[Feature: How to Understand Populism] Roundtable Discussion: Deciphering the Transformation of Democracy through Populism

Today, we have gathered experts who have specialized in the study of "populism." In recent years, with the emergence of President Trump, the rise of populist parties in Europe even before that, and their influence on Brexit, the word "populism" is frequently used in the media. I am not an expert on populism myself, but since the term has been used in various ways by the media, I think it is quite difficult to know how to interpret it. I hope this roundtable discussion will help our readers' understanding, even if only a little. Among you, was Mr. Yoshida the first to address this in his 2011 book, "Thinking About Populism"?

When I was an undergraduate in the 1990s, there was an entry for "populism" in political science textbooks, but it only had cryptic explanations, such as how it was different from "popular" or "popularism." Ever since then, the word populism stuck with me. In my specialty of French politics, Sarkozy became president in 2007, and in other countries, there was the third Berlusconi administration in Italy and the Koizumi whirlwind in Japan. These were generally called populist. At that timing, thinking again about what populism actually is led to the writing of my book, "Thinking About Populism."

My specialty is European politics, specifically the Netherlands. In the 20th century, the Netherlands was known as a stable democracy and was considered a model of what political science calls consociational democracy. However, things began to change in the 1990s. In the Dutch case, grand coalition governments were the norm, and there was a good tradition of different forces repeatedly compromising and cooperating to manage things well, but this gradually came under fire from non-partisan voters. Then, in 2002, a new party led by a man named Fortuyn, who campaigned on anti-immigration and anti-establishment platforms, suddenly surged to become the second-largest party. Since then, the Netherlands has rapidly adopted anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policies, and its politics have transformed. Furthermore, this spread to other countries throughout the 2000s and reached major European powers in the 2010s. How should we interpret this phenomenon? Initially, I wasn't very familiar with the word populism, but this phenomenon was neither right nor left, and it was different from existing ideologies. I concluded that the word populism would be the most appropriate, which is how I became interested in it. In the 2014 European Parliament elections, populist parties became the largest parties in the UK and France. Just as I was thinking this might be a pan-European phenomenon, the editorial department of Chuko Shinsho suggested I write "What is Populism?" Initially, they suggested the theme "The Difficulties of Liberals," but I felt that what was happening in modern Europe was a phenomenon one level deeper. I thought the root was the rise of populism and the accompanying transformation of democracy.

In Mr. Hieda's case, your involvement is a bit different from the previous two, isn't it?

Around the time I finished my doctoral thesis in 2010, there was ongoing talk that the European party system was shifting from the traditional left-right conflict to multidimensional competition. It was being said that instead of left and right parties competing over the scale of redistribution, the socio-cultural axis—issues like immigration and same-sex marriage—was becoming central. Since my original major was welfare state theory, I began researching how this would affect welfare policy. Within that, since populist radical right parties were typical authoritarian parties, I had a vague question about why people support such parties and what kind of people support them. Then, by chance, I was asked to report on an analysis of populist party supporters in Europe at a 2017 Japan Association of Political Science sectional meeting, and I presented my research. Also by chance, the "Tomin First no Kai" (Tokyoites First Party) emerged in 2017, and I ended up analyzing it. Masahiro Zenkyo, with whom I worked, had been analyzing the supporters of the Osaka Ishin no Kai, which had been called a populist party. Since it looked like a populist party was about to appear in Tokyo as well, we analyzed what kind of people support it.

Everyone knows the word populism. However, when you try to use it as an analytical concept, it feels fuzzy, and the objects it refers to differ. Even after it has become so widely known, newspapers still translate it as "taishu geigo shugi" (appeasement of the masses). So, when thinking about current politics, what kind of concept do you think populism should be considered as, and what should it point to?

Since today is a good opportunity, I thought we might as well create a definition here (laughs). However, even in Western literature, there seems to be a convergence toward using Cas Mudde's definition for the time being. To summarize Cas Mudde's definition, it is "a movement that strictly separates society into the 'elite' and the 'people,' where the elite are seen as evil and the people as pure, and current politics is dominated by the evil elite; this movement seeks to overturn this elite rule through the democratic action of the people to realize the will of the people." I believe this definition is probably the most influential in political science.

