Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-12T20:56:57.119Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Political Strategy of Appealing to Religious Nationalism: Examining Motivations to Join Religious Organizations by Japanese LDP Politicians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2020

Hope Dewell Gentry Open the ORCID record for Hope Dewell Gentry [Opens in a new window]
Hope Dewell Gentry*
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Hope Dewell Gentry, University of North Texas. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) again took control after the 2012 general election, Japan's ruling party politicians increasingly associated themselves with Shinto Seiji Renmei, a political organization that is affiliated with Shinto, the country's native religion. What are the motivations for joining such a group, considering Japan has institutional regulations regarding the separation of politics and religion, in addition to there being no sign of rising religiosity among the Japanese population? I explain this puzzle by focusing on politicians' electoral incentives in a changing environment of Japan's party politics. As the opposition became fragmented after 2012, the ruling party's candidates found it electorally advantageous to appeal to the core supporters rather than the centrist floating voters. An empirical analysis of an original dataset supports my argument. The findings suggest the changes in Japan's political landscape might affect the future strategies of LDP politicians, particularly regarding the coalition with Komeito. Overall, this study proposes that there is a need to pay closer attention to politicians' strategic use of religion in politics.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 691 - 711
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abe, Yuki, and Endo, Masahisa. 2014. “Komeito's Uncertain Decades Between Religion and Politics.” In Komeito: Politics and Religion in Japan, eds. Ehrhardt, George, Klein, Axel, McLaughlin, Levi and Reed, Steven R., 83–109. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. nd. Statistics, White Papers, and Publications. https://www.bunka.go.jp/english/report/index.html (Accessed October 6, 2020).Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. [1983] 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Aoki, Osamu. 2016. Nippon Kaigi no Shotai. Tokyo: Heibonsha.Google Scholar
Asia Policy Point. 2018. The Point. November 4, 2018. http://newasiapolicypoint.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-ministers-of-abes-fifth-cabinet.html (Accessed November 6, 2019).Google Scholar
Assmann, Jan, and Czaplicka, John. 1995. “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity.” New German Critique 65: 125–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Azegami, Naoki. 2012. “Local Shrines and the Creation of ‘State Shinto’.” Religion (Routledge) 42 (1): 63–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breen, John, ed. 2008. Yasukuni, the War Dead, and the Struggle for Japan's Past. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Breen, John, and Teeuwen, Mark. 2010. A New History of Shinto. Malden: John Wiley & Sons.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burchardt, Marian, Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika, and Middell, Matthias. 2015. Multiple Secularities Beyond the West: Religion and Modernity in the Global Age. Vol. 1. Boston: Walter de Gruyter, Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crespo, Jose Antonio. 1995. “The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan: Conservative Domination.” International Political Science Review 16 (2): 199–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deans, Phil. 2007. “Diminishing Returns? Prime Minister Koizumi's Visits to the Yasukuni Shrine in the Context of the East Asian Nationalisms.” East Asia 24: 269–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. “An Economic Theory of Political Action in A Democracy.” Journal of Political Economy 65 (2): 135–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, Jonathan. 2007. “Do Democracies Have Separation of Religion and State?” Canadian Journal of Political Science 40 (1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fukuoka, Kazuya. 2013. “Memory, Nation, and National Commemoration of War Dead: A Study of Japanese Public Opinion on the Yasukuni Controversy.” Asian Politics and Policy 5 (1): 27–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Golder, Matt. 2003. “Explaining Variation in the Success of Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 36 (4): 432–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guthmann, Thierry. 2017. “Nationalist Circles in Japan Today: The Impossibility of Secularization.” Japan Review 30 (Special Issue): 207–225.Google Scholar
Hackett, Conrad, and Michael Lindsay, D.. 2008. “Measuring Evangelicalism: Consequences of Different Operationalization Strategies.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47 (3): 499–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardacre, Helen. 2005. “Constitutional Revision and Japanese Religions.” Japanese Studies 25 (3): 235–247.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardacre, Helen. 2011. “The Formation of Secularity in Japan.” Paper Presented at Secularism Beyond the West. Onati, Spain.Google Scholar
Hardacre, Helen. 2017. Shinto: A History. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. 2004. “The Political Authority of Secularism in International Relations.” European Journal of International Relations 10 (2): 235–262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurd, Elizabeth. 2017. Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Japan Constitution. nd. Art. (20 & 89, n.d.).Google Scholar
