The Sept. 26 election of the new Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, indicates a resurgence of nationalism in Japanese politics almost American in style, according to Visiting Professor of Government Jun Saito in a lecture on Friday at the East Asian Studies House.
“Abe is regarded as a nationalist hard-liner…as was Koizumi,” Saito said. “His nationalistic ideals echo those of Kennedy.”
Born in Sakata, Japan, Saito has studied Japanese politics at Sophia University, U.C. San Diego, and Yale University. He has also served as a congressman in Japan’s lower house of representatives and a translator between former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the president of Yale. His talk focused on the implications of the recent election in Japanese politics and Asia more broadly.
“In [the] good old days, politics was about money,” Saito said. “In U.S.S.R., see bald guy replaced by hairy guy, who is replaced by bald guy, who is replaced by hairy guy, who is replaced by another bald guy. In [the] good old days, hairy guys were socialist hard-liners, while the bald were reformers.”
Saito attempted to illustrate this with a flow chart of Soviet leaders. To Saito, the patterns were clear, but some were not sure how the chart related to his talk.
“At first, it wasn’t clear why exactly he was examining the hairlines of every Russian ruler since Stalin,” said Daniel Koblenz ’10. “It became more clear once he started talking about Shinzo Abe’s hairline.”
Saito then showed an analogous chart of post-World War II Japanese rulers. The new president sticks out like a sore thumb, Saito claimed.
“You can see that no one is as young as Shinzo Abe,” he said.
The personal characteristics of Abe, Saito argued, point to a paradigm shift toward nationalist populism in Japan.
“You can see that no one is as handsome as Shinzo Abe,” he said “In the good old days, politics was filled with corrupt, old, ugly guys. Electing Abe, a handsome-looking young guy, shows the change in political system.”
Arielle Golden ’10 was not convinced that the new president was all that attractive.
“I, personally, wouldn’t tap that,” she said, referring to Abe.
Regardless, Saito made clear he thought this shift was distinctly toward a more American style of elections and campaigning.
“The market structure, policy output, public opinion, et cetera, will look more like that of the United States,” he said.
Saito felt that Japan’s growing disparity between rich and poor was responsible for this change.
“During the post-war period, everyone regarded themselves as members of the middle class,” he said. “As a result, nationalism declined substantially.”
Saito said that China, Korea, and Japan have shown signs of substantial income inequality. This gap between rich and poor, Saito argued, is perhaps the result of global economic liberalization championed by America, which has the lowest income equality and highest nationalism among the world’s large nations.
“The more rich people, the more nationalism,” he said. “Nationalism is highly correlated with income inequality.”
Saito also looked to the United States to explain the prioritization of national security in Japanese politics.
“The end of the Cold War affected the Japanese concerns over national security, as did the Gulf War and Iraq,” he said.
According to Saito, the new Japanese president has similarities to the American president. Born into a political family, Abe’s father was a prominent politician, and his grandfather was prime minister. After his father passed away in 1993, Abe was immediately elected to the lower house of representatives. With only 13 years in politics, the new prime minister’s inexperience is unprecedented for his position.
Saito himself comes from more humble roots, as a farmer’s son in poor, rural Japan. His background was something he never forgot as he traveled through the world of academia and politics, he said.
“I grew up in a conflict between my self-identity as a farm boy and a very curious cosmopolitan scholar,” he said on his website.
In high school and college, Saito studied the industrialization of the land where he had been raised. Deciding to broaden his educational horizons, he went to U.C. San Diego for a foreign exchange program.
“I decided to stay in the United States to master more sophisticated empirical methodologies and theoretical perspectives,” he said.
Saito went on to study political economy at Yale until he realized that there were serious political problems in Japan, especially in the region where he grew up. He returned, ran for office in Japan’s House of Representatives, and won. After a year, however, he was ousted. His experience has inclined him to stress legislative unity and cooperation.
“In the optimistic scenario, there will be a viable bipartisanship,” Saito said. “Under the pessimistic scenario, Japanese politics may end up looking like Singaporean politics today.”