1) At one hand, consensus politics contributed to the economic advancement of Japan by facilitating the process of legitimizing change. Conformity and respect for authority as a feature of both Japanese national character and political system resulted in wide-scale acceptance of the governmental policies aimed at modernization.
Two grand modernization projects were carried out during the past two centuries, both enjoying unprecedented success and occurring in record short spans of time. In the late 19th century, Japan was totally transformed in 40 years.After the World War II, Japan has undergone another striking transformation – from a militaristic society to a Parliamentary democracy. Instead of wasting time and effort on public contestation of the necessity of change or even rebellion against the transformation, Japanese simply make change happen.
However, consensus politics stifles creativity and individual achievement. Sometimes conflict can unleash creative forces of an organization or community. Hierarchical structures result in excessive size of bureaucracy and slow down otherwise simple procedures.In the longer run, absence of competition of ideas might lead to economic slowdown, and so does the growth of bureaucracy. Meritocracy and vertical mobility are believed to be the core values of successful capitalist economies, and they seem to be almost non-existent under the scenario of consensus politics. 2) In Japan, the predominant method of interest aggregation is through patron-client networks.
However, such a pattern of interest aggregation leads nepotism, cronyism, and other forms of corruption on a massive scale. This is one of the reasons why Japan suffers from a lack of progressive policies.Indeed, two major drawbacks of patron-client networks include elitism and static policy patterns (Penna, 2000). Such conditions create propitious environment for the enduring one party dominance; under this scenario, government starts taking care of itself rather than the nation.
Little competition of ideas is present, and the competition of ideas is the central value of democracy. As The Economist (2007, ‘Enough shuffling: time for a new deck,’ para. 2) notes, ‘That one party has held sway for so long is of course itself a symptom of the sickness affecting Japanese politics. ’
