Rice queues – something unthinkable in the past – began appearing across Japan around May. As the country’s staple food hit record prices, doubling from the previous year, frustrated shoppers found themselves switching to imported rice from South Korea, breaking a cultural taboo. It was a symbol of how far Japan’s economic certainties had crumbled, creating fertile ground for a political shift.

That came on 20 July, as Japan joined the ranks of countries showing growing support for far-right parties. The Sanseitō party took 15.7 per cent of the vote in the election for the House of Councillors, parliament’s upper house. It jumped from holding one seat to 15, while the ruling two-party coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō lost its majority. The result spells trouble for Japan’s civil society. It will need to get ready to defend the rights that will surely come under attack.

From conspiracy theories to parliament

Sanseitō, founded just five years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic, grew out of a right-wing YouTube channel. Initially, it spread conspiracy theories about the virus and opposed masks and vaccines, territory that globally opened up rabbit holes for far-right radicalisation. Since then, it’s predictably embraced exclusionary politics.

The party’s flamboyant leader, Sohei Kamiya, says he wants to be Japan’s Trump. His ‘Japan First’ agenda, accompanied by an abundance of xenophobic rhetoric, urges strict immigration limits. The party also promises welfare spending – but strictly for Japanese nationals.

Sanseitō’s hostility towards minority rights runs deep. It strongly opposes LGBTQI+ rights, even though these are limited in Japan. It calls for repeal of the 2023 LGBT Understanding Promotion Act – a law LGBTQI+ rights groups criticise for falling short of the anti-discrimination legislation Japan needs. But even this limited promotion of tolerance is evidently too much for Sanseitō. The party also opposes same-sex marriage; despite civil society legal action that has yielded mixed court judgments, Japan remains the only G7 country to not recognise marriage equality.

Kamiya has blamed young women for Japan’s declining birthrate, saying they’re too career-focused and should stay home and raise children. He’s also said he supports Trump’s moves to eliminate climate protections and has called for Japan’s militarisation, backed by increased defence spending. These are the kind of positions right-wing populists are commonly taking around the world.

Economic crisis meets political corruption

Change has been coming in Japan’s previously static politics. The LDP, a big tent right-wing party, has been in power, either on its own or with Kōmeitō, for almost all of the time since its 1955 founding. Only between 1993 and 1994 and from 2009 to 2012 was it not in government. It long enjoyed credit for reconstructing Japan’s shattered post-Second World War economy and rebuilding international relationships through a strongly US-aligned foreign policy. It also benefited from weak and divided opposition while capitalising on its ability to set electoral rules to the incumbent’s advantage.

But this dominance has crumbled under economic stagnation and corruption scandals. The LDP lost its lower house majority in a snap October 2024 election, called by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba immediately after he’d assumed party leadership following his predecessor’s scandal-forced resignation.

In November 2023, it was revealed that some US$4 million had been hidden in unreported and illegal slush funds linked to key party factions. Several cabinet ministers were forced out and some went on to face police investigation, while some party factions disbanded. This scandal followed the July 2022 assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, whose killer harboured a grudge against the Unification Church (UC), a religious movement widely considered a cult. The killing threw the spotlight on extensive links between the LDP and UC. The government was forced to dismiss ministers with UC connections and has since moved to dissolve the UC – a matter currently with the courts.

These political crises coincided with economic malaise. Inflation is rare in Japan, but in common with many other countries, food prices have spiked and people’s pay hasn’t kept pace. The rice crisis – linking everyday costs to a matter of national identity – provided the most potent symbol.

Causes of high rice prices include the impacts of extreme weather attributed to climate change, heavy tourism and bulk-buying in response to earthquake and typhoon warnings. Government protectionist policies ensure almost all rice consumed is domestically grown. It reacted to high prices by releasing some of its reserve stock, but refused calls to cut the 10 per cent consumption tax, which Sanseitō wants to eliminate.

Currency devaluation and reliance on energy imports following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine compounded these problems. The threat of 25 per cent Trump tariffs threatens to further worsen the situation.

