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Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to describe the political conscientiousness and voting behaviour of the Japanese young voters, paying attention to their education, occupation and place of living. It highlights the differences in political consciousness as a result belonging to various socioeconomic status.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to describe and explain the voting behaviour of the Japanese young voters, encompassing the sentiments of young professionals and those in rural areas as well as the young people with tertiary education living in cities. By paying attention to educational attainment, occupation and place of living, the paper attempts to offer a detailed understanding of young people’s political consciousness and their voting behaviour.

Departing from a standpoint that social cleavage theory and ideological orientations, theories that have long been dominant in explaining the voting behaviour of postwar Japan, have little relevance to date, this paper focuses on the young voters and attempts to describe their political consciousness and voting behaviour. Existing studies about young people and their civic engagement often dismiss those who are in rural areas, and instead take into account sentiments of university students or graduates and young professionals living in cities.

However, data shows that the level of satisfaction with politics and prospects for future living follow different patterns between cities and rural areas, the difference which is also seen between those who are in or have had tertiary education and those who do not. That calls for in-depth examination of political consciousness and voting behaviour among the youth in different socioeconomic status, since established theories of voting behaviour inform that one’s overall satisfaction with life and evaluation of government can influence the one’s views about politics and, by extension, party to vote for.

Hence, this paper illustrates different trends of young people’s political consciousness and attempts to give a big picture of their voting behaviour, noticing their various socioeconomic status. The paper combines existing data and original study to also explain the rationale behind the differences by educational attainment, occupation and place of living.

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Paper short abstract:

This paper will aim at clarifying the impact of school curriculum and civic education on youth engagement in contemporary Japan, by analysing three types of data: official documents and textbooks, surveys and existing Japanese literature, and interviews with students.

Paper long abstract:

It has been noted that, since the lowering of legal voting age in 2015, new citizens between the ages of 18 and 20 vote at a significantly higher rate than those between 21 and 30 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2022). Could it be possible that the educational curriculum, in particular the 2018 reform of civic education courses in middle and high school (MEXT, 2018), was a decisive factor in this positive outcome? Japanese students learn about the functioning of their political system through two compulsory courses: "civic education" (kōmin, middle school). and "public" (kōkyō, high school). However, being confronted with political knowledge does not guarantee a better civic engagement (Campbell, 2006).

We consider that contemporary Japan, where youth engagement has been analysed as especially low (Endo and Jou, 2016), is an accurate case to investigate the complex relationship between education and engagement. On the one hand, this requires an analysis of various characteristics of curricula beyond class content, such as classroom climate and extracurricular activities; and, on the other hand, to connect them to the various forms of engagement, beyond conventional politics. Although citizenship courses in Japan seem to offer the content needed for understanding domestic politics, their top-down teaching method has been considered a weakness in critical thinking skills (Takeshima, 2016).

This paper will aim at clarifying the impact of civic education on youth engagement in contemporary Japan. To do so, it will first analyse the curricula and class content since the 2018 reform, so as to understand what perspective on domestic politics it offers students, as well as the way classes are taught. Second, it will study the representations of students, after being equipped with civic education, in order to better identify what skills and knowledge remain from this period of their lives. Thus, the paper will combine three types of data – official documents and textbooks, surveys and existing Japanese literature, interviews with students – in order to identify if civic education may be considered as a significant factor on the supposedly lack of interest in politics within the coming generation.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper analyses the state of democracy in Japan via the political participation of the young generation and the the so-called 'Silver Democracy' debated in the country.

Paper long abstract:

With the change of the age for right to vote from twenty to eighteen in 2016, Japanese political parties have started to focus more on policies for young people than previous period, and their policy menus have been considerably expanded since. For example, the decision to establish Children's and Families' Agency in 2022, is one of the consequences of the trend. Although their share in the population is negligeable and their voter turnout among remains still low, the younger generation is no longer negligible in Japanese politics, getting more attention than ever. In addition, beyond the dimension of party politics, the input into policy through social networking and lobbying from the generation appears to be more active than ever.

These attentions brought to young generation in political scene in recent years has generated the term so-called 'silver democracy', stating that with the weak political participation of young people, various policies in Japan are heavily geared towards the elder generation that distribute disparately goods and services among generations and disregard the generation to come.

However, a precise analysis of the public policies reveals that this literature on 'silver democracy' has to be nuanced and that, in fact, the burden on the elder generation is increasing and policies for young people are on the rise. Indeed, in terms of demographics and voting rates, with a few exceptions, there is no significant incentive for most of the political parties, to focus and trying to deliver goods to young people. On the other hand, the growing social security burden and the need to review the livelihood security system are the principal driving force for reviewing the inter-generational redistribution.

In this presentation, we first trace the evolution of policies of Japan's major political parties towards the younger generation; secondly, we examine the validity of the much-vaunted 'silver democracy' theory; finally, we point out that the problem of the political enrolment of young generation, and more broadly about the state of democracy in Japan, is the political de-mobilization observed in many areas.

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Paper short abstract:

The youth in Japan have a lower level of political efficacy than other generations. On the flip side, their political efficacy would not be low forever, and it could increase accordingly with age. Using survey datasets from the 1980s, this study analyzes how the youth foster political efficacy.

Paper long abstract:

While the low voter turnout among Japanese youth is well known, their degrees of political efficacy are also lower than other generations. The alienation of young people from politics is insisted as a concern, but addressing this issue, it is not sufficient to consider only the youth of the temporal point in time. Instead, we should consider not only how the youth of the present are detached from politics but also the youth of the past have subsequently come to deal with politics. Regarding the low level of political efficacy, on the one hand, the youth of the past would not have the low level of political efficacy forever, and it could increase accordingly with age. On the other hand, if the level of political efficacy does not increase with age and remains low, then subsequent generations should continue to have an even lower degree of it. If the former pattern applies, we should pursue the factors that foster a sense of political efficacy and speculate on the reasons for a low level of political efficacy among young people. If the latter pattern applies, the problem is more serious, but it is necessary to identify the political and social contexts that cause the decline in their political efficacy. In so doing, we should utilize multiple survey datasets that cover a long period to compare the youth of today and the youth of the past. In this study, we rely on the surveys with national representative samples from the 1980s to the late 2010s, analyzing the change and continuity of the youth’s political efficacy and the determinant of the level of political efficacy.