英文摘要 |
The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a landslide victory in the election of House of Representatives in 2009, replacing the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as the ruling party, but abruptly terminated due to an overwhelming defeat in another election three years later. Why did the DPJ fail? This question has become a striking issue of modern political science in Japan. Existing studies mainly focus on perspectives such as defeat of political dominance, inadequacy of prime minister's leadership, or failure of Manifesto. This article aims to analyze the role of the House of Councilors in policy-making and manipulation of DPJ in a divided Diet. he House of Councilors used to be regarded as the supporting role; however, this study finds that its influence was not inferior to that of the House of Representatives. In a divided Diet, the House of Councilors exerted more influence on budget bills, important policies, and even cabinet turnover during the review of Bills Funding Special Deficit-financing Bonds. In fact, the dissolution of the House of Representatives declared by Prime Minister Noda gave even more influence to the House of Councilors, especially on term limit of House of Representatives members and alternation of political power. The role of the House of Councilors have become an increasingly important topic in Japanese political studies. |