Of the 32—32!—prime ministers who have served
under the 1947 Japanese constitution, two are brothers while four are direct descendants
of other prime ministers. The brothers are Nobusuke Kishi and Eisaku Sato. The
four descendants are Shinzo Abe (grandson of Nobusuke Kishi), Yasuo Fukuda (son
of Takeo Fukuda), Taro Aso (grandson of Shigeru Yoshida), and Yukio Hatoyama
(grandson of Ichiro Hatoyama).
The brothers Kishi and Sato enjoyed
arguably remarkable careers to the great displeasure of the progressive media.
The other four, however, are notable mostly for succeeding each other from 2006
through 2009 in grief-filled one-year terms, although Abe has been given a
second chance only five years later to redeem the family heritage. Also notable
is the fact that the brothers have different surnames and that two of the other
four do not bear the name of their illustrious forebears. And one—Hatoyama—of the two who do spent
his entire political career in opposition to his grandfather’s Liberal
Democratic Party. And of course, there is not a single woman in the lot.
All this is in sharp contrast to generational
succession in South and Southeast Asia, where political legacies founded by
patriarchal figures are passed on more often than not through widows and daughters,
but rarely if ever between brothers.* A similar situation is seen in the history
democracy in Latin America. And South Korea is hard to categorize since Park
Geun-hye, now 60, has never married.
Nepotism is universal; you only need to
look at the coaching staff and front office of American sports teams to see
that.** However, a democracy demands that you clear the first stage on your own
by winning an election. Beyond that, the path to the office of the head of
state/government is complex and very much dependent on the political framework and
history of the specific country. What then, makes Japan unique? I think that I’ll
reserve my yet-to-be-formulated answer to that question for another, possibly
more formal occasion. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this thought: If you’re
a resident of the far more mobile United States, much of it is about name
recognition; in Japan, it’s more about the family business. Specifically, Shinzo
Abe could never have won his first election in, say, Tokushima, like Hillary
Clinton did in New York.
* Should I read any meaning into the fact that Thailand now
has Thaksin’s sister, not brother, in place and that Yingluck is often seen as
a mere stand-in?
** To be fair, the baseball coaching staff appears to relatively
free of this practice aside from a random batboy here, batboy there. But there’s
another time and place for this discussion. Another topic for discussion: Would
Robin but for baseball have been called Batboy? Yet another: Does any couple outside
of the Sinic states and regions give the name Robin to their son?
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