4 ms·

> Japanese politics is different from US politics. And not in the quirky, hand-wagging way that European politics is different. Japanese politics is not US poli

by yorwba 6y ago

> Japanese politics is different from US politics. And not in the quirky, hand-wagging way that European politics is different. Japanese politics is not US politics expressed using a different idiom, but rather a world of its own. I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. There's not even such a thing as a single "European politics". Just compare France, where President Macron's party « La République En Marche ! » was founded in 2016, and Germany, where CDU and SPD used to be in binary opposition, but lost so much support that they had to form a coalition government together to stay in power. The article mentions that > existing research shows that party loyalty, insofar as it is understood in the US and Europe as a sense of identification with a “team”, is almost unknown in Japan.[6] The Japanese World Values Survey team even went so far as to drop the standard question on party loyalty from their poll as it was “not relevant in Japan” so I went to look for the World Values Survey. https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp Their website is some terrible session-based thing where you can't link to anything, so here's the path you need to follow: "2017-2020" → "Select all" → "Next" → Enter "Q98" as the variable → click on "Show" in the search result → select the "Maps" tab → select "Not a member". The percentage of people who're not in a political party in Japan is 94.4%, with the closest European countries being Denmark (94.7%) and Germany (93.5%). The US is the country with the lowest percentage of non-party members at 49.9%. I think it's pretty clear who's the odd one out here.

luckylion 6y ago
> The percentage of people who're not in a political party in Japan is 94.4%, with the closest European countries being Denmark (94.7%) and Germany (93.5%). The US is the country with the lowest percentage of non-party members at 49.9%. I think it's pretty clear who's the odd one out here. It feels like they're comparing different things though. In the US, they use voter registration / party identification as "membership", while they use actual membership in other countries. My grandmother always used to vote for the Social Democrats in Germany, certainly identified with them, but was never a member. She wouldn't show up as a party member here, but she would if she did the same in the US. It seems "true believers" would be the better metric to compare to the US party affiliation. Also, it's amazing how bad that website is built. Thanks for the bread crumbs to follow.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  The US is the only country I know of where you’re asked if you want to register as a member of whatever party you like, for free, when registering to vote. Indeed, it’s meaningless to compare party “membership” in the US to being a real, card-carrying, dues-paying member of an organization in another country.
  - zhdc1 6y ago
    Voting patterns in the states are very polarised by party membership, so I don't know if the comparison is completely ill warranted. European parties can probably count on a higher level of active participation, but when it comes time to vote or donate, party membership definitely matters.
    - mbg721 6y ago
      They are, but party membership in the US is mostly a proxy for taking a side in an already-hyper-polarized culture war. You could ask a couple of leading questions and figure out how somebody is going to vote, even without party affiliation.
    - vidarh 6y ago
      Voting parties in many European countries are also highly polarised, but party affiliation and membership are very distinct in terms of commitment. Party meetings in European political parties often involve checking you off against a membership register that in many cases is secret (not shared with the government in any way), and often e.g. requires you to be up to date with membership dues to have access to the meetings. Membership subjects you to rules, including behavioural, and commitment to a shared aim, restrictions on support for other parties, and the like. You can be subject to disciplinary hearings, and can be expelled. For many parties e.g. publicly expressing support for another party can be an expulsion ground. Some parties will do things like check your social media in advance of granting membership. Many have rules that requires a waiting time from you have been a member of another party before you can be admitted, etc. You would not get more than a tiny fraction of the people who are registered Republicans or Democrats to subject themselves to that. At the same time many of these parties certainly reach far outside their membership for donations, and none but the very smallest rely only on their members for votes.
SiempreViernes 6y ago
Yeah, their understanding of politics in Europe doesn't seem to be as developed as their understanding of Japanese politics though this is not an important problem for their article. It is a bit interesting to read such an outsiders perspective though, as an outside impression can be a useful basis for self-reflection.
bildung 6y ago
> I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. I think they meant another dimension than you. I've looked into the underlying value systems in the US and Germany as part of my phd, and the underlying moral frameworks are essentially identical: there are two basic ideas of how a society should look like (the progressive and the conservative idea), and what each idea consists of is almost identical (modulo country-specific weights). * criminal justice: redemption vs. retribution * social safety: more of it, and collectively organized vs. less of it, and individually organized * abortion/women's rights: pro women vs. contra abortion * environmental protection: important vs. unimportant * education: focus on equal opportunities for all vs. focus on elite institutions and so on. The actual parties differ of course, and the overton window of "mainstream" political views certainly do. But the underlying moral dualism has the same two poles.
- notahacker 6y ago
  There are plenty of exceptions to that dualism in Europe though (coexistence of social conservatism with strong ideological commitments to extending social protections and state involvement in industry in many significant European political parties and arguably even more widespread in public sentiment in many European countries) which are relatively rare in US politics.
  - bildung 6y ago
    Yes absolutely, and you have the same in the US (e.g. libertarianism vs. evangelicalism). But those can mostly be explained within each moral framework (e.g. social conservatism is keeping the us vs. them mentality: "no social benefits for immigrants" or similar). Keep in mind these are not totally coherent, precisely defined theories, but instead are formed subconsciously by growing up in a particular social environment.
- mbg721 6y ago
  But US politicians are perfectly willing to discard big chunks of those frameworks, and their voters are happy to look the other way. Which party's ticket was the author of the Crime Bill and a prosecuting attorney??

