Seijigiri #38: A Review of Politics in Japan in 2007
As promised in our last release, we are back with the Seijigiri year-end special. This double release covers the issues that faced Japan’s political scene over the past 12 months, and evaluates the performance of the Abe and Fukuda administrations. A year ago, co-hosts Garrett DeOrio and Ken Worsley both predicted that Abe would not last through 2007 as Prime Minister, and this release includes their discussion of Mr Fukuda’s chances of lasting into 2009.
Other issues touched upon are the lessons of the Abe administration, the potential consequences of last July’s upper house election, how the Democratic Party of Japan fared in 2007, what the DPJ might do in 2008, and the (seemingly) endless string of PR disasters that confronted Japan on the international stage in 2007.
As always, thank you for listening. We managed to release 23 episodes of Seijigiri in 2007, and hope to have many more in the coming year. We would like to once again take the time to thank Adam Richards of the Mutant Frog Travelogue and Tobias Harris of Observing Japan for each appearing as guest co-host twice in 2007. In addition, Debito Arudo appeared as a guest commentator on two episodes of Seijigiri in 2007, and his upper house election predictions were the most accurate we had seen. We hope to have them all back in the coming year!
We promise to be back soon with our preview for Japan’s political scene for 2008.
Related Posts:
- Seijigiri Inaugural Release - August 26, 2006
- Seijigiri #31: LDP Presidential Election and the Past and Future of Japanese Politics (with Tobias Harris)
- 裏川 - The Far Side of the River
- Seijigiri #17 - February 9, 2007 - Ministerial misspeak leads to the birthrate leads to 外人犯罪裏ファイル leads to some intemperance
- Seijigiri #34: Fukuda keeps the Faction Heads Happy and Koizumi’s “Great Mane of Richard Gere-ness” (with Adam Richards)