That's right. Certainly, Cas Mudde's 'ideational definition' is becoming mainstream now. However, based on the Latin American experience, scholars like Kurt Weyland define populism as a political strategy. There are several types of links between politicians and voters. One is mediation by political parties—where various groups in society, such as labor unions, business circles, and industry groups, link with politicians by exchanging support for parties that provide policies favorable to them. There is also clientelism, where the politician is the patron and the supporter is the client, and the client gives support to the patron in exchange for the patron providing public works directly to the voter. But different from those is the populist type of connection. This is a connection where a charismatic leader gains and maintains power by linking directly and unmediatedly with unorganized voters as a strategy to mobilize people. This is the definition of political strategy-type populism. In the case of this definition of populism as a "political strategy for mobilization," a charismatic leader is necessary. The leader mobilizes by creating a dichotomy of elite versus anti-elite to link directly with voters. In my research, these two definitions compete, and the specific images of populism they assume do not necessarily overlap.

Cas Mudde's definition fits the leaders quite well, but the voters are not necessarily mobilized in that way. It seems difficult to narrow it down to a single definition.

As just mentioned, populism is actually neither a descriptive concept nor an analytical concept. This applies to politicians called populists, as well as voters with a "populist attitude," but basically, no one says, "I am a populist." In other words, the reason the word populism or populist is hard to understand is that it is a term of struggle in politics, a word used to disparage the opponent. Elites in a certain field call things they find unfavorable "populism." Therefore, what is considered populism changes depending on the context and the actors. Probably the first book on populism research in political science, Ionescu and Gellner's "Populism" in 1969, includes the US People's Party, the Narodnik movement, and McCarthyism. In other words, there was a tendency for the political, economic, and cultural elites of the time to call new and unknown political forces populism, and that continues today. Conversely, to understand populism intrinsically, we need discourse analysis methods, such as looking at what has been named populism in the past and what commonalities those perspectives share. A while ago, two young political scientists at Harvard University, Gidron and Bonikowski, conducted research on the commonalities of studies that have claimed to be populism research. Here, as Mr. Hieda mentioned, it is said that there is the Weyland-esque form of seeing it as a political strategy, another approach seeing it as an individual leader with a specific political style, and further, an approach seeing it as a political ideology. Populism research can be divided into these three patterns, but what is common across all subjects is that they postulate a unified object called "the people," attack the "moral corruption of the elite," and cultivate a niche market in politics. This point is commonly observed in current populist politics as well.

Mr. Mizushima's book also has the subtitle "Enemy of Democracy or Hope for Reform?" There is the value question of whether populism is an ally or an enemy of democracy.

As you said, "populist" has basically been used negatively until now, especially within the political space. However, recently, movements have emerged that label themselves as "left-wing populism" to resist the monopoly of political and economic power progressing under neoliberalism. Also, in the United States, there is a movement where the word populism can be used with a kind of positive connotation when criticizing the status quo, in the sense of a kind of popularism where the people, not the elite, are the protagonists of politics. I feel that this represents the duality of populism.

Basically, in Europe and Japan, populism is perceived negatively. On the other hand, in the United States and South America, that is not necessarily the case. There are differences in the implications and nuances of the word populism depending on factors like changes in political systems and whether they experienced a fascist period. There was a time when President Carter was called a populist, and Obama himself used the word populism positively. We must also take into account the differences in the contexts in which it is used in the Americas versus Europe.

There is also the question of whether to call populism as a social movement "populism." If you define populism as a political strategy, it refers to the strategy by which a leader mobilizes voters. So, for example, whether you call the Tea Party movement in the US populism or not depends on the definition.

Speaking of analytical concepts, Mr. Hieda's research strongly reflects an awareness of trying to analyze populism as empirically as possible. Are there difficulties in moving to empirical analysis while taking these conceptual disputes into account?