Josephson, Jason. 2012. The Invention of Religion in Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2019. “Religious Nationalism in A Global World.” Religions 10 (97): 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinnvall, Catarina. 2004. “Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security.” International Society of Political Psychology 25 (5): 741–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Axel, and Reed, Steven R.. 2014. “Religious Groups in Japanese Electoral Politics.” In Komeito: Politics and Religion in Japan, eds. Ehrhardt, George, Klein, Axel, McLaughlin, Levi and Reed, Steven R.. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 25–50.Google Scholar
Kushida, Kenji E., and Lipscy, Phillip Y.. 2013. Japan Under the DPJ: The Politics of Transition and Governance. Stanford: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.Google Scholar
Laasko, Markku, and Taagepera, Rein. 1979. “'Effective' Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe.” Comparative Political Studies 12 (1): 3–27.Google Scholar
Larsson, Ernils. 2017. “Jinja Honcho and the Politics of Constitutional Reform in Japan.” Japan Review: Journal of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies 30: 227–252.Google Scholar
Liff, Adam P., and Maeda, Ko. 2019. “Electoral Incentives, Policy Compromise, and Coalition Durability: Japan's LDP–Komeito Government in A Mixed Electoral System.” Japanese Journal of Political Science 20 (1): 53–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lijphart, Arend. 2004. “Constitutional Design for Divided Societies.” Journal of Democracy 15 (2): 96–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maeda, Ko. 2010. “Factors Behind the Historic Defeat of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party in 2009.” Asian Survey 50 (5): 888–907.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, Levi. 2014. “Electioneering as Religious Practice: A History of Soka Gakkai's Political Activities to 1970.” In Komeito: Politics and Religion in Japan, eds. Ehrhardt, George, Klein, Axel, McLaughlin, Levi and Reed, Steven R.. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 51–82.Google Scholar
Mizohata, Sachie. 2016. “Nippon Kaigi: Empire, Contradiction, and Japan's Future.” Asia-Pacific Journal 21 (4): 1–21.Google Scholar
Mochizuki, Mike M., and Porter, Samuel Parkinson. 2013. “Japan Under Abe: Toward Moderation or Nationalism?” Washington Quarterly 36 (4): 25–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 1996. “The War of Words: Defining the Extreme Right Party Family.” West European Politics 19 (2): 225–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2010. “The Populist Radical Right: A Pathological Normalcy.” West European Politics 33 (6): 1167–1186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pew Research Center. 2016. “Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures Project.” Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. http://www.globalreligiousfutures.org/countries/japan#/?affiliations_religion_id=0&affiliations_year=2020&region_name=All%20Countries&restrictions_year=2016 (Accessed September 18, 2019).Google Scholar
Pollmann, Erika. 2016. “The Politics of Visiting the Yasukuni Shrine: Explaining Japanese Politicians' Behaviors.” Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs 2 (2): 123–152.Google Scholar
Pye, Michael. 2003. “Religion and Conflict in Japan with Special Reference to Shinto and Yasukuni Shrine.” Diogenes: 45–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyle, Kenneth. 2018. “Japan's Return to Great Power Politics: Abe's Restoration.” Asia Policy 13 (2): 69–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reader, Ian. 2012. “Secularisation, R.I.P.? Nonsense! The ‘Rush Hour Away From the Gods’ and the Decline of Religion in Contemporary Japan.” Journal of Religion in Japan 1 (1): 7–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbluth, Frances McCall, and Thies, Michael F.. 2010. Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rots, Aike P., and Teeuwen, Mark. 2017. “Introduction: Formations of the Secular in Japan.” Japan Review 30 (Special Issue): 3–20.Google Scholar
Ryu, Yongwook. 2007. “The Yasukuni Controversy: Divergent Perspectives From the Japanese Political Elite.” Asian Survey 47 (5): 705–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shibuichi, Daiki. 2017. “The Japan Conference (Nippon Kaigi): An Elusive Conglomerate.” East Asia 34: 179–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starrs, Roy, ed. (2011). Politics and Religion in Modern Japan: Red Sun, White Lotus. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steensland, Brian, Park, Jerry Z., Regnerus, Mark D., Robinson, Lynn D., Bradford Wilcox, W., and Woodberry, Robert D.. 2000. “The Measure of American Religion: Toward Improving the State of the Art.” The University of North Carolina Press 79 (1): 291–318.Google Scholar
Stetzer, Ed, and Burge., Ryan 2016. “Reltrad Coding Problems and a New Repository.” Politics and Religion 9 (1): 187–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tawara, Yoshifumi. 2017. “What is the Aim of Nippon Kaigi, the Ultra-Right Organization That Supports Japan's Abe Administration?” Asia-Pacific Journal 15 (21): 1–23.Google Scholar
Terada, Yoshiro. 2017. Nippon Kaigi to Soka Gakkai: Abe Seiken Wo Sasaeru Komyuniti. Tokyo: Gendai Shukyo.Google Scholar
Thomas, Jolyon Baraka. 2019. Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar