The World : Japan and Italy: Great Art, Noodles and Lingering Political Corruption

Most people don’t think that Italy and Japan have much in common. Great art, flashy gangsters, noodles, a surprising affinity for squid: It looks like a short list.

This only shows what having a common enemy can do for you. Both countries made the mistake of fighting the United States in World War II; both pulled themselves together under U.S. supervision after their defeat and, partly as a result, both face similar political crises in the ‘90s.

Anti-communism and prosperity were the two things the Americans wanted for postwar Italy and Japan, and those are the two things we got. For almost 50 years after the war, both countries were essentially one-party states. The Christian Democrats in Italy, the Liberal Democrats in Japan kept the communists out, the economy up and their foreign policies aligned with Washington’s.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t all they did. Both ruling parties grew immensely corrupt, built links to gangsters and neo-fascists and turned much of the business of government over to bureaucracies.

It was democracy--sort of. There were elections and the parties with the most votes won. But something was missing in both Italy and Japan: an opposition. Italians were allergic to communism, however reformed, and the Japanese were allergic to the Japan Socialist Party’s addiction to quaint and unpopular causes, such as fair play for North Korea.

This gave the Liberal Democrats and the Christian Democrats a huge advantage: No matter how much the voters hated them, the opposition always looked worse. No scandal, no disaster, no arrogance of power could drive these parties out of office--and their leaders knew it.

Without real opposition, issues almost disappeared from politics. So did ideas. The only things left were personalities, ambitions and campaign contributions--especially contributions. Politics in both countries turned into a game of musical chairs, where the same old faces schemed endlessly and pointlessly.

When the Cold War ended, both Italy and Japan set out on similar courses of reform. With communism no threat, and corruption intolerable, voters in both countries decided to kick the rascals out. This is proving harder than it looked.

Lets start with Japan where--dream on, Jim Leach--a Whitewater-style controversy just forced the resignation of a former-backwoods-governor-turned- prime-minister. Morihiro Hosokawa, Japan’s first non-LPD prime minister in 40 years, stepped down amid a wave of allegations concerning irregularities in old investment-and-loan transactions. That was too bad; as a popular and fresh leader, Hosokawa had managed to lead a fractious coalition reasonably well through eight tumultuous months.

But if Hosokawa--who apologized for Japan’s war crimes, ended the ban on imported rice, pushed through electoral reform and occasionally dared to cross swords with the bureaucrats who really run Japan--started a process of change, the political infighting touched off by his resignation showed just how far the system still has to go.

Hosokawa’s coalition always looked more radical than it was. The fragile, seven-party coalition government includes the Socialists--but though they are the largest of the government parties, they were kept out of the important defense, finance, trade and foreign ministries. In reality, the coalition worked just like the LDP: powerful factions controlled by shadowy conservatives dueled for power behind the scenes. Rather than breaking up the LDP’s monopoly on government, some of its faction leaders realized they could outflank their party rivals by inviting the opposition parties into a coalition.

Commentators who saw the new government as a break with the past got it wrong: The old system is more powerful than ever. The LDP is disintegrating, but only because the factions that used to fight for power within the party can now attract outside support. As former Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe’s threat to leave the LDP shows, the whole Japanese Diet now works like a bigger version of the LDP. The party dies, but the system lives. Meanwhile, bureaucrats are taking advantage of the political turmoil to dig themselves in deeper. With Japan apparently headed for a series of weak governments, the bureaucrats have less to fear from elected officials. This will slow down Japan’s recovery from its long and painful recession, and block any hope of serious progress on trade.

In Italy, changes appear more dramatic--but that doesn’t mean things are better. Recent election s saw a coalition of three parties defeat both the Christian Democrats and the former communists, but once again, the big winner may be the old system.

The largest of the new parties is named Forza Italia--words Italian crowds cheer when Italian athletes win gold medals at the Olympics. The party talks about modernization and reform, but seasoned observers are skeptical. Forza Italia’s chief, Silvio Berlusconi, is a billionaire who controls three of the six Italian TV networks and was one of the chief beneficiaries of the old system. Cynical Italians suggest that Berlusconi entered politics more to protect his interests than to dismantle the system that worked so well for him. In fact, late last week he was summoned to appear before Italian magistrates about allegations of corruption in his construction business. Cynics also note that the government controls the three networks Berlusconi doesn’t already own. If Berlusconi, as many predict, becomes prime minister, he could end up with more control over Italian broadcasting than anyone since Benito Mussolini.

Speaking of Mussolini, the National Alliance--one of Berlusconi’s allies--thinks he was a neat guy. The National Alliance is a kind of Fascism-Lite: It claims to have learned from Mussolini’s mistakes, but Il Duce’s granddaughter is one of its deputies and openly praises her famous ancestor. To complete its bad-guy image, the alliance drew much of its support from the pro-Mafia elements in Sicily and the south who used to vote for the Christian Democrats. This party, if it enters government, seems to want to continue the corrupt pork-barrel politics the Christian Democrats excelled at.

That will cause problems for the coalition’s third group. The Lombard League is a regional party of northern Italy that is sick and tired of wasting trillions of lira on the impoverished southern half of the country. Northern Italy is as rich as Germany and doesn’t like being taxed to pay off the south. When pushed, the Lombard League talks about breaking Italy up and leaving the poor south to sink or swim on its own.

Berlusconi needs to somehow form a coalition with these parties. Good luck. Already, the party leaders are squabbling over Cabinet posts and threatening to force new elections if they don’t get their way. This is the way Italian politics has been running since World War II and, so far, it looks like more of the same.

Fortunately, while both Italy and Japan have problems, neither country is headed off the cliff. But there is a lesson here for the eager beavers in the White House and elsewhere who think democracy can be exported like movies or computer chips. Italy and Japan are among the biggest economic success stories of the 20th Century. If 50 prosperous years isn’t enough to build real multiparty democracies there, how long will it take for democracy to put down roots in places like China and Mexico?

The answer seems to be: Hope all you want, but don’t hold your breath. Italy and Japan are examples of U.S. influence at its strongest and best. But the old ways die hard.*