How Will Takaichi Navigate Between Right-Wing Ideals And Reality?

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This new conservative movement, as I describe it at length in a book, The Iconoclast, has wanted to leave behind postwar reforms – there is a particular enmity towards anything associated with the US occupation, which in its early stages was determined to“democratize” and“demilitarize” Japan – and build a strong, proud country that can contend for world power.

This movement has sought to revise textbooks, opposing the“masochistic” view of Japan's wartime past that saps pride in Japan and therefore weakens the country.

It has sought to revise the Constitution – not least because movement adherents reject a document drafted by“foreign hands” and because they want to dismantle the constitution's limitations on military powers, limitations they have sought to erode when constitution revision proved beyond their strength.

They oppose social changes that weaken traditional family structures and gender roles or undermine the role of the imperial household as the embodiment of the essence of the nation.

Takaichi's career developed in this milieu. Many of her closest supporters and endorsers were members of parliamentary groups like Sosei Nippon (originally called the True Conservative Policy Study Group); the Conservative Unity Association; and the Conference to Protect Japan's Dignity and National Interest, to which she has also belonged.

This movement, as part of its ambition to change Japan, has sought to make the LDP a more ideologically coherent vehicle for realizing this agenda, marginalizing or driving“moderates” and“liberals” whose commitment to these goals has been lukewarm at best.

Naturally, her ideological allies are celebrating this electoral victory as an ideological victory, in that it both makes the LDP a more conservative party and positions the Takaichi government to achieve some long-standing goals of the new conservatives. Here, for example, is what Shoji Nishida said (in Japanese) about her victory:

It bears noting just how frequently Nishida discusses the“Tokyo tribunal” and“Occupation,” deep signifiers of meaning for the new conservatives. Of course, he also discusses“leaving behind the postwar regime.”

There are fruitful discussions to be had over how much the Takaichi government's agenda will be guided by the new conservatives; how much the public has embraced the new conservative program not only on national security but on the broader“cultural” agenda; and how Takaichi has added her own priorities to the new conservative movement. For example, her commitment to economic security and fiscal expansion have to a certain extent rounded out an agenda that has often focused on cultural issues over more practical concerns.

Stay tuned for more on this soon.