1. Blair’s nightmare and some developments in Japan
Blair’s dream of direct democracy was not realized but rather became his nightmare.
Unexpectedly, the direct style of local politics that Blair had dreamt of might actually be
realised in some local authorities in Japan, which is similar to the system in the UK in that
both have constitutional monarchs and PM/cabinet/parliamentary systems. Moreover,
Japan has suffered from political apathy, recording turnouts as low as 44.5% in the 1995
Upper House Election, which are considerably lower than the turnouts in Britain (Curtis,
1999, 209). However, recently, a particular type of local referendum has brought about
incredible success in the form of extremely high turnouts, massive petitions, and lively
discussions. Turnouts in some types of referendums were far higher than turnouts in the
national Diet elections. I shall now explain the features of successful referendums in
Japan.