Differences And Similarities In Politics Of Japan and South Korea - Research Paper Example

Introduction Japan and South Korea in the East and South East Asia regions respectively, stand out as countries that demonstrate huge progress in their political affairs in the post-world war period. Both have historical experiences of political and economic turbulence, which called for the need in the countries reforms. Most of the policies adopted after American invasion of their lands changed with the encroaching globalization in the last decades of the 20th century. These governments had expressed authoritative governance from their past leadership and selective political dominance with high support from the affluent members of the society. When Japan had taken control of Korea earlier on, it left behind deep rooted cultures and politics among the Koreans, which the citizens struggled for decades to change in terms of the inferior notion of authoritative governance. Thesis: This paper compares the political institutions, primarily the electoral systems and bureaucracies of Japan and South Korea. It asserts that they have a common mixed type of electoral system, and similar roles in their bureaucracies, while explaining their divergence in application. It seeks to elaborate on the trends of their elections and power of bureaucracies after the reforms. The next section of the paper addresses the electoral system and rooted bureaucracies in Japan and South Korea in that order. It exposes the divergence in election of the legislative houses and the differences in the structures of bureaucracies and their influence in governance. Electoral System The electoral system of Japan changed in 1994 to transform the country’s politics and its elections. Japan conducts three types of elections; the general elections held after every 4 years to elect the house representatives, local elections after the same 4 year period and elections for a half of house of Councilors after 3 years (“The Electoral System,” countrystudies.us). Japan employs a secret ballot election and has a minimum voting age for persons aged 20. Japanese politics have changed in the last twenty years from candidate centered politics to modern democratic politics that feature in political parties. The 1994 reform introduced a mixed member electoral system, changing from SNTV system to single-member district (SMD) plurality component and the PR component (Maeda 5). Hence, the voter in Japan elects 300 lower house representatives under the single member constituency system and the remaining 180 under the proportional representation system in the different regional blocks (Election system 4). The adopted systems allowed different parties to be represented in the parliament and since Japan is a parliamentary political system, the popular party produces the prime minister and head of government in Japan, after the election by it’ s legislature. Part of the reasons for the reform was to enhance responsiveness of the median voter interests by engaging more political parties. Recent elections conducted after the reforms indicate gradual changes in the effects of the electoral system. It must be appreciated that the historical background of LDP single party leadership was shaken by the rising opponent parties that provide the stiff competition in politics. The trend of the two party systems in Japan has been evident and the country has witnessed changing leadership in government between DPJ and LDP parties. During the 2009 elections, the long dominating LDP party lost to the DPJ party that took governance in Japan after winning the majority of the electorate seats, but reversed by the LDP victory in 2012 elections (Mulgan, eastasiaforum.org). Through an analysis of the 2012 elections in Japan, it can be realized that LDP may have won the majority in the lower house to give it a governing advantage over DPJ party that still held the majority in the upper house. The electoral system in Japan was a positive step towards politics; though the effectiveness of its application is criticized for failure to erode LDP’s party dominance after more than a decade of application. The adjustment to these electoral reforms can explain the increasing popularity of alternative political parties at the local level and access to parliament, but weak to explain the party’s dominance. South Korea shares certain similarities with Japan’s electoral system. In terms of the legislative elections, South Korea also uses a mixed member majoritarian electoral system that allows voters to cast their ballots twice; one for the district and the other for the party list tier (Rich 366). Majority of its legislatures are elected under the single member district elections, while the remaining are elected through proportional representation by voting for the parties. Since the 80’s, the electoral system changed from one vote mixed system, then introduced PR to the former system, which was rejected before the two vote system came into effect. The president of South Korea is elected by plurality vote for a five year period where the system allows the political parties to run primary elections, to select the contesting presidential candidate of their choice. The legislatures