While democracies are torn apart by the polarization of political discourse and a radicalization favoring populism, Japan stands out as an exception. The Archipelago, certainly shaken by the errors of the management of the pandemic, is unaware for the moment of the political and social turbulences that Europe and the United States are experiencing.
Demonstrations are small, street violence and the looting of public or private property non-existent, the security of cities remains complete and strikes go unnoticed. Political stability, with a dominant party in power for decades (except for a parenthesis between 2009 and 2012), rare signs of extremism: Japan at the start of the 21st century gives the image of a society that is not very demanding, if not sluggish . On closer inspection, the finding is less obvious: society is less homogeneous and more diversified, even rebellious to power, than one might think.
There are certainly factors that weigh down the social dynamic. First, a sense of vulnerability: the earthquake followed by a tsunami in March 2011, combined with the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant due to human negligence, prompted the Japanese to question the myth of security based on technology nurtured by leaders. The rise of a nationalist China in a fragile regional geopolitical context also contributes to this reluctance.
society is changing
Japan, whose expansion in the 1960s and 1980s astonished the world, was a young country. He is no longer. Aging (those over 65 represent 28% of the population) combined with the fall in the birth rate is contributing to a stalemate in political life. While seniors vote for the dominant Liberal Democrat party, young adults shun the ballot box (the abstention rate in the October 2017 general elections was 48%) and those who go there vote Conservative. The majority does not feel represented and does not vote.
This electoral silence, which translates a disaffection for the parties, reflects a crisis of traditional forms of political participation that is symptomatic and a loss of confidence in the political system among young people. But this does not translate into a citizen resignation. Behind the immobility of power, as evidenced by the crisis of governance in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, society is changing.
Read alsoArticle reserved for our subscribersIn Japan, the fear of an “Olympic variant”Income gaps are widening, job insecurity is on the rise and new questions are entering the public debate (inequalities, climate emergency, parity, sexual minorities, etc.). Although Japan is in 120th place out of 156 in the global report on the gender gap (2021) and sexism remains rooted in the older generations, mentalities are changing and no longer accept this behavior. Women make themselves heard more and evade the constraints of social conventions, minorities express themselves and the younger generation weaves between mobilization and withdrawal into what affects them directly – sometimes pathological withdrawal with withdrawal into oneself and isolation for months, even years (a state referred to by the term hikikomori, the walled-in).
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