The Appeal and Limitations of Masculinist Self-Expression: A Study of Shintaro Ishihara's Maverick Political Leadership

EAI Japan Studies Panel Report No. 2

Author

Lee Jeong-hwan, Assistant Professor, School of International Studies, Kookmin University. He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Political Science and International Relations and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. His recent publications include "The Dual Structure of Regional Development Policy Reform under the Koizumi Administration," "The Two Faces of Public-Private Partnership," and "Attracting Foreign Investment vs. Strengthening Domestic Networks."

I. Introduction

Shintaro Ishihara is arguably the most maverick figure among contemporary Japanese politicians. Since entering politics, he has maintained high public popularity while remaining on the periphery of the ruling system, rather than playing a central role within the established political order. As a politician, he has garnered significant attention from the public and the media. His election to the House of Councillors with the highest vote share in 1968, followed by over 25 years in the Diet and four successful terms as Governor of Tokyo starting in 1999, attest to his enduring popularity. Ishihara has become an icon of contemporary Japan's exclusionary, self-centered conservatism by vehemently criticizing the post-war constitution, the bedrock of the post-war regime, and openly advocating for nuclear armament, while simultaneously disparaging both the United States and China and championing a Japan-centric Asianism. He has also made remarks that show blatant disregard for social minorities. However, despite his illustrious political career, his influence within the established political order has been relatively limited. During his long tenure as a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) member, Ishihara remained distant from the LDP mainstream and failed to firmly establish a foundation for his conservative ideology within conservative political factions. He built his reputation more through his experiences as an outsider criticizing the system than through the experiences of a ruler.

This paper aims to examine the reasons behind Ishihara's popularity in Japanese society and the limitations that have kept him on the periphery of the established political order. While it is certainly persuasive to view Ishihara's political stance as merely right-wing ideology and to infer a strong right-wing undercurrent in Japanese society from the high public support he receives, this perspective risks oversimplifying both Ishihara and his supporters as uniformly right-wing, thereby obscuring a nuanced understanding of Japanese politics and society. This paper seeks to identify the sources of Ishihara's considerable public popularity and his limitations in political organization by analyzing both the nature of his political thought and the manner in which he communicates his political positions.

Ishihara's political stance can be summarized as a critique of the entire post-war regime. His exclusionary, self-centered thinking in foreign policy reflects dissatisfaction with the post-war system constructed by the United States. Furthermore, he harshly criticizes the bureaucratic policy-making process, which formed the foundation for Japan's political stability and economic development in the post-war era. Ishihara views both external constraints, such as the United States, and internal constraints, such as the bureaucracy, as obstacles to autonomous choice, making them equal targets of his criticism. To him, the mainstream conservative LDP, which has compromised with these constraints to maintain the post-war system, is a cowardly political group that has failed to fulfill its duty as a 'father' or a 'man of integrity' responsible for autonomously determining the fate of the political community. The foundation of Ishihara's political thought is the belief that Japan needs an outpouring of robust 'masculinity.' The high public support for Ishihara can be seen as connected to the public's desire for change from the suffocating nature of the post-war system, particularly bureaucratic rule, which is tightly controlled both internally and externally. However, conversely, attempts to shake the organically and highly organized post-war system are difficult to achieve without systemic subversion, akin to a Meiji Restoration. The limitations of Ishihara's political thought on the real political stage stem from this point. While he chose to operate within the established conservative framework rather than attempting systemic subversion, projecting his political ideas, the conservative mainstream was not so fragile as to be eroded by Ishihara's political perceptions. His political activities were fundamentally constrained by the tension between the system-subverting ideology of the right-wing and the stable governance order of the established conservative powers.

Meanwhile, Ishihara possesses a remarkable ability to convey his political positions. The reason for his political vitality can be found in the catharsis that many Japanese people experienced from Ishihara's style of politics, which involves expressing his views without reservation. Ishihara has an exceptional talent for using language that captures public attention and is well aware of the importance of linguistic politics. His self-expressive approach, using strong language to criticize the established system, provided significant catharsis to many Japanese people, thus sustaining his political vitality. However, his capacity to provide catharsis has its limits, as it does not translate into governing ability or political organizational skills that extend beyond the position of a non-mainstream critic of the system. Ishihara's political career, primarily focused on criticizing the established order and institutions, has made it difficult for him to become part of the LDP mainstream.

This paper, which defines Ishihara's leadership as a maverick leadership that provides catharsis through self-expression, is structured as follows. Chapter II will examine the nature of Ishihara's political thought within the context of the dynamics between conservatism and the right-wing in contemporary Japan, as well as his literary and early political activities. Chapter III will explore the structural opportunities arising from distrust in the post-war regime as a background for why Ishihara's political thought was appealing to the Japanese public. Specifically, it will demonstrate how bureaucratic distrust and political distrust since the 1990s provided Ishihara with opportunities for political success. Chapter IV will address the fluctuations in Ishihara's career during the 1990s and 2000s, when he resigned from the House of Representatives to run for Governor of Tokyo, actively pursued his political agenda, and harbored ambitions for the premiership, thereby elucidating the characteristics of his leadership style.

II. Shintaro Ishihara's Position within the Post-War Japanese Conservative Landscape

1. Conservatism and the Right-Wing in Post-War Japan

Post-war Japanese politics has evolved through a conflict between conservative and progressive forces regarding Japan's international positioning and role. The core conflict between conservatives and progressives revolved around Japan's place within the Cold War structure based on the Japan-U.S. Security Alliance (Park Cheol-hee 2011c, 102-112). Economic policy debates, focusing on whether to prioritize growth or distribution, did not become the central axis of conservative-progressive conflict, as the LDP led both growth-oriented industrial policies and selective redistribution policies through interest-group politics. However, this conservative-progressive dichotomy has limitations in examining the diversity and internal conflicts within each category of conservatism and progressivism. Furthermore, the perspective of the conservative-progressive dichotomy tends to simplify Japan's political discourse by using 'conservative right-wing' as a counter-concept to progressivism, thus failing to distinguish between conservatives and the right-wing (Park Cheol-hee 2011b, 2). Conservatism and the right-wing approach the post-war regime differently. Differentiating between conservatives and the right-wing and establishing their relationship is a fundamental starting point for understanding Ishihara, who expresses right-wing thought within the established conservative sphere.

Within the established conservative sphere, the debate between conservative liberals and conservative right-wingers is based on fundamentally accepting the post-war regime centered on the Japan-U.S. alliance and differing interpretations of Japan's strategic choices within that framework. In contrast, the Japanese right-wing raises fundamental questions about the post-war regime itself, which is maintained by the established conservative powers. Unlike the pure right-wing forces, whose arguments for constitutional revision within the Japan-U.S. alliance were not significantly different from those of the conservative right-wing, the New Right emerged in the 1970s, fundamentally criticizing the entire post-war regime, including the Japan-U.S. alliance, and became the central force among right-wing factions. The New Right, which emerged in response to the New Left student movement in 1968, grew out of an effort to develop counter-arguments and organizations in anticipation of resistance from progressive forces when the revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty occurred in 1970. Starting with student organizations such as the 'Student Federation of Japan' (Nihon Gakusei Domei), the New Right developed theories that differentiated themselves from existing right-wing forces by advocating for an escape from the post-war regime defined by the Yalta-Potsdam Conference (Kim Chae-soo 2008, 110-112). They argued for a return to the pre-war state by overthrowing the Yalta-Potsdam system that led to defeat. Unlike the pro-American and anti-communist established right-wing, they embraced anti-American logic and even criticized the established conservative system. At the New Right stage, the right-wing evolved to argue for the necessity of overthrowing the post-war regime maintained by the United States and the established system, thus clearly differentiating itself from the established conservative powers. A significant influence behind this differentiation was Yukio Mishima's ritual suicide in 1970 at the headquarters of the Eastern Army of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. Kunio Suzuki, a leading theorist and leader of the New Right, claims that the death of Mishima and Hissho Morita (who, unlike Suzuki and his colleagues, continued the system-subversion movement and ultimately sacrificed himself with Mishima) deeply shocked him, and that the deaths of Mishima and Morita were the driving force behind the New Right movement of the 1970s (Suzuki Kunio 1988).