Demographics and immigration fears

Underlying these economic problem lies Japan’s demographic challenge. An estimated 30 per cent of  people are aged 65 or over, and around 10 per cent are 80-plus. The flipside is a low fertility rate: each woman is currently predicted to have 1.2 children, far below the rate needed to maintain a stable population of 2.1. Last year, as the number of births fell to the lowest level since records began, the government passed a law improving parental leave and child allowances in the hope of encouraging more pregnancies.

Japan’s demographics threaten to undermine its economic base, as there may not be enough taxpayers to fund social security spending. This has forced a previously reluctant government to ease tight immigration controls and bring in more working-age people. Foreign-born residents now comprise around three per cent of Japan’s population, a small proportion for most global north economies but a highly visible change in a previously broadly homogenous society.

This demographic shift, along with high tourist numbers, has provided Sanseitō with a potent political weapon. The party’s use of xenophobic rhetoric taps into anxieties about cultural change, promising to restore Japan to greatness while blaming foreigners for domestic problems. Anxiety about the low birthrate has also provided ample ground for the far right to scapegoat feminism and LGBTQI+ rights movements, which are painted as responsible for eroding traditional family roles.

Political disengagement and generational divides

The political establishment’s failure to connect with younger generations also created a dangerous vulnerability Sanseitō exploited. Research in 2024 showed that over half of Japanese voters didn’t identify with any political party, and only a third were satisfied with the way Japan’s democracy currently works. Young people in particular expressed disaffection. It doesn’t help that politicians are typically a generation or two removed, with parliamentary representation skewed towards people aged 50 and over, such that at 47, Kamiya appears a relatively fresh face.

The October 2024 lower house election was marked by apathy, with turnout at only 53.8 per cent, a big contrast to the almost 70 per cent who voted when the LDP was last dogged by scandals in 2009. In contrast, turnout was up for the July upper house election, showing a 6.5 percentage point increase on the last one in 2022.

The swing towards Sanseitō suggests that at least some of those unhappy with established politics have found something to vote for. The party draws support particularly from young people, and especially young men, although it moved to broaden its appeal by putting forward several women candidates this time. It’s aided by having a much stronger social media presence than established parties. It added a further 100,000 YouTube followers in the run-up to voting to take its total to 500,000. The LDP has only 140,000.

In many countries, it was once a safe assumption that young people were more progressive than older generations, but increasingly that no longer holds. In economies where young people are struggling, anything that looks new and promises to break with failed establishment politics, even when extremist, can be appealing.

As well as fielding some women candidates, Sanseitō toned down some of its anti-rights rhetoric in this campaign, although not against foreigners. But it says it doesn’t want to work with any established party and, in common with upstart parties in other countries, will likely use its parliamentary presence to disrupt, pull stunts and court publicity. Its support is unlikely to have peaked, and even though it doesn’t have power, it can expect influence, because as has been seen time and again, once far-right rhetoric moves from the fringe to mainstream, it seeps into and shifts the broader political debate.

Instability and polarisation ahead

For Ishiba and the LDP, the election results spell ongoing crisis. Ishiba remains prime minister for now, although he faces pressure among his party to take responsibility for election results. Either he or his successor, lacking a majority in both houses, will face the challenge of governing in the face of disaffection. Japan and the USA have announced progress on a trade deal since the vote, but unless people start feeling better economically, they’re likely to keep casting around for alternatives, and populist parties are good at exploiting this.

Japan’s rightward tilt could extend beyond Sanseitō. Unhappiness with the LDP also benefited another right-wing party, the Democratic Populist Party, which picked up 12 seats. These shifts could cause the LDP to respond to its losses by taking a more nationalist and conservative tack, as associated with its former leader Abe.

Japan’s trajectory mirrors concerning patterns across global north democracies such as France, Germany, Italy and Portugal, where right-wing populist parties have gained profile by provoking outrage, sowing division and targeting excluded groups, alongside the civil society that defends their rights. Right-wing populists understand that controversy is the quickest path to publicity, and those who have least access to rights invariably bear the brunt.

This all suggests danger for Japan’s excluded groups and civil society. As Japan takes its first steps along this troubling path, its civil society needs to be ready to make the case for human rights. What began as a rice crisis has evolved into a test of whether Japan’s democratic institutions, including its civil society, can withstand a gathering populist storm.

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