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Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics
In 2003, Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) committed to the goal of 30% female representation in management and political positions by 2020 to conform with the international norm to promote women's leadership. This nonbinding commitment received widespread media attention. In 2012, Prime Minister ShinzÅ Abe reemphasized this goal before the lower house election. Yet, in his first cabinet, Abe appointed only two women. Moreover, in the 2013 upper house election, the LDP fielded only 9 women out of 79 candidates, nowhere near the 30% candidate goal (Torres 2013). In September 2014, Abe appointed five new women in his cabinet reshuffle, two of whom were forced to resign a month later due to scandals. Four women currently sit on the cabinet due to one female replacement (Flackler 2014). Despite Abe's attempts to increase women in his cabinet, most agree that Japan is not on target to meet the 30% benchmark (Gender Equality Bureau 2012).
Why has the country with the longest history of democracy and development in East Asia failed to adopt a legislative gender quota to address the persistent underrepresentation of women? This piece argues that quota nonadoption can be explained by a fragmented women's movement and the weakness of the Left. Unlike in South Korea, the women's movement in Japan is fragmented, and quota adoption has not been a mainstream priority. Without pressure from the women's movement, the LDP continues to marginalize women in the party. Additionally, the LDP has not faced sustained pressure from other parties to increase female representation. In fact, both the Japanese Socialist Party (JSP), the largest opposition party until the 1990s with progressive stances on women and strong ties to labor unions and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the party of the Center Left and dominant opposition party since electoral reform, have failed to implement quotas to institutionalize their initial successes of increasing female representation in 1989 and 2009. Thus far, only the DPJ has adopted some non-quota strategies to increase female representation, including modest financial support and a party-level commitment to support selected women in upper house electoral districts. Absent quotas, women in both the LDP and the DPJ have been successful only when...