The conservative-progressive dichotomy and the distinction between the right-wing and conservatism entered a new phase in Japan with the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. With the rapid decline of progressive forces in the political arena following the end of the Cold War, the conservative-progressive dichotomy lost its significance as the axis of confrontation in Japanese politics. Meanwhile, the right-wing, with its logic of criticizing the post-war regime, lost its target of criticism due to the collapse of the Cold War, which was the foundation of the post-war regime. In 1993, Suzuki published "Declaration of Decolonization" (Datsu Uyo Sengen), arguing that with the disappearance of the left following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the right-wing no longer existed and that their arguments had become common sense, thus ushering in an era of 'decolonization' (Suzuki Kunio 1993). Kenichi Matsumoto, a leading scholar of right-wing thought, also spoke of the 'end of the right-wing,' arguing that the right-wing had ended because its values had been sufficiently absorbed by conservative forces, reflecting the reality of the 1990s where the right-wing's raison d'être had disappeared (Matsumoto Kenichi 2009, 271-277). In the 1990s, established conservatism increasingly incorporated right-wing ideas. The distinction between conservatives and the right-wing, previously differentiated by acceptance or rejection of the post-war regime, shifted in the post-1990s era to a debate within conservatism between the role of the international community centered on the UN and nationalistic, self-centered statism (Park 2011, 102). The Japanese government's policy of apologizing for colonial rule and wars of aggression, centered on the UN, became a central topic of debate among Japanese conservative intellectuals after the 1990s. In opposition to UN-centeredness, the argument that Japan should move away from a self-deprecating view of history by asserting that colonial rule and wars of aggression were defensive acts in response to Western imperialism emerged as a debate within conservatism after the 1990s. In other words, while the right-wing's movement base, which sought to criticize and overthrow the entire post-war regime, weakened in the 1990s, the right-wing's logic of overcoming the defeat in the Pacific War, the foundation of the post-war regime, gained greater influence within the established conservative sphere.

2. The Limits of Post-War Regime Critique within Institutionalized Conservatism

Although Ishihara possesses right-wing thought in that he fundamentally criticizes the post-war regime, his political activities show no serious attempt to overthrow it. He occupies a position between post-war Japanese conservatism and the right-wing, but has failed to demonstrate any practical action beyond grumbling, mockery, and anger towards the post-war regime. His image as a fighter battling vested interests within the established conservative sphere serves as the basis for his popular appeal.

The core of Ishihara's political thought is his anger towards individuals, society, and a nation that are not 'manly.' His consistent logic across his views on humanity, society, politics, and international relations is that post-war Japanese people, society, and the nation are not autonomous because they cannot assert their thoughts and claims boldly. The fundamental problem with his logic is that all entities that should be autonomous are fundamentally regarded as 'men' or 'fathers' (Ishihara Shintaro 1997, 247-249; 2010, 182-185). As long as fatherhood or masculinity is emphasized, all human beings cannot be subjects of autonomy. Families dependent on paternal affection and women who should be under male protection are not considered subjects. Furthermore, the entities that should be 'manly' are limited to the Japanese people, Japanese society, and the Japanese nation, and this does not extend to individuals, societies, or nations beyond Japan's borders. Because the scope of autonomous subjects is confined to Japan, his political perspective is self-centered. The core of Ishihara's self-centered thinking lies in the fact that the targets of criticism for not being 'manly' are limited to the Japanese people, Japanese society, and the Japanese nation. He marginalizes foreigners and foreign countries, and therefore does not perceive serious problems in his discriminatory remarks about them. In other words, foreign countries are not subjects to be discussed on par with Japan but are merely derivative entities arising from discussions confined to Japan. Ishihara's popularity within Japan stems not from his exclusionary stance against foreigners and foreign countries, but rather from his criticism of Japan itself... (to be continued)