politics Archives - understand-culture

Work, Work, Work

On October 4, 2025, after winning the election for president of the Liberal Democratic Party, Takaichi Sanae said: Watashi jishin mo wāku raifu baransu to iu kotoba o sutemasu. Hataraite hataraite hataraite hataraite, hataraite mairimasu. I myself will throw away the word work-life balance. I will work, work, work, work and work.

In October 2025, as prime minister, she instructed her labor minister to consider easing the rules on working hours, on the premise of health and workers’ own choice. Yoshino Tomoko, head of Rengo, called this a reversal of the efforts to correct long working hours.

On December 1, 2025, the phrase won the grand prize of the year’s Buzzword Awards. Takaichi said it had drawn both praise and criticism. Two groups of families of people who had died from overwork protested the award at a press conference.

A Minister’s Paternity Leave

On January 15, 2020, Environment Minister Koizumi Shinjirō announced that he would take about two weeks of paternity leave in total over the three months after the birth of his first child. He said: Seido dake de naku, kūki mo kaete ikanakereba ikenai. Not only the system but also the air has to change.

He would take the leave flexibly, he said, on condition that official duties came first. J-Cast quoted an online critic who wrote that a minister’s pay comes from taxes and that his leave was different from that of a company employee.

Answers by Morning

In December 2016, the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs published a survey of how ministries prepare for questions in the Diet. The notices of questions from all members were complete, on average across ministries, at 8:56 in the evening. The latest came at midnight.

The divisions responsible for each answer were fixed on average at 10:36 at night, in the latest case at 4:50 in the morning. Each ministry received about 51 questions a day. In October, 476 officials were on duty on the night before a committee session, against 221 on an ordinary night.

I Have Not Heard This

In July 2024, the Hokkaido Shimbun reported on a meeting in late May to prepare the governor of Hokkaido for a press conference. The governor said to an official of the agriculture department: Watashi, kore kiite imasen yo. “I have not heard this.”

The paper wrote that officials found it hard to judge how much to explain to the governor in advance, and that some in the prefectural government worried about morale.

The Missing Daily Reports

Units of the Self-Defense Forces in the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan wrote nippō, daily reports. After a disclosure request in October 2016, the Ground Self-Defense Force answered that the reports had already been discarded and did not exist. On March 15, 2017, NHK reported that the reports were still kept within the Ground Self-Defense Force.

On July 28, 2017, the results of a special defense inspection were published. The same day, Defense Minister Inada Tomomi said that she had handed her resignation to Prime Minister Abe Shinzō that morning and that it had been accepted.

Bad Precedentism

At his first press conference as prime minister, on September 16, 2020, Suga Yoshihide made a promise: Gyōsei no tatewari, kitoku ken’eki, soshite ashiki zenrei shugi o uchiyabutte kisei kaikaku o zenryoku de susumemasu. “I will break through the vertical divisions of the administration, vested interests and bad precedentism, and push regulatory reform with all my strength.”

Gutter-Board Elections

Dobuita senkyo (どぶ板選挙): gutter-board elections. A dobuita is a board laid over a street drain. A Japanese dictionary defines the phrase as a figure for patient, direct campaigning, going to voters house by house to ask for their support.

The business site Tōyō Keizai Online wrote that the so-called dobuita election is still the standard election strategy. Candidates call out their names in street speeches and from campaign cars, and stand in front of stations and in shopping streets, smiling at passers-by.

Board Meetings with Many Women

On February 3, 2021, Mori Yoshirō, president of the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, spoke at an extraordinary meeting of the councillors of the Japanese Olympic Committee. He said: Josei ga takusan haitte iru rijikai wa jikan ga kakarimasu. “Board meetings with many women take a long time.” He also said: Minna wakimaete orarete. “They all know their place.”

The next day, he withdrew the remarks and apologized at a press conference. The remarks were criticized as contempt for women. On February 12, at a joint meeting of the committee’s councillors and directors, he announced that he would resign.

Seats in the Diet

In the chamber of the House of Representatives, members sit by parliamentary group. By custom, the groups are seated from left to right as seen facing the Speaker’s seat, starting with the group with the most members. Two rows of seats flank the Speaker’s seat on each side. The front row is for ministers, and the prime minister’s seat is on the left, nearest the Speaker.

Leaving the Room

The General Council of the Liberal Democratic Party decides by unanimity, as a matter of custom. A 2016 paper by the political scientist Nishikawa Shin’ichi gives examples of how dissent has been handled. In 1974, two dissenting members were asked to leave their seats voluntarily, so that the council could adopt the Japan-China aviation agreement “unanimously.” In 2015, a member who opposed the security bills left before the vote, and the decision counted as unanimous.

On June 28, 2005, the council’s chair, Kuma Akio, broke the custom. He put an amendment to the postal privatization bills to a vote by show of hands.