DPJ aligned itself with the foreign policy of the LDP. This was determined in the first party convention on 27 April 1998. The DPJ aimed become a third force in Japan's party system (on par with the LDP and the SDP), claiming to be a "liberal alternative" to the existing parties.
Ideologically, under the banner of liberalism, the DPJ pursued a comprehensive political agenda that included market-oriented and decentralization-oriented reforms, as well as a strong commitment to protecting and improving civil rights and human rights. The DPJ has been widely described as liberal, or social-liberal. According to a survey conducted by the Mainichi Shimbun targeting Diet members, the political opinions of the DPJ's members were positioned between those of the conservative LDP and the centre-left SDP, and their ideology and policies were liberal. Heenan points out that the DPJ, in which about half of the SDP members participated in its founding, was broadly progressive. On the other hand, the DPJ did not actively bring gender issues to the forefront of politics during its time in power, and even when it held a majority (2009–2011), it did not introduce a gender quota. While the left-liberal governments of Austria, the United Kingdom, and France abolished the death penalty in 1950, 1965, and 1981, respectively, the DPJ government in Japan neither abolished nor significantly reformed the death penalty. The DPJ adopted a more pragmatic and centrist approach than the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), maintained a centrist stance on issues such as tax cuts, public services, regulatory policy, decentralization, social policy, and environmental policy. The DPJ advocated a reform agenda centered on neoliberalism, complemented by a social-democratic approach to expanding social security and a multilateral or globalist orientation in foreign and security policy. The DPJ's neoliberal policies were supported by corporations, and its liberal policies were supported by citizens, however the party gradually shifted its policies from neoliberalism to welfarism. The DPJ proposed policies such as providing childcare allowances, direct support to individual farmers, and promoting the financial independence for local governments. In the 2009 general election, the DPJ campaigned on a manifesto opposing the LDP's developmental state and structural reforms, and established a Japanese government that implemented welfare policies for the first time since World War II.
The DPJ's economic policies advocated deregulation, attracting foreign investment, reducing wasteful public works spending, and shrinking the discretionary power of the national bureaucracy, which were closely linked to the party's decentralization policies. Advocating the principle of subsidiarity, the party argued that decision-making should not necessarily occur at the central government level, but rather at the appropriate level of government. The party also advocated for political initiative, calling for reforms to the governing structure through measures such as expanding the prime minister's powers, strengthening the cabinet's budget-making authority, and increasing the initiative of politicians within the bureaucracy. The DPJ was a coalition of politicians with diverse backgrounds, ranging from economic liberals to former socialists. According to Krauss and Pekkanen, some members of the DPJ may have held more economically liberal views than members of the LDP. Among those who led the party were Naoto Kan, who emphasized the need to increase spending on social services (pensions, health care, and nursing); Yukio Hatoyama, who prioritized employment adjustment and job creation; and Katsuya Okada, who stated, "Politics should not intervene in the market. The role of politics is to mitigate economic disparities arising from free competition."
The DPJ is generally classified as a centrist party. In October 2003, the DPJ absorbed conservative groups such as the Liberal Party, transforming from the centre-left previous DPJ, established in 1996, into an ideologically centrist in the early 21st century. Between the LDP and the SDP, there was space for other parties to enter and grow, and the DPJ filled that space by shifting towards the centre. However, it is also classified as a centre-left. Furthermore, some influential figures within the party, including Ichirō Ozawa, hold positions almost identical to those of the LDP's rignt-wing. Therefore, according to Shinkawa and Onishi, it is not impossible to call this party "centre-right."
The DPJ aimed to create a platform broad enough to encompass the views of politicians who had roots in either the LDP or the JSP. Party leader Naoto Kan compared the DPJ to the Olive Tree alliance of former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, and described his view that it needed to be "the party of Thatcher and Blair". Within the DPJ, three different policy directions coexisted: neoliberalism, developmental state, and social democracy. The first "neoliberalism" opposed the developmental state, pork-barrel politics of the LDP, and bureaucrat-led politics, and was supported by many factions within the party. Among these, fiscal structural reform was considered the most important and became the driving force behind the DPJ administration. The second "developmental state" was a political approach adopted by the group led by Ozawa, which aimed to provide welfare programmes directly to each individual citizen. The third "social democracy" was promoted by former JSP members and citizen movement groups, and aimined to implement welfare policies similar to those found in European social democracy.
View of the status quo
The DPJ claimed themselves to be revolutionary in that they are against the status quo and the current governing establishment. The DPJ argued that the bureaucracy and the size of the Japanese government is too large, inefficient, and saturated with cronies and that the Japanese state is too conservative and inflexible. The DPJ wanted to "overthrow the ancient régime locked in old thinking and vested interests, solve the problems at hand, and create a new, flexible, affluent society which values people's individuality and vitality."