by yorwba 6y ago

luckylion 6y ago

> The percentage of people who're not in a political party in Japan is 94.4%, with the closest European countries being Denmark (94.7%) and Germany (93.5%). The US is the country with the lowest percentage of non-party members at 49.9%. I think it's pretty clear who's the odd one out here. It feels like they're comparing different things though. In the US, they use voter registration / party identification as "membership", while they use actual membership in other countries. My grandmother always used to vote for the Social Democrats in Germany, certainly identified with them, but was never a member. She wouldn't show up as a party member here, but she would if she did the same in the US. It seems "true believers" would be the better metric to compare to the US party affiliation. Also, it's amazing how bad that website is built. Thanks for the bread crumbs to follow.

umanwizard 6y ago
The US is the only country I know of where you’re asked if you want to register as a member of whatever party you like, for free, when registering to vote. Indeed, it’s meaningless to compare party “membership” in the US to being a real, card-carrying, dues-paying member of an organization in another country.
- zhdc1 6y ago
  Voting patterns in the states are very polarised by party membership, so I don't know if the comparison is completely ill warranted. European parties can probably count on a higher level of active participation, but when it comes time to vote or donate, party membership definitely matters.
  - mbg721 6y ago
    They are, but party membership in the US is mostly a proxy for taking a side in an already-hyper-polarized culture war. You could ask a couple of leading questions and figure out how somebody is going to vote, even without party affiliation.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    Voting parties in many European countries are also highly polarised, but party affiliation and membership are very distinct in terms of commitment. Party meetings in European political parties often involve checking you off against a membership register that in many cases is secret (not shared with the government in any way), and often e.g. requires you to be up to date with membership dues to have access to the meetings. Membership subjects you to rules, including behavioural, and commitment to a shared aim, restrictions on support for other parties, and the like. You can be subject to disciplinary hearings, and can be expelled. For many parties e.g. publicly expressing support for another party can be an expulsion ground. Some parties will do things like check your social media in advance of granting membership. Many have rules that requires a waiting time from you have been a member of another party before you can be admitted, etc. You would not get more than a tiny fraction of the people who are registered Republicans or Democrats to subject themselves to that. At the same time many of these parties certainly reach far outside their membership for donations, and none but the very smallest rely only on their members for votes.

SiempreViernes 6y ago

Yeah, their understanding of politics in Europe doesn't seem to be as developed as their understanding of Japanese politics though this is not an important problem for their article. It is a bit interesting to read such an outsiders perspective though, as an outside impression can be a useful basis for self-reflection.

bildung 6y ago

> I'm surprised by the implication that the authors think European politics is US politics expressed using a different idiom. I think they meant another dimension than you. I've looked into the underlying value systems in the US and Germany as part of my phd, and the underlying moral frameworks are essentially identical: there are two basic ideas of how a society should look like (the progressive and the conservative idea), and what each idea consists of is almost identical (modulo country-specific weights). * criminal justice: redemption vs. retribution * social safety: more of it, and collectively organized vs. less of it, and individually organized * abortion/women's rights: pro women vs. contra abortion * environmental protection: important vs. unimportant * education: focus on equal opportunities for all vs. focus on elite institutions and so on. The actual parties differ of course, and the overton window of "mainstream" political views certainly do. But the underlying moral dualism has the same two poles.

notahacker 6y ago
There are plenty of exceptions to that dualism in Europe though (coexistence of social conservatism with strong ideological commitments to extending social protections and state involvement in industry in many significant European political parties and arguably even more widespread in public sentiment in many European countries) which are relatively rare in US politics.
- bildung 6y ago
  Yes absolutely, and you have the same in the US (e.g. libertarianism vs. evangelicalism). But those can mostly be explained within each moral framework (e.g. social conservatism is keeping the us vs. them mentality: "no social benefits for immigrants" or similar). Keep in mind these are not totally coherent, precisely defined theories, but instead are formed subconsciously by growing up in a particular social environment.
mbg721 6y ago
But US politicians are perfectly willing to discard big chunks of those frameworks, and their voters are happy to look the other way. Which party's ticket was the author of the Crime Bill and a prosecuting attorney??