Party Time in Tokyo

Last month, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won an overwhelming victory over the country's long dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The result marked only the second time the LDP has lost power since its creation in 1955.

The DPJ was founded in 1998 as an opposition party forged from outcasts of the LDP and the Japan Socialist Party, as well as other smaller parties and a sizable cadre of younger politicians. This unlikely mix had dealt an earlier blow to the LDP in 2007, when it became the largest party in the upper house of the Japanese Diet. Now, with its victory in the general election, it will form a new government and select a prime minister -- in all likelihood, Yukio Hatoyama, who replaced the visionary and forceful Ichiro Ozawa as leader of the party last May.

But despite the DPJ's convincing triumph, many observers in both Japan and the West remain doubtful about its capacity to govern. Some believe that the party's members hold fundamentally contradictory positions; others assert that regardless of the party's intentions it will be unable to control Japan's powerful bureaucracy. Such fears are misplaced, however. Although international reaction since the election has focused on the DPJ's calls to move Japan away from the market reforms of the past several decades, the party's electoral platform hews to the political mainstream.

Specifically, it has pledged to shore up the country's pensions and health systems, protect farmers and small and medium-size businesses (both traditional LDP constituencies), assist the swelling ranks of the working poor and temporary laborers, and provide child allowances. To fund such programs, the party promises to cut wasteful spending -- a side effect of decades of misrule by the LDP and a bloated bureaucracy.

Leaders of the DPJ have argued that the bureaucratic state has kept Japan from responding to the many problems facing the country: an aging, shrinking population, stagnant economic growth in the provinces, inefficient and corrupt government institutions, and an obsolete economic growth model. Their transition plan envisions a drastic shift of power from the bureaucracy to the prime minister's cabinet, including the right to appoint personnel, intervene in the promotion of bureaucrats, and draft the budget. In fact, the DPJ aims to remake the state budget from scratch, as Japan's onerous debt burden -- nearly 180 percent of GDP -- thwarts the government's ability to tackle pressing concerns.

But in Japan, the entrenched interests of the bureaucrats represent a substantial political force, and any serious effort at reform will surely encounter hostility. The strategy of the DPJ focuses on harnessing public opinion as a weapon to compel the bureaucracy to yield to the country's new political leadership. Even more important, the DPJ will need sympathizers within the state bureaucracy itself, especially in the finance ministry, which will be an important ally in cutting wasteful spending.

Such an approach seems possible. In the months before the election, DPJ leaders met with senior officials from the ministries of finance, foreign affairs, and economy, trade, and industry, suggesting that both sides are eager for a relatively smooth transition. Both groups stand to benefit: the DPJ must pass elements of its manifesto before the upper house election in July 2010, and the country's bureaucracy has little to lose in making tactical concessions in the DPJ's early days in power.

For the United States, the main question is whether a DPJ government can be trusted as a reliable steward of the historically strong U.S.-Japanese alliance. The Bush administration pushed Japan to embrace a more expansive security role -- contributing its military forces to U.S.-led operations abroad, cooperating on missile defense, and revising its legal and constitutional framework to permit a more active security policy -- while offering little in return but the U.S. security guarantee. And the presence of more than 30,000 U.S. military personnel in bases across the archipelago means this guarantee has often felt more like a burden than a benefit.

This perception of an unequal alliance between the two countries has boosted the popularity of the DPJ. The party sees relations with the United States as only one pillar in a three-pillared foreign policy, which includes cooperation among Asian countries and with the United Nations and other international institutions.

Although there are some disagreements in the DPJ about the details of Japan's foreign policy, a recent survey of the party's candidates found that 18 percent desire a foreign policy that emphasizes the U.S.-Japanese alliance above all else, while 62 percent want a foreign policy centered on Asia. This, in fact, is not all that different from the approach of recent LDP prime ministers, including Taro Aso, who acknowledge that Japan has to balance between its relationship with the United States, its most important security partner, and China, increasingly its most important economic partner. Significant change, however, will take time.