are elected to serve for a 4 year term. In contrast to Japan, South Korea has a unicameral legislature. Bicameral Japan has two houses of legislature (upper and lower), while South Korea is dependent on its single national assembly with 299 members, 254 of whom are elected through single seat constituency and 54 by PR (Nakano 138). The variation is also deferent electing the prime minister; while the prime minister is elected by the majority in Japan Diet, the prime minister of South Korea is appointed by the president elect with the agreement of the national assembly to head the government. All electorates of the two vote system form the legislative house, which eliminates which electorates have more power than the other in South Korea. In any case, those elected under PR method are few than single seat constituency. The electoral system revised its voting age lowering it to 20 just like Japan. Comparing the election and competition trends between the two, South Korea’s political changes and leadership can be established with the development of multiple active political parties. Many political parties appear during elections, some of which disappear after. Even the popular parties break down and form the opposition within them. If you look at the winning margins of the elections, parties who won the elections had a stiff competition from the opposition. South Korea shifted from the Authoritarian regime with the help of civil societies among its citizens, bringing to an end oppressive politics and allowing political liberalization since the 90s. More elections have been held from the local level since the 90s, with more stable governments under different parties, which show that South Korea proved to stand the turn over test. Since 1997, different parties including NCNP, New Millenium Democratic, GNP and New Frontier parties have been elected into South Korea’s national assembly, which shows the volatility brought forth by their electoral system. However, with the political will of liberalization, the fluidity of party politics with numerous mergers and fragmentation trend is higher than that of Japan. Bureaucracy Japan has historically had a hierarchical structure of the society, which in the past centuries was associated with family ranks. These hierarchies have been translated into the modern public administration, which the government uses to implement policies at the local level and steer economic development. Japan has multiple bureaucratic agencies that serve in distinctive departments or ministries as appointed. The common feature of the bureaucracies in Japan is that it entails the highly educated elite group of society with honors in law and economic studies, which gives them a powerful position to contribute to decision making when it comes to Japan’s policies. It is said in Japan that besides the existing Diet and dominant party, bureaucracy plays a central role in law issues and has a greater influence at the local and national level. Bureaucracy is driven by political elites who engage in Japans law interpretation and implementation. Considering the changing parliament and the limited court functions in Japan, the bureaucrats handle all existing questions relating to the executive decisions and the law or constitution. Bureaucrats and their agencies seem to exercise more governance to Japan than the electorate members. Few of the laws are drafted and passed by the parliament while the bureaucracy takes initiative to write most of the legislatures and draft budgets that the legislative house moves on to enact. As such, the legislative house has acted as a puppet of the bureaucracy in Japan, which has enough power and influence to sway the policies and the society. Most of these bureaucrats serve in appointed central administrative organs of Japan’s ministries under the cabinet’s control. Today, the number of bureaucrats and civil servants in the political realm and corporations management are an alarming figure and whom the majority reflect the tradition of elitism in the recruitment process. Japanese bureaucracy is not a new issue and can be closely traced from Japanese traditions that gave people of a particular class and with high value in education a chance to enter into public administration careers; this has of course led to increased homogeneity of elites who are concentrated in Japan’s bureaucracy (“Japanese,” fruithome.com). As a result, Japan has experienced the strengths of these bureaucracies, but the weaknesses and poor perception of their positions in leadership has raised a cry from the electorate and public members to reform the civil service of Japan. Besides the increased spending of government in bureaucrats, there are multiple cases of existing corruption and incidences of scandals believed to be associated with the bureaucratic mismanagement. The bureaucratic organizations in South Korea have been destabilized over the years since the mid-90s, as a way to reduce concentration of power among the bureaucracies. Previous leaderships of South Korea between the 70s and 90 had brought in powerful economic bureaucracies that gave protection from interest groups. These bureaucracies were authoritarian and had failure to regulate the