How Japan's political system linked the Unification Church with lawmakers

How Japan's political system linked the Unification Church with lawmakers

Michael MacArthur Bosack — Read time: 6 minutes

Pyeongtaek, South Korea – The scandal over Japanese politicians’ ties to the Unification Church continues to plague the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Last month, domestic news outlets reported that 23 sub-Cabinet members had ties to the cult-like organization, later adding that at least 146 of 381 of the party’s parliamentarians had some sort of connection with the group.

Outwardly, the optics are that this fringe organization wields substantial policy influence. While that makes for good headlines, it masks the reality of the situation and obscures a root cause problem that exists in Japan’s political system — namely, there are institutional and customary factors that allow fringe organizations to maintain access to politicians at the highest levels of government.

To begin, what are the interests at play? While most interest groups obviously focus on lobbying for specific policy changes, a universal objective for fringe organizations like the Unification Church wading into the Japanese political world is to build legitimacy and prestige. To do that, they attempt to form ties to notable members of parliament. Those ties do not have to be deep — a nominal relationship is often more than enough.

Meanwhile, the hierarchy of needs is the same for politicians the world over, and it begins with job security. In short, the first fundamental interest is winning and retaining their seats.

So in Japan, how do those interests converge?

Institutionally, there are three factors unique to the Japanese political system that allow fringe groups like the Unification Church to approach national-level politicians, and for legislators to accept their support: short campaign periods, minimal staffing and ease of access to elected officials.

Japanese electoral law restricts the length of formal campaigns, with politicians usually only allowed somewhere between 14 and 30 days to stump on the streets, make phone calls, hand out flyers and visit homes.

With such a short time to connect with voters, candidates need a small army of ad hoc campaign supporters. That’s where many fringe organizations are able to make inroads to a politician’s office by volunteering. Obviously, these volunteers do not approach a politician’s office by saying, “Hello, we are from a cult, and we are here to help.” By leaving that first part out, the politician’s office is usually happy to accept the assistance.

This was the case for former Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi. Last month, he acknowledged that Unification Church members helped his campaign activities by making phone calls. There will likely be other similar cases that emerge.

The second factor exacerbates the first, which is minimal staffing for sitting lawmakers. Most members of parliament in Japan have two, maybe three political/legislative secretaries working for them in Tokyo, and a smattering of staffers in their home constituencies if any at all. This is a pittance compared to the dozens that some members of the U.S. Congress employ.

The minimal staffing creates situations in which the overworked and underpaid secretaries bounce straight from task to task. This means that the staffers do not generally have time to investigate the background of every well-wisher that comes along, and there is often a long line of suitors looking to establish some sort of relationship.

Members of the Unification Church attend a rally in Seoul on Aug. 18, to protest against recent media coverage of the group in Japan. | AFP-JIJI

Members of the Unification Church attend a rally in Seoul on Aug. 18, to protest against recent media coverage of the group in Japan. | AFP-JIJI

The final institutional factor is the ease of access to parliamentarians. Tokyo is not an insurmountable distance from anywhere in Japan, and there are publicly available emails and phone numbers for parliamentarians’ offices. Once a person or a group has a foot in the door, they can expand their access, sometimes through networking, and sometimes through simply walking the halls in Japan’s political district.

This is where the customary issues come into play.

The first custom in Japanese politics that allows fringe organizations to gain access to politicians is the practice of aisatsu mawari. At the start of every year, representatives from businesses and private organizations will visit the parliamentary office buildings. They drop by target politicians’ offices one-by-one — not with any expectation of seeing the parliamentarian, because for them it is enough to hand over a business card.

By doing so, these representatives are attempting to form a relationship with the office so they may invite the parliamentarian for interviews, speeches or attendance at ceremonial functions. While aisatsu mawari is a specific example of this customary behavior, there are other practices similar to it.

This leads to the second custom that matters here: the use of dairi, or a proxy. It would be impossible for Japanese legislators to attend every event to which they are invited, so they send a representative from their offices to attend in their stead. Those proxies will bring their bosses’ business cards to the function and give it to the registration desk. Those behind the desk will treat the proxies as if they were the politicians themselves. So when one looks at the attendance records for certain functions, it can be impossible to discern which politicians were actually physically there and which were represented by a proxy.

That’s why numbers can belie our understanding of the ties between Japan’s parliamentarians and fringe organizations like the Unification Church. So far, the media has reported that 146 LDP, 15 Nippon Ishin no Kai, 14 Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and three Komeito members have ties to the Unification Church, and those numbers may go up.

But it is not just the numbers that are important — it is the relationships that may or may not be behind them.

Was it that the politicians sat for an interview with the Unification Church’s newspaper, the Sekai Nippo? Did a proxy briefly attend a ceremonial function, doing as much as dropping off a business card? Were the politicians actually members of the Unification Church? Did they accept money or gifts?

Absent that depth of examination, it may seem like the Unification Church has notable influence in Japanese politics.

The reality is that the influence is likely less substantial than the numbers suggest. What those numbers do reveal, however, is the wide access that the Unification Church was able to attain by exploiting Japan’s political system and customs.

People gather to offer flowers at Zojoji Temple, where the funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was held, in Tokyo, on July 12. | REUTERS

People gather to offer flowers at Zojoji Temple, where the funeral of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was held, in Tokyo, on July 12. | REUTERS

This is a systemic issue in Japanese politics that existed even before this most recent scandal. Up until the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shed light on the Unification Church, it was the right-wing Nippon Kaigi that media outlets (particularly foreign news agencies) decried as playing an outsize role in Japanese politics. The Nippon Kaigi story of a “shadowy right-wing organization that controls Japan’s most important political decisions” is one that plays well for the headlines. In reality, Nippon Kaigi is nothing more than a self-aggrandizing group whose actual influence has been inflated by media conjecture.

Once the LDP forces its members to sever any ties they may have with the Unification Church, it will only be a matter of time before another fringe organization is revealed to have ties with a wide number of lawmakers.

There is no easy solution to managing the access that questionable entities have with Japanese politicians. A core principle for democratic nations is recognizing that all citizens have a voice, and lawmakers must balance that against the negative impacts that certain private organizations might have on society.

A solution may not be readily apparent, but if the LDP wants to start treating the disease rather than the symptoms, it must begin with the institutional and customary factors that problematic organizations can exploit for private gain.

Michael MacArthur Bosack is the special adviser for government relations at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies. He previously served in the Japanese government as a Mansfield fellow.