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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the Japan Teachers' Union (JTU) by utilizing Interest Group Theory to compare the JTU's case with unions in other liberal democracies. This paper will examine the effect of the exclusion of JTU from power on education reform and the employment rights of teachers in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Political scientists have applied Interest Group Theory to the study of teachers' unions in a variety of liberal democracies. This paradigm posits that teachers have vested interests in their jobs and have strong incentives to get organized, mobilize resources and exercise power in order to protect and advance their interests. This paper will discuss teachers' unions in Japan in light of this debate, and will explore those features of teachers' unions that are similar to other interest groups and those that are more distinctive. It will also raise for discussion questions about the distinctive nature of Japanese interest group behavior compared to other OECD nations.

During the postwar period, the Japan Teachers Union (JTU) was one of the main pillars of the Left in Japanese politics. However, the failure of the main party of the Left, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) to win power in the Diet meant that the JTU could never turn this influence into direct control over law-making related to education issues or the employment rights of teachers. The collapse of the JSP in the 1990s was accompanied by the rise of a new party of the Left, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Following this party's victory in the 2009 general election, the JTU, for the first time in its history, was able to gain at least some access to national-level policy makers. Unfortunately for the union, the DPJ government lurched from crisis to crisis and was able to get very little done. In 2012 it was defeated and the LDP returned to power.

This frustration of near-permanent opposition marks Japan's main teachers' union as different from teachers' unions in most other OECD countries which can expect to have a more direct effect on education policy-making at least some of the time. Also, the refusal of the Japanese Ministry of Education to negotiate with the JTU (or any other national association representing teachers), means they have no direct say over the setting of pay and conditions. This paper will examine the effect of this situation on education reform and the employment rights of teachers in Japan.

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Paper short abstract:

We analyze the recent Japanese labor reform and, more specifically, the working-time reform by focusing on the judicialization process. We question the role of the judicial system in policy-making analyzing the factors, procedures and context of judicial-decision implementation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper starts from the observation that individual labor disputes have increased in recent decades. To cite just a few examples: legal recourse for karôshi and karôjisatsu cases (death or suicide due to overwork), legal recourse for unpaid overtime, litigation for psychological and sexual harassment, and more recently court decisions in favor of workers discriminated against on their basis of their status (“equal work for equal pay”). In 2018, the Japanese government implemented a major labor reform called hatarakikata kaikaku, the work-style reform. To what extent do court decisions play a role in this policy-making process? To answer this question, we analyze this recent labor reform and, more specifically, the working-time reform by focusing on the judicialization process. We use the concept of “judicialization” based on a simple definition: "increased recourse to the judicial institution to settle disputes" (Pélisse, 2018, p.1). We question the role of the judicial system in policy-making focusing on the factors, procedures and context of judicial-decision implementation through legislative and political process. Media coverage and political salience are also closely analyzed. We focus on cases of karôshi and karôjisatsu, as they crystallize a number of crucial questions related to work organization, managerial practices, and social norms, and their resolution through courts to by pass organizational and administrative barriers in the recognition of the victims rights to compensation. The purpose of the legal mobilization against karôshi/karôjisatsu is threefold: compensation for workers and recognition of work-related illness, implementation of measures aimed at preventing karôshi, and labor law reform - particularly working-time regulation reform. While the link between judicial decisions rendered in karôshi/karôjisatsu trials and the professional disease recognition reform between 1987 and 2010 is well analyzed, the precise role played by the judicial institution in the legislative and regulatory initiative is less so.

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Paper short abstract:

While Abenomics has clearly yielded rich political dividends for both the LDP and Prime Minister Abe, I demonstrate in this paper why and in what way there has been a strong discrepancy between what it proclaimed it will do and achieve and what it has actually accomplished.

Paper long abstract:

Abenomics has clearly yielded rich political dividends for both the LDP and Prime Minister Abe. For the LDP, Abenomics offered to voters who had grown disillusioned with the Democratic Party a seemingly new and bold policy platform that promised to revitalize an economy that had grown stagnant during the three-year period when the DP controlled the Lower House Diet. With Abenomics as the center piece of its campaign platform, the LDP not only defeated the incumbent DPJ and regained control of the Lower House in the December 2012, it also scored key electoral victories in subsequent Upper House and Lower House elections, garnering enough seats in both Houses to put constitutional revision almost within the party's reach.

Despite these political dividends, however, I seek to demonstrate in this paper that Abenomics has not only failed to achieve many of its stated goals, but more importantly though less readily apparent, it has remained wedded to the basic neoliberal economic strategy that the conservative party has generally embraced since Japan entered its "Lost Decades". What this means in terms of macroeconomic policy is that the Abe administration has aggressively pursued expansionary monetary policies consistent with its targeted economic objectives, but its fiscal policies have remained restrained and generally contractionary. Moreover, when labor reform policies are added to the mix, the Abe administration's effort to introduce further "employment flexibility" have weakened job security and perpetuated Japan's high level of income inequality and precarity that is now more comparable to levels found in liberal market economies than in coordinated market economies. In highlighting how these neoliberal policies both reflect and reinforce the underlying political support base of the LDP, I seek to underscore both the challenges and opportunities that opposition parties face in advancing a more progressive alternative to established LDP policies.