Nippon Kaigi and Political Career Advancement in Japan

Political elites of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan are much more conservative and appeal more strongly to the religious-right than their own electorate. This appeal to the religious-right biases policy in a more conservative direction, such as blocking the legalization of same-sex marriage or separate surnames for married couples. While previous studies have proposed electoral explanations for appealing to the religious-right, we propose an argument centering around the logics and dynamics of intra-party promotions. Law-makers signal (truly or falsely) to the religious-right elements in the party leadership in order to advance their political careers. Making use of quite elusive data on connections between law-makers and the religious-right, Nippon Kaigi, we show that government and party leaders are much more likely to appoint legislators affiliated with Nippon Kaigi to junior positions in the legislature and the executive, which as we can show using sequence analysis are typical stepping-stones for reaching more influential senior positions. These findings in combination with additional analyses on attitudinal differences between affiliated and non-affiliated LDP law-makers harbor implications for public policy domestically and for Japan's diplomatic ties with its East Asian neighbors.