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2007-11-11 09:01:49
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ジェラルド・カーティス：「大連立」は日本にとって非常にまずい考えだ【フィナンシャル・タイムズ】
テーマ：連帯：真の立憲民主主義国建設に向けて
英経済紙のフィナンシャル・タイムズ（11月9日付）でジェラルド・カーティス・コロンビア大学教授は、「『大連立』は日本にとって非常にまずい考えだ」と論評した。
論評の冒頭でカーティス教授はまず、福田首相と小沢民主党代表との間で画された連立策動がひとまず流産したことを良いことだと指摘した。「大連立」が日本の政治をいっそう機能不全にしてしまうからだ。
ドイツで「大連立」がうまくいっているのはメルケル首相のパートナーである社会民主党（SPD）が伝統のある強大な党であって、明確で広い社会的基盤を持っているからだ。社会民主党は主体性を保持したまま保守党と連立し選挙を戦える。
ところが日本では、民主党は結成後の年浅く、よって立つ社会基盤が自民党と共通なため、対等のパートナーとして選挙を戦うことは不可能だと、カーティス教授は指摘する。民主党が自民党の草刈場になると言うのだ。
これまで野党の民主党にそれなりに議席数があって、一定のチェック機能が働いていたのが大連立によって果たせなくなる。つまり、現状で「大連立」をすると、有権者は選挙で有効な選択ができなくなってしまう、というのがカーティス教授の指摘だ。
小沢民主党代表の「大連立」画策について教授はこう論評している。
小沢氏は自衛隊の給油活動継続についてこれまで妥協を排して反対してきたにもかかわらず、一部報道によると閣僚ポストまで話題にするような「大連立」の裏工作を行って妥協を謀った。同氏の行動は党内外の厳しい批判にさらされて当然だ。これまで同様今回も、同氏が戦略の人ではなく政局の人であることを示してしまったからだ。
福田首相についてこう述べている。
小沢氏のあまりの唐突な行動に世間が驚いたため、福田首相は今のところ批判を免れてはいるが、早晩首相も批判を浴びることは避けられない。今回の騒動では、日本の有権者は意見を表明する機会が与えられなかったからだ。
「大連立」という目論見が失敗した今、自民党も民主党も、日本政治の全体的停滞を避けるために、政治戦略を見直さなければならないだろう、とカーティス教授は指摘する。
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef98729c-8e65-11dc-8591-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
A grand coalition for Japan was a very bad idea
By Gerald Curtis
Published: November 9 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 9 2007 02:00
The aborted agreement of Yasuo Fukuda, prime minister, and Ichiro Ozawa, Democratic party president, to have their parties form a grand coalition has accomplished the seemingly impossible task of making Japanese politics even more dysfunctional than it was before. The good news is that their effort failed. A grand coalition under current political circumstances in Japan is a bad idea, drawing too much on a false analogy with Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel. The SPD, the junior partner in the German grand coalition, is the oldest party in Germany and the largest in membership. It has a distinct and broad social base. It can go into coalition without losing its identity and into an election with policy goals and a party image that set it apart from its conservative party partner.
That is not the situation in Japan. The DPJ is the country's youngest party and its social base is hard to distinguish from the LDP's. It is a conservative party, most of whose members are there and not in the LDP because of electoral district circumstances, and personality and factional conflict.
A grand coalition in Japan, given the state of party politics, would probably turn out to be a grand amalgamation. The LDP would entice some DPJ lower house incumbents to run in the next election on the LDP ticket, eviscerating the DPJ's numbers and further weakening its identity. Other, smaller parties would not be able to put up a fight under Japan's now predominantly -single-member district system. At the height of LDP dominance, the political opposition, even if unable to grasp governmental power, had the numbers and the energy required to provide a semblance of the checks and balances that political democracy requires. A grand coalition under present conditions would leave Japan without an effective political party opposition and the voters without a meaningful choice.
It is difficult to overstate the extent of the DPJ's predicament in the aftermath of the Ozawa caper. There were many sensible people in the party who argued that they should compromise with the LDP on important issues, especially with respect to the maritime self-defence forces deployment to the Indian Ocean to supply fuel and water to US and other ships of the coalition forces operating in Afghanistan. But Mr Ozawa rejected any compromise on this or other issues.
He then did an about-face, secretly negotiating the details of a grand co-alition, which, according to some reports, went as far as to specify the cabinet posts that would be allotted to each party. Criticism of his behaviour both from within the DPJ and among the public can only grow stronger. It is giving Mr Ozawa too much credit to conclude that he has a game plan. He has proved time and again that he is a tactician, not a strategist. He throws the dice without much thought as to how they will land and then reacts to the situation that confronts him. But this may well be the end of his game.
So far, Mr Fukuda has escaped criticism because everyone is so startled by what Mr Ozawa has done. However, Mr Fukuda, too, faces the prospect of a harsh public reaction when people think about what he tried to do. It would have been one thing to have called a lower house election and, in the event that neither the LDP nor the DPJ obtained a commanding majority, conclude that there was public support for a coalition government. But the voters were never given the chance to express their will. The Fukuda-Ozawa negotiations were conducted in secrecy, giving neither party members nor the public an opportunity to express an opinion about what was intended to be a fundamental reordering of Japan's party politics.
Now that the prospect of a grand coalition has crumbled, the LDP and the DPJ have to rethink their strategies if Japan is to avoid total political paralysis. The DPJ needs to grasp the opportunity to show the public that its options are not only unbending opposition or collusion but include a readiness to seek responsible compromise on critical domestic and foreign policy issues. The LDP, too, needs to embrace a new approach to policy consultation, one that shows a willingness to forge agreements openly arrived at with the opposition. The question is whether the leaders of either party have the necessary imagination and determination to move Japan in this direction.
It is commonly said that people get the politics they deserve. But that is not a fair statement to make about Japan today. The Japanese people deserve better.
The writer is Burgess professor of political science at Columbia University
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