It is indeed very difficult. For example, Cas Mudde defines populism as a "thin-centered ideology," which has three elements: "anti-elitism" (corrupt elites vs. virtuous people), "popular sovereignty" (the idea that the will of the people should be reflected), and "homogeneity of the people" (the idea that the people who hold that sovereignty are homogeneous). Research by people like Wuttke criticizes previous studies for mixing up all the question items for anti-elitism, popular sovereignty, and homogeneity, and then calculating an average to say whether a populist attitude is high or low. However, the three elements of Mudde's definition are necessary conditions; it only becomes populism when all three are present. If you mix them and average them, you might end up treating someone who is only strong in anti-elitism but low in values like "homogeneity of the people" as a populist. In our research, when we assume anti-elitism, popular sovereignty, and homogeneity of the people separately, discrepancies occur—such as people who are strong in anti-elitism supporting a certain party, but those supporters not necessarily believing in the homogeneity of the people. This raises the problem of whether we can call these people populists or say that this party is supported by populists.

I'd like to move the topic to the differences in populism by region. What are your thoughts?

As mentioned earlier, in the US and Latin America, I think there is a concept that populism is basically "right," even if it has negative aspects. On the other hand, in Europe, while left-wing populism has emerged recently, it is inevitably accompanied by xenophobic and nationalistic elements. This difference might be due to the experience of fascism, as Mr. Yoshida said, but in my view, European populism and elite criticism appeared quite early on and have been linked to anti-immigrant and anti-foreigner sentiments since at least the 80s. Why is that? Basically, since the 80s, the leadership in European countries has been linked to the movement to form the EU, held power regardless of left or right, and was politically liberal and tolerant toward immigrants and foreigners. Liberal elites gained support from intellectuals, universities, and the media, and a welfare state system was built that appeared to provide certain benefits to foreigners and immigrants through redistribution. In contrast, the Americas are regions where redistribution has not progressed as much as in Europe, as is clear from the Gini coefficients. When there is realistic socio-economic inequality, rather than being anti-liberal elite, there are elites who hold political power and also possess wealth, like landowners or mine owners, and the movement opposes them. Thus, populism can be said to have a kind of progressive tendency. In the case of Europe, when the entities performing distribution under the welfare state system become integrated with the political and economic elites, a form of populism grew strong in the 90s that criticized the liberal elites and the image of "immigrants living comfortably on welfare handouts even without jobs" (welfare chauvinism) as a single unit. This has become what is known as welfare chauvinism. I think the way elite criticism manifests—resulting in either right or left—differs between regions with clear socio-economic inequality like the Americas and countries where income has been leveled to a certain extent under a welfare state system.

The polarization of the two major parties in the US began around the 1970s. Around the same time in Europe, a consensus was reached on various issues, such as the necessity of policy-making by bureaucrats, a certain degree of income redistribution, and the idea that discrimination is wrong. I wonder where these opposite political developments come from, but based on what you just said, even in Europe, after a consensus seemed to have been reached, new challenges emerged. Does this mean that anti-immigration and anti-foreigner sentiments became a turning point? Ironically, in terms of Trump's populism in the US today, anti-immigration and anti-foreigner sentiments are elements, so while the intermediate process is different, you could say there are commonalities.

Issues raised by populists include the immigration problem, and by extension, discourse that Islam is an enemy of civilization, as well as anti-EU sentiment. However, in any case, a scapegoat is necessary. It's true that the number of immigrants is increasing, but there is a reason why it becomes an issue. Unless we understand those dynamics, we cannot understand populism. To offer a hypothesis, historically, populism tends to occur when the economic and industrial structure changes significantly, shaking the existing interest mediation structure. For example, the late 19th century, when the People's Party rose in the US, was a time when agriculture was being mechanized and the industrial economy was taking off in earnest. Shortly before that, there was the Narodnik movement, and both were centered on farmers. The next wave of populism was post-war McCarthyism and Poujadism in France, which coincided with the emergence of a new society characterized by urbanization and mass consumption, as well as rising education levels and an increase in people going into higher education. The current third wave is not unrelated to the full-scale start of post-industrial society since the end of the 20th century. While financial capital and the digital economy drive growth, the old middle class and working class remaining in traditional steel, coal, and manufacturing industries have become populist supporters. To put it simply, they are the "workers of the Rust Belt," but a similar pattern exists in the UK and France. I believe these people have become the source of populist politics and are creating the room for growth. So, why were such people created? Modern populism, whether the Trump type or the Le Pen type, is a combination of protectionism on the economic dimension and authoritarianism on the socio-cultural dimension. This is because there is a niche market there. To say this with another hypothesis, the US Democratic Party, the French Socialist Party, the British Labour Party, and the German SPD (Social Democratic Party) all shifted toward liberalization in their economic policies in the 90s. Clinton's Democratic Party signed NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) in '93, New Labour appeared in the UK in '97, and the Schröder administration, which proclaimed the "Neue Mitte" (New Center), was born in Germany in '98. All of them came to accept the principles of the market economy, unlike the social democratic parties of the past. In France, the Jospin administration carried out large-scale privatization, even more than previous conservative governments. Thus, social democratic parties liberalized in economic policy, but the opposing conservative parties also relatively liberalized in the socio-cultural dimension, as seen in the Merkel and Cameron administrations. Consequently, the niche markets that emerged were protectionism on the economic axis (formerly occupied by social democratic parties) and authoritarianism on the socio-cultural axis (formerly occupied by conservative parties). I understand current populism as something that emerged to fill those voids.

In the US, it is said that the populism of the late 19th century and today's situation are very similar in terms of the scale of inequality and various other points. The Yoshida hypothesis is convincing in that the enemy has simply changed to GAFA.

In a book Kitschelt published in 1995, he said the "winning formula" for radical right-wing parties was combining neoliberal right-wing views on the socio-economic dimension with authoritarianism on the socio-cultural dimension. However, the situation changed right around the time the book came out. As you mentioned, the niche area—the "blue ocean"—became the left on the socio-economic axis and authoritarianism on the socio-cultural axis. I analyzed data from 14 countries from about the last five rounds of the European Social Survey. When looking at the positions of eight types of occupational classes on the socio-economic and socio-cultural axes, for example, blue-collar workers are somewhat on the left, seeking redistribution on the socio-economic axis, and are also authoritarian. A significant portion of these people have become the support base for right-wing populist parties. In fact, looking at occupational classes, people in the lower tiers are authoritarian and slightly left-leaning on the socio-economic axis. However, when analyzed, it's not that the person's position on the socio-economic axis is influencing support for right-wing populist parties. What is influencing it is the socio-cultural axis, especially attitudes toward immigrants. But setting aside those ideological positions and looking at income brackets, of course, the top 30% do not support populist parties, but the bottom 30% don't support them either. It's the middle that supports them. In particular, people who subjectively feel their economic situation is bad are more likely to support right-wing populist parties. Therefore, the reason for supporting populist parties is probably not necessarily that immigrants are actually harming these groups as economic competitors in the labor market. Those who actually compete are the bottom 30% in terms of income bracket. In other words, although they aren't actually competing, perhaps a subjective economic anxiety about the future—the feeling that they might be left behind as existing production and interest mediation structures change, or that their children's lives might not improve—is converted into ideologies like anti-immigration, which leads to support for populist parties.

Yann Algan, a welfare economist, has done an interesting voter analysis. One axis is whether they trust others. The other axis is a subjective question about whether they are satisfied with their lives. It turns out that "people who do not trust others and are not satisfied with their lives" support right-wing populist parties. Conversely, "people who are not satisfied with their lives but trust others" support left-wing populist parties. He states that this has become a characteristic of the voter markets in the UK, US, and France. As emphasized in "The New Minority" (by Justin Gest), which I co-translated, this can be explained not by absolute income but by the degree of a "sense of deprivation." The sense of deprivation is relative—something felt through comparison with others. Workers who have lost social capital, such as community and family, have developed hostility toward liberal elites, which has led to the generation of populism. Therefore, my opinion is that you cannot understand populism unless you look at "how the elites acted."

A key support base for Trump is people in the Rust Belt of the Midwest and other areas. They are the so-called "forgotten people," but it was noted that they are not the lowest class. They are middle class, but they are people who don't know when they might be laid off. However, if you ask whether these middle-class white men supported Trump solely for economic reasons, that's not the only thing. The combination with racism and xenophobia became the trigger for Trump support. This seems to almost overlap with what Mr. Hieda just said. It's interesting that while we say Europe and the US are different, many common roots are emerging.

If we can't understand it without looking at the leaders, then the electoral system, how parties are formed, and systems like national referendums also come into play regarding how they seize power or what political means they use to exert influence.

What you just said is very important. The general flow in Europe where populist movements started in small countries and later spread to large countries is largely because small countries have introduced proportional representation systems. In the Netherlands, you can form a parliamentary group even with a few percent of the vote. There, by raising sensational issues like "ban the burka" regarding Islam, support can spread all at once. Originally, many small European countries adopted proportional representation partly to protect minorities, but that proportional representation has served as an important foothold for populists. The UK has a single-member constituency system, but the reason the UK Independence Party (UKIP) was able to gain a certain amount of power was the proportional representation system of the European Parliament elections; if they take 30% there, their visibility shoots up. I think it's important to actually look at the systems of each country.

Speaking of electoral systems, among the majoritarian types—the UK, US, and France—populists actually took power in the UK and US. There are commonalities between the US and the UK. There is the far-right, and a "cordon sanitaire" (quarantine line) is necessary to contain them and determine how populist parties should be confronted. However, when that becomes impossible, the phenomenon occurs where populism enters the conservative party and takes it over. If Trump hadn't been able to participate in the Republican primaries, he would have ended up as a "strange guy" like Ross Perot, the "third man" of the 90s. In the UK's case, as the presence of UKIP (now the Brexit Party) grew larger and larger, a wavering Cameron called for a referendum and ended up losing the gamble. This relates to the earlier point that "you can't understand populism without looking at the elite," but especially in the case of right-wing populism, the actions of established conservative parties are significant. This was also true of the conservative parties in the Weimar Republic that gave birth to Hitler; there is an aspect where established politicians invited populism in. If conservative parties try to appease populist politicians and remove the cordon sanitaire, the situation becomes dangerous. As in the case of Brexit, if you turn something that doesn't fit the conflict axis of established parties into a campaign issue, it ends up dividing the party itself. Once that happens, populist politics can no longer be stopped.

I'd like to gradually touch upon the situation in Japan. A characteristic of the paper Mr. Hieda recently published about the 2017 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election is that while research has traditionally focused on the receptive side of populists in regions centered on proportional representation in Europe, it looks at what happens when you focus on more majoritarian local elections in Japan.

In the end, it goes back to the difference in definitions. For example, regarding the Osaka Ishin no Kai led by Toru Hashimoto and the Tomin First no Kai led by Yuriko Koike, in terms of political strategy definitions, they clearly use populist mobilization methods. This is because they mobilize by creating direct, unmediated links with voters. Are the voters mobilized by these populists (by political strategy definition) the same as the support base for parties called populist in Europe? The political strategy approach has an implicit assumption that if a charismatic leader appears, voters are somehow unconditionally mobilized. However, why they are mobilized is a complete black box. So I analyzed it, and the result was that the people who support Tomin First no Kai—which fits the political strategy definition of populist—were completely average voters. There was a slight tendency toward anti-elitism, but it wasn't significant. They weren't into popular sovereignty, and they didn't believe in the "homogeneity of the people." Rather, in terms of Cas Mudde's ideational definition, voters who had tendencies toward anti-elitism or popular sovereignty supported the Communist Party in this election. In other words, the results suggested that populism by political strategy definition and populism by ideological approach definition might be quite different things. As for why populists by political strategy definition were able to mobilize the masses and gather support, I feel like the answer hasn't been found yet.

Doing research on the US, I feel like, "Well, that makes sense." In the 2016 US presidential election, exit polls showed that about 90% of Republican supporters voted for Trump, but that doesn't mean everyone was inspired by ideational populism.

In the US, it's mostly party identification; 90% of Republican supporters will vote for the Republican candidate, whoever it is. At the earlier primary stage, as research by Oliver and Rahn shows, voters with populist attitudes clearly supported Trump among the many candidates.

In Japan, those called populists are overwhelmingly found among local government heads, with the exception of Junichiro Koizumi. In Japanese local assemblies, which are effectively proportional, there are representatives of various vested interests and vocational groups. In contrast, the head of the local government is based on a single-member district, so a mobilization strategy that attacks individual interests becomes a rational approach. They then target the non-partisan and white-collar layers common in urban areas with policies and messages. I think this is the structure that gives birth to reform-oriented, neoliberal-oriented populist heads of local government. When we speak of populism "ideationally," that idea changes with the times. The essence of populism lies only in "anti-elitism," and if you attach a charismatic leader to that, I think those two as a set are sufficient for a definition of populism. How populism manifests and what ideas are contained within it probably change significantly depending on the era and context.

