A big political incident or a kind of small revolution occurred in Japan in 1993, namely 20 years ago.
It is because the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), having been in power for decades, fell from power partly due to a split of the party and partly due to extraordinary popularity of Morihiro Hosokawa who then came back to national politics through his past experiences of an Upper House lawmaker and a local prefecture governor. Though the Hosokawa cabinet lasted only for eight months, this making-an-epoch incident is still often favorably recalled by many voters.
Indeed after this Hosokawa era, the Japanese politics had to go through a coalition-cabinet era of the LDP and the Socialist Party of Japan and then proceed to another coalition-cabinet era of the LDP, Komeito Party (a Buddhists party), and other minor conservative party in subsequent 1990s. Then, the capitalistic LDP, mainly led by then PM Junichiro Koizumi, consolidated its new power base only with Komeito, enjoying decade-long ruling till it was defeated by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), led by Ichiro Ozawa and Yukio Hatoyama, in the 2009 general election.
The defeat of the LDP in 2009 and three year-long ruling by DPJ till December 2012 are also revolutionary in the post-WWII politics in Japan. But the incident seems to be rooted in the 1993 taking over of power by then PM Hosokawa, since main figures who played major roles in the 2009 regime change also had taken important parts in the 1993 Hosokawa Cabinet.
In a larger view, Japanese politics in 1990s was rather friendly to China and South Korea while the US was seriously competing with Japan in the financial sector and the high-tech fields with President Bill Clinton taking an aggressive initiative in the world after the Cold War. During this period, China and South Korea significantly advanced their economy with a huge influx of funds and technologies from Japan. But in 2000s, with a rise of very-pro-American prime minister Koizumi, Japanese politics gradually came to lean to conservatism along with the American War on Terror led by President George W. Bush. However on the occurrence of the 2008 Financial Crisis set off in Wall Street, Japanese voters chose the somewhat anti-American DPJ in 2009. Nonetheless, the relationships of Japan with China and S. Korea were not improved at all, since the two growing economies needed an anti-Japanese policy to leverage their growing nationalism supported by their newly acquired economic power.
The 2011 great tsunami disaster and the subsequent Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident tested the DPJ cabinets. And most of Japanese people saw dangerously poor administration and reign by DPJ politicians who were mostly busy in intra-party conflicts. When the DPJ finally lost power in December 2012, the two veteran politicians of merit in the 2009 taking over, Ozawa and Hatoyama, left the party. And the old-line LDP seized power again with Shinzo Abe who became to serve the nation as PM in the second time though he had been poor or failed prime minister in 2006 and 2007. It is also impressive that PM Abe looks very nationalistic to China and S. Korea, since he visited Yaksukuni Shrine in December 2013 where some leading politicians who had failed in WWII are enshrined in addition to 2.5 million fallen soldiers of the Empire of Japan who fought between 1860s and 1945.
Retrospectively, after WWII the Japanese political communities was divided roughly into a capitalistic and conservative camp and socialist/communist camps. But with the fall of the Soviet Union, such conflicts between the right and the left wings were over. Actually the socialists party has diminished to a very minor force with only several national lawmakers, though the pro-Korean/Chinese party once enjoyed more than 150 lawmakers in about 500 seats in the Lower House. Now only the Japanese Communist Part with about 20 seats in the National Diet leads the old revolutionary camp. Most of labor unions in Japan support the DPJ, though this party consists of liberal or labor-union supported politicians and lukewarm conservative ones who had to join this party as they could not be accepted or settled in the conservative LDP.
Put simply, today rich voters of Japan support the LDP while poor voters want the DPJ to take power again. But it is not an ideological war. It is more basic confrontation between the rich and the poor. However, there are two factors that can influence political movement of people whether tangible or intangible: the issue of reasonableness and the underlying cultural consciousness of the Japanese race.
The DPJ, after acquirement of power in 2009, lost people's confidence as it could not excellently administer the government and guide the people, facing alarmingly difficult situations such as the Senkaku territorial issue against China and the 2011 Disaster handling and Nuclear Accident recovery work. DPJ politicians looked like amateurs. They looked like having no ability to deal with such international and domestic problems that required a high-level of expertise. Furthermore, they don't look like having a deep insight into tradition and culture of the Japanese society, either. They don't show much respect to people living in old paradigms rooted in 2000-year-long history of Japan while such people cannot respect DPJ politicians who are fond of fashionable ideas and styles even in economics. So, after having been tested, the DPJ lost power last year they had won four years ago, disappointing many poor people.
No matter how DPJ politicians claim that they are friends of the poor, including irregular employment and welfare recipients, voters cannot entrust reign of Japan to them, since they critically lack ability to carry out reasonable policies and management while paying full attention to the traditional culture of Japan on which many people rely in their daily and spiritual lives, if any. That is why now the pro-American/capitalistic/conservative/traditional-culture-rooted LDP led by PM Shinzo Abe enjoys reasonable support from voters, however, not only because Abenomics has worked well so far but because of the above stated reasons.
But it is often said in the Japanese political circles that one inch ahead it is pitch dark. PM Abe might be forced to resign at any moment in future for any reason unlike the president of the United States.
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