Democracy Brief 2021_2 in English

Is Japan’s Democracy in Retreat? Our second issue of Democracy Brief, originally written in Japanese, is now available in English! Using the Liberal Democracy Index in the V-Dem data, it analyzes if Japanese democracy is backsliding, and if so, since when and how. Our finding is that Japan’s LDI score is declining since around 2012 (when LDP replaced DPJ), and the decline is most noticeable in the aspects related to liberalism (i.e., the extent to which the government’s abuse of power is constrained). The program codes are also available (see the front page for details).