In the three major metropolitan areas—Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka—populist forces hold both the head of the local government and the largest force in the local assembly, but there is almost no penetration in other regions. I think this is a very interesting phenomenon. If we consider why populist movements in Japan do not have the intense anti-immigration sentiment of Europe or the intense demands for redistribution seen in left-wing populism, I think it's largely because Japan is a relatively "Galapagos" country that hasn't been exposed to globalization. In Japan, international constraints on fiscal or monetary policy are virtually non-existent. In Europe, if you want to increase social security spending, you are instantly and tightly locked into the framework imposed by the EU and the Euro, and you can't increase it at all. Consequently, anti-austerity movements like Podemos in Spain or SYRIZA in Greece arise from that. In Japan's case, especially after the war, the LDP government followed a policy of "balanced development of the national land," and distribution to rural areas was carried out reasonably well. That system continues to this day, changing its name to things like "Regional Revitalization." You cannot find abandoned regions on a large scale in Japan like the Rust Belt in the US, Henin-Beaumont in northeastern France, or the old coal mining areas in northeastern England. The background to this is the post-war Japanese distribution system to rural areas. In particular, the local allocation tax is a very powerful leveling system. This means that in Japan, there is no motivation on the rural side to start an anti-vested interest, Rust Belt-style movement. On the other hand, the areas that did not benefit from this interest distribution structure to rural areas are precisely the three major metropolitan areas. In large metropolitan areas, many voters do not feel they actively benefited under the post-war LDP government. Rather, they probably find relative appeal in people like Toru Hashimoto, who shouts criticisms of vested interests, or Yuriko Koike's "politics without strings attached," which distances itself from LDP politics linked to pork-barrel spending, corruption, and clientelism. I believe the above are the characteristics of populist movements in Japan and the historical background for why populist-like things do not emerge in rural areas.

I think anti-elitism and anti-vested interests can emerge, but for elements like "the will of the people should be reflected" or "the people are homogeneous" to appear, a powerful enemy is needed. Populism, to put it in Lasswellian terms, only says that "the people should get what they want, when they want it, and how they want it." So then, who are the people? At that time, if there are immigrants in a visible form, "we" are shaped in the form of "immigrants are not us." Or, in a situation like Spain, which is economically distressed, "we" are defined in opposition to exploitative financial capital or the EU that imposes austerity. However, with something like the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly LDP, even if you say "Tokyoites First," it's hard to create a sense of unity among Tokyoites, and in the case of Osaka, few people think "We, the people of Osaka."

Structurally, I agree with the points made by the two of you, but looking at the situation, although the dealignment of voters has progressed in Japan since the 90s, voter consciousness remains stable in the center. Furthermore, Japanese elites are by no means liberal compared to Western elites; rather, there are more conservative elites. Consequently, the way populism appears as an antithesis to that also changes. Another situational point is that the current Abe LDP administration—though I don't define Prime Minister Abe as a populist—is in a position occupied by Western-style populists, being at least protectionist in economy and authoritarian in socio-culture, so there is no room for outsiders to enter. That is likely one reason why Trump-style or Le Pen-style populism is not seen in Japan.

Reading Ryuichi Kanari's "Trump Kingdom," the workers in the US who feel they have been "deprived of various things" seem to have a vibe somewhat similar to what are called "mild yankees" in Japan. They love their hometown, love their old friends, stay in their hometown forever, get married, and support the local sports team. However, I don't feel they have the mentality to become Trump supporters.

The psychiatrist Tamaki Saito previously said that it's the mild yankees who support Abe's politics.

In Japan's case, the foreign population is about 2% of the total population, which is completely different compared to Europe. Japan has set up firm barriers in terms of both people and the economy, and despite the revised Immigration Control Act of 2019 allowing about 300,000 simple-skilled workers to enter, very few have actually entered even now. Most foreigners actually coming to Japan are either integrated into the labor market in some way or are studying; there aren't foreigners who are the target of criticism as in Europe, such as those supposedly "freeloading on welfare." In that context, I don't think populism advocating for the exclusion of foreigners will take root in Japan for the time being.

In the survey at the time of the 2017 Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, LDP supporters showed significantly higher-than-average xenophobia. So they are not anti-elitist. They trust the elite. They don't believe in popular sovereignty. However, they think people are homogeneous. And thus they are xenophobic.

