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Paper short abstract:

The left-wing populist Reiwa Shinsengumi party emerged onto the national stage in the 2019 upper house elections. This paper explores the attempt by the party to politicise widespread experiences of precarity and disenfranchisement, and expand the bounds of a stagnant political imagination.

Paper long abstract:

The July 2019 House of Councillors elections in Japan saw the unexpected success of a new left-wing populist political party: Reiwa Shinsengumi. The party challenged political orthodoxies and energised many first-time voters. Many such voters felt that the party was the first to truly recognise the indignity and unfairness of their precarious livelihoods and to offer the possibility of a meaningful political intervention – or at least a voice on the national stage.

I contend that it is productive to view the Reiwa Shinsengumi phenomenon as an attempt to politicise ‘post-democratic’ grievances in a context of ‘post-politics’. That is, as an attempt to leverage the disenfranchisements and disenchantments of the unequal (neo)liberal political economy to fuel a populist challenge to established norms of consensus-oriented politics where only minor adjustments to hegemonic neoliberalism are considered within the realm of political possibility. Such a framing allows us to bring Japan and Reiwa Shinsengumi into comparison with similar dynamics elsewhere, of (left or right) populist and prefigurative responses to the ongoing crisis of liberal orders and institutions.

This framing also foregrounds the politics of possibility, imagination and hope. These issues are at the heart of Japan’s ongoing and deepening political disengagement and apathy. Surveys show that while many Japanese expect livelihoods to worsen, most do not expect change or improvement via politics. Many young people aspire only to a ‘normal’ life and passively support the conservative establishment – fearful that rocking the boat would upset their already uncertain chances for stable, ‘normal’ futures. Reiwa Shinsengumi, proposing substantial government interventions to improve livelihoods, makes the simple case that things can in fact be made better through politics.

But how, within Japan’s post-political context, can the party make its proposals seem like real possibilities rather than mere fantasy? Looking ahead to field work beginning in autumn 2021, this paper draws on preliminary online research to sketch an initial argument about the position of the party in the Japanese political economy and examines some of the strategies it is adopting to address the many challenges of expanding the bounds of political imagination.