A research group consisting of Tomoko Matsumoto, Lecturer at Tokyo University of Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Kentaro Yamamoto, Professor at Hokkai Gakuen University's Faculty of Law, and Hiroki Kubo, Associate Professor at Meiji Gakuin University's Faculty of Law, conducted a questionnaire survey of political experts on the split of the Democratic Party in 2017. An analysis of the responses found that inconsistencies in defense policy had a significant impact on the division.
According to Tokyo University of Science, the research group re-analyzed a questionnaire survey of political experts on why the Democratic Party, the largest opposition party at the time, split in 2017.
As a result, from the analysis of the position of political parties, it was found that there is a relationship between the unity and division of political parties and policy co-creation in Japanese politics.At the time, the Democratic Progressive Party had clearly differentiated positions on defense policy, and while the party was increasingly divided, its stance on environmental issues and decentralization was unanimous within the party.
Meanwhile, it became clear that disagreements over defense policy had existed for some time, but had not been vigorously debated, but had emerged as major political issues just before the split.
Japan's politics is an exception among developed nations, with frequent splits and mergers between national political opposition parties, and it is not uncommon for politicians to move to different political parties.This is a confusing factor for voters in judging the policies of each political party.
Paper information:[Journal of Japanese Political Studies] Party Switching and Policy Disagreement: Scaling Analysis of Experts' Judgment