Tomin First supporters aren't very conscious of the existence of foreigners or immigrants, right?

Not conscious at all. Their xenophobic tendencies are actually lower than average.

Since it feels like Japan is safe, let me say something a bit provocative (laughs). In sociologist Kenji Hashimoto's book "The New Class Society in Japan," he refers to non-regular manual workers with an annual income of 2 million yen or less as the "underclass." When their consciousness is surveyed, about 30% are xenophobic and redistribution-oriented. If such people increase in the future, it means there is a possibility that Western-style populism could arise in Japan as well. Although the number of immigrants and the degree of globalization of financial capital are low in Japan, as I said earlier, the sense of deprivation is relative, and it's possible that groups like Zaitokukai could have a certain appeal. In fact, last year, the idea of "welfare tourism"—the argument that parents of international students come and use health insurance when they receive medical care—was viewed as a problem in local assemblies. There are people who want to turn welfare freeloading into a political issue. So I don't think it's the case that there are no seeds of it in Japan. The reason welfare chauvinism works is that the right to receive welfare is the heart of the nation-state. That's why it's compatible with nationalism. Japan's "social security freeloading theory" is exactly a story aimed at that. It's the "our tax money" story.

In Japan's case, one issue that can arise when talking about exclusion is the Zainichi Korean people. There are people who spread rumors as if they have special privileges, and a certain number of people are taken in by that.

The "underclass" people Kenji Hashimoto talks about do not go to vote under current circumstances. They should be overwhelmingly abstainers, and in our survey, abstainers show characteristics such as low trust in existing politicians, low trust in parliamentary democracy, and strong xenophobia. These people also have low trust in pluralism, but they show a tendency to prefer that experts who are not politicians make political decisions. In a sense, if a charismatic leader were to incite xenophobia, they might jump on board.

The fact that populist supporters are habitual abstainers is a very important point. If I were to add one more thing to the definition of populism, it would be "politically awakening" people who usually have little political interest or don't participate in elections in the first place. That becomes the reservoir for populist politicians. It might be better to call those who can skillfully mobilize that room for growth, using politically indifferent layers or people who feel politics is distant as a driving force, populists.

Exactly. In the 2019 House of Councillors election, "Reiwa Shinsengumi" showed considerable excitement despite being almost ignored by major media, and it captured the hearts of people who feel they are being hurt by existing politics and economy. "N-Koku" (The Party to Protect the People from NHK) is, in a sense, a mirror image of "Reiwa." In the case of N-Koku, they criticize NHK as a kind of vested interest. When I ask young people, many say they don't support N-Koku but understand what they want to say. As you said, even if they are a minority in Japan as a whole, there are challenges to the existing order in various forms, and there are people who support them.

I think there is more of a possibility for left-wing populism in Japan, like support gathering for "Reiwa." This is because people who support the Communist Party are anti-elitist and believe in popular sovereignty. Those who flowed to Reiwa this time are likely people who previously voted for the Constitutional Democratic Party or the Communist Party. If people who have such distrust of existing elites and believe that the will of the people should be reflected are ignited by some trigger, there might be a large explosive power.

What is the future outlook for the situation surrounding populism?

It's true that the growth of right-wing populists in Europe has settled down somewhat in each country, but I think it will be quite difficult for established parties to occupy the positions they once held. Even in the 2019 European Parliament elections, the two major forces—the European People's Party and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats—fell below a combined majority for the first time in 40 years. Previously, those two major forces accounted for about two-thirds of the total. On the other hand, in terms of left-wing trends, new movements like the "Green Party," which are supported by younger people, are also growing. Also, Macron-style centrist liberal groups are growing. From a system where the two major forces held most of the political space, it has now become a five-pole system: center-right, center-left, liberalism in the middle, "Greens" and left-wing populists on the left, and right-wing populists on the right. In that sense, you could say that pluralization has progressed.

The growth of the "Green Party" is an interesting phenomenon. As the main axis of competition for European parties shifts completely from the socio-economic left-right axis to the socio-cultural authoritarian-libertarian axis, the ones who have issue ownership are the "Greens" and right-wing populist parties. That's why support gathers for them. The existing Christian Democrats and Social Democrats have competed in the center on economic issues, so even if they talk about immigration or the environment now, they aren't believed.

