Abstract
Both scholarly and journalistic accounts in Japan have long used the terms ‘conservative (hosyu)’ and ‘progressive (kakushin)’ to characterize political parties. However, the question of whether the general public shares a common view of party positions along the conservative-progressive spectrum has not heretofore been empirically investigated. The present study attempts to fill this vacuum by examining how different age cohorts perceive 1) overall party system polarization and 2) the positions of parties consistently identified by scholars as anchoring the two ends of the ideological scale. Analysis of surveys covering nearly three decades reveals a significant positive relationship between age and perceived polarization that has strengthened over time. Furthermore, the conventional view of parties' ideological positions widely held among political scientists is no longer shared by younger voters. These findings, which are mostly attributable to a generational effect, call for a fundamental reevaluation of the role of ideology in Japanese party politics.