economic effectively, which brought the country into a financial crisis. The changes that occurred in the mid-90s and the increasing neo liberalization, led to the abolition of powerful bureaucratic economic agencies like the Economic Planning Board, merging of government ministries and reduction of the set commission for a smaller and better regulated state (Frisk 24). Towards the end of the 1990s’ in the course of transforming democracy, the opposition leaders managed to mobilize the society from the labor sectors, people in urban areas and those from the lower social class, and successfully merged with the political ruling elites to dissolve the authoritarian regime. Like Japan, majority of those in the bureaucratic commissions and agencies of South Korea are still highly learned and serve in the arms of government, foreign affairs and public administrations. However, South Korean bureaucrats have had numerous changes from reshuffles in the early years of the 21st century and substantial cut back of civil servants in the public service as the ministries shrunk (Kim 83-84). The earlier set corruption that came with complex bureaucracies of the last century has reduced, as a new generation of politicians and civil servants form the bureaucratic agencies that closely monitor the economic, political and social welfare of South Korea. The bureaucrats have lost some prestige compared to the earlier years in terms of financial rewards, as public sector reorganization set in and more rewarding jobs in private sectors developed. They still maintain their reputation and have over time managed to leave a legacy of disciplined, hardworking and lowly corrupt bureaucrats that enforce transparency in public works. Today, the bureaucrats consist of the elite, lower- middle and lower family classes that foster industrialization in the country. Bureaucrats are the main actors in the policy making process of South Korea and are selected based on a highly competitive entrance examination that has usually attracted the country’s best students (Mah 12). Hence, whether from poor or rich families, only the brilliant move to the highest levels of bureaucracy. Though most people agree that South Korea’s bureaucracy has always ruled the country while the politicians reign, some feel that they are more of think tanks that want to play safe, rather than initiate creativity in their role of planning and implementing development policies. Furthermore, with a lot of reorganization and developing political interests towards activities of the South Korean bureaucracy, it does not come closer to being the major actor in policy formulation. Conclusion The reform of the political institutions in both countries played a huge role in bringing other leaderships into governance. After electoral reform, Japan and South Korea settled for mixed types of electoral systems that entailed the PR component and single-member district (SMD) plurality components, to elect their legislative houses. Both changed from SNTV electoral systems, though at different periods facilitating intense political parties’ competition in elections. The trends of elections results prove that South Korea stood the turnover tests, with different political parties winning elections and demonstrating the extensive desired democracy. However, Japan’s case is rather confusing and even though the 2009 elections gave opposition party governance, the historical and dominating LDP has remained in governance for most terms after electoral reform. Bureaucracies in both countries can be traced from their past empires and have retained their roles in administrative positions. Bureaucrats were traditionally recruited on the function of elitism. Today, most of those in such positions must be highly educated to engage in their roles related to the policy making process. Unlike in Japan’s hierarchical society that has maintained high bureaucracy in governance, South Korea has continuously reformed its public sector and civil service, which has enabled removal of inefficient and traditional autocratic bureaucrats. More individuals from low and middle classes join the elite group in bureaucratic agencies, and must be appreciated for the tremendous efforts to alleviate corruption in South Korea. Works Cited Election System in Japan. 2007. PDF File. Frisk, M. Economic Bureaucracy and the South Korean Developmental State. 24 January 2013. PDF File. “Japanese and American Bureaucracies: Two Very Different Organizational Cultures.” Fruithome.com. n.d. Web. 20 March 2014. Kim, P.S. Administrative Reform in the Korean Central Government: A Case Study of the Dae Jung Kim’s Administration. July-December 2000. PDF File. Maeda, K. Has the Electoral System Reform Made Japanese Elections Part y-Centered? June 2007. PDF File. Mulgan, A. G. How Significant was the LDP’s Victory in Japan’s Recent General Election? 31 December 2012. PDF File. Nakano, R. An FTA with the US: Comparison between South Korea and Japan 2011. 20 March 2013. PDF File. Rich, T.S. 2013. “Evaluating South Korea’s Mixed Legislative System: A Cross-National Analysis of District Competition.” Korea Observer, 44(3): pp. 365-387. “The Electoral System.” countrystudies.us. n.d. Web. 19 March 2014. Read More