Pierre Martin, a French political scientist, points out with France in mind that the parliamentary forces of parties in developed countries will be divided into three in the future. One is the block of the "Green Party" and social democrats on the left, the middle is the globalist and pro-EU liberal faction, and on the right is the nationalist and authoritarian block. This is also the internal political manifestation of the trilemma (democracy, globalization, and national sovereignty) mentioned by Rodrik. The problem is that none of them can expect a stable majority. Consequently, we probably won't see stable politics.

Speaking of the US, Samuel Huntington once said in his book "American Politics" that there is an "American Creed"—things like liberty and equality—and when the current situation is perceived to have strayed too far from the creed planted at the founding, resistance movements emerge. That can take various forms, whether it's campus unrest or populism. The current "America First" is likely driven by the passion of people who feel they must reclaim the good old small-town American life out of fear of being exposed to the waves of globalization and mass immigration, and it just so happens that it is currently manifesting in a form represented by Mr. Trump.

As long as we have representative democracy, populism will never completely disappear from politics. A gap between those who represent and those who are represented is inevitably born. This is because as that gap expands and contracts, once it exceeds a certain critical point, populism will always be called in. Another factor is that the middle class is shrinking, and the situation where no future prospects can be seen will continue. In the US and French presidential elections, the greatest contrast among voters was their outlook on the future. For example, 80% of those who voted for Clinton thought their children's generation would be better off than themselves, while those who voted for Trump thought the exact opposite. The same trend was observed in France, where Macron and Le Pen fought. In that sense, we are in a situation where people imagining opposite futures coexist within a single nation-state. This is evidence that the wealthy, stable, and homogeneous social structure of the post-war era is breaking down. As long as such conditions exist, I believe populist politics will continue to expand its room in the political space as a concrete force, rather than disappear.

The shrinking of the middle class is a phenomenon seen in Japan as well.

In the current wave of globalization, the social mobility of the middle class has disappeared. If it exists at all, it is only downward mobility. At the high end of society, there are highly educated people, primarily in the finance and IT industries. At the low end, immigrants are taking over low-wage interpersonal service jobs. Consequently, the majority middle class, which emerged for the first time after the war, is suffering the misfortune of disintegration. If we assume they were the ones securing politics within the established conservative and progressive parties, we could say that the space for that is rapidly diminishing. I believe we must consider the seriousness of this as a problem for democracy.

Even in discussions about redistribution, when it comes to how it actually manifests, Taro Miyamoto used the excellent expression "leveling-down democracy." Rather than demanding more for themselves, many are driven by a mentality that finds it intolerable for others to benefit.

Regarding populism in the three major metropolitan areas, populist leaders claim that expenditures can be saved through reform. In fact, in the case of the Osaka Ishin no Kai, support is strong in wealthy areas like Hokusetsu—the area north of the Yodo River. So, it is not that people struggling in their daily lives are being mobilized by such reformist parties; it is the opposite. It is a case of people saying they can no longer afford to support those who rely on public spending, so they want to entrust things to the reformers.

A "fair share of the burden," then.

It is easier to understand the NHK Party if you think of it as an anti-tax hike movement. At its core, there is a consciousness of no longer wanting to bear the burden, so I think it is exactly the same point.

As the middle class weakens and its core wears away, I suspect that what people turn to are "entities with non-democratic legitimacy." For instance, there was the strange surge of support for the new Emperor, including among young people, and when the Pope visited Japan, even non-believers were somehow caught up in the excitement. Both the Emperor and the Pope are entities whose legitimacy lies outside of democracy. Could we not say that the fact that entities so far removed from democracy are cheered within democratic nations clearly illustrates the contradictions facing modern democracy?

Indeed, during the turmoil of the Conte administration in Italy, and currently in Belgium, when parliaments become dysfunctional and fail to form a majority, actors outside of parliamentary politics become important stabilizers. As you mentioned, we have begun to see phases where democracy is supported from the outside, not just symbolically but functionally. It may simply be that kind of era.

Listening to your stories, while there were points about how the definition of populism applies slightly differently in each case, I have understood that there is a common structure behind why populism gains power, whether regarding immigration or inequality. Thank you all for today.