ABSTRACT
Political scientists studying the politics of Japan differ on many issues but tend to agree in rejecting cultural explanations as central to understanding how Japanese politics works. Principles of consensus decision-making, rejection of open conflict, prevalence of factions and weak or distributed leadership—often seen as culturally determined in the past— are now more widely regarded as the product of contingent factors. It is true that earlier explanations tended to essentialize cultural factors, but a more pragmatic view of culture as changeable facilitates understanding of cyclical shifts between fragmented and centralized leadership. Neither the Abe government nor past unstable governments should be seen as necessarily aberrant. Japan needs strong opposition as well as strong government.
