Further, Japan’s foreign relations do not, however, follow the ‘China down, US up’ pattern Bremmer suggests — the Kan government is no less committed to fixing relations with China than it is committed to maintaining a healthy relationship with the US, consistent with the DPJ’s position that Japan is not in a position to choose between the US and China.

What is interesting is Bremmer’s argument about the relative stability of Japanese politics as measured by the lack of demonstrations, riots, and rallies with people carrying signs likening the country’s leader to various twentieth-century dictators. In this superficial sense Bremmer is right: over the past two decades Japan has seen none of the upsurge in extra-parliamentary politics that one would expect a country in dire economic straits to experience. It is difficult to see how a deflationary economy would lead people to take to the streets, particularly without the benefits cuts that have produced demonstrations and riots in Western Europe.

Would Japanese continue to abstain from extra-parliamentary politics if, say, the Kan government pursued austerity with the same zeal as the Cameron government? And if they did continue to stay out of the streets, why? What’s so different about Japan that the Japanese people seem content to express their dissatisfaction in public opinion polls and in the voting booth (which they have done regularly for decades, for despite the LDP’s success in general elections there is a history of the LDP being punished in local and upper house elections)?

Is it political culture, for example the lack of an anti-government subculture like in the United States? If so, what has changed since the 1960s? The decline in the kind of organisations that might facilitate collective action (student groups, unions, etc.)? The lack of the kind of welfare benefits that, when cut, can cause to demonstrations in defense of the status quo? The result of a half-century of LDP rule, which habituated citizens and interest groups to a certain approach to politics that left little room for public demonstrations?

If Japan is in fact more stable than other rich democracies, it would be helpful to understand why, not least because if Japan were to pursue benefit cuts in order to shrink the deficit, it might assist in predicting whether Japanese politics will continue to enjoy ‘relative domestic tranquility.’

Tobias Harris is a Japanese politics specialist who worked for a DPJ member of the upper house of the Diet 2006-2007. He is now a Ph.D. candidate in political science at MIT.