Discursive opportunities in foreign policy—How territorial disputes drive right-wing populist support in Japan

Abstract

In order to position their agenda as an alternative to the established political mainstream, right-wing populist parties need discursive opportunities. Territorial disputes provide effective discursive opportunities because international conflicts in particular not only allow respective politicians to present themselves as the voice of national interests, but also create a sense of crisis that demands an urgent and assertive response. This article examines these dynamics through the case of Japan, focusing on how the right-wing populist Japan Restoration Party (JRP) leveraged territorial conflicts as discursive opportunities through the examination of the public reception of the party. In order to extract the party’s reception from the public discourse an algorithm-based big data analysis of over 100,000 Japanese blog posts was utilized. The topic model analysis identified relevant discourses and positions within the public debate, revealing how the discourse around territorial disputes contributed to the party’s rise in 2012. The blog analysis shows how the JRP’s alliance with former Tōkyō Governor Ishihara Shintarō led to increased support from the far-right. Ishihara gained significant media attention with his proposal to purchase the contested Senkaku Islands, claimed by both Japan and China. This idea resonated widely on social networks, with supporters even raising funds to turn the purchase into reality. This strategy not only challenged the political line of established parties but also positioned the Japan Restoration Party as a key advocate for a more assertive foreign policy in the public discourse. The analysis thus illustrates how right-wing populist politicians utilize political crises and offer polarizing solutions that resonate with conservative, anti-establishment voters. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of how populist actors leverage foreign policy crises to gain electoral traction and challenge political elites. By focusing on Japan, this research especially provides broader insights into the role of territorial disputes in shaping right-wing populism.

1 Introduction

Emerging populist actors must find ways to align their political agenda with prevailing political discourses in order to establish themselves within the political landscape. In doing so, they exploit gaps within the existing political discourse, i.e., they occupy political positions that are not yet represented in established politics (Pajnik and Meret, 2018, pp. 43–45). Discursive opportunities therefore serve (1) as a means of attracting attention and (2) to position policies on the general political agenda, which in turn increases their relevance. Global populism research suggests that times of crisis are particularly suitable for introducing alternative political discourses onto the political agenda by populist politicians. It is widely recognized that crises create discursive opportunities to expose the failures of established politics and hence offer alternative policies (Laclau, 2018). Crises are therefore used by right-wing populist politicians as an opportunity to link core elements of their agenda to existing discourses (Schwörer and Fernández-García, 2022, p. 550).

Based on this assumption, Japan is often described in Western populism research as ‘immune’ to right-wing populism. This is because the crisis narratives commonly linked to the rise of right-wing populism in Western countries such as the migration crisis or growing social inequality played only a marginal role in the Japanese context (Burrett, 2019; Buruma, 2018; Vickers, 2017). Also, Japan has long been characterized by an exceptional degree of political stability, having been governed almost exclusively by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for several decades. In this context, former LDP Prime Minister Abe Shinzō was often seen as a key factor in mitigating the emergence of right-wing populist discourse. By occupying central positions within the conservative spectrum, he effectively preempted political space for alternative parties, leaving little room for right-wing challengers to gain traction according to Burrett (2019). Results of the recent upper house election in 2025 in which the ruling LDP lost its majority while populist parties such as the Party of Do It Yourself achieved surprising gains suggest that issues such as debates over labor migration have now become central drivers of the establishment of populism (Schäfer, 2025).

However, as demonstrated in this study populist political discourses were already an influential factor in Japan in 2012. At that time, it was not socioeconomic grievances but rather territorial conflicts and most notably the disputes between Japan and China that functioned as discursive opportunities and provided fertile ground for the rise of right-wing populism, as illustrated by the case of the right-wing populist Japan Restoration Party. In 2012 the JRP managed to secure 20% of the proportional votes in the general election. Despite being founded only months earlier, the party emerged as the third strongest force in the lower house (Watanabe, 2013, pp. 38–47). Just a few months before the election, one of the two party leaders, Ishihara Shintarō, drew significant attention with his proposal to resolve the long-standing conflict over the Senkaku Islands (known in Chinese as Diaoyu), located in the East China Sea approximately 170 kilometers northeast of Taiwan, by having Japan purchase the islands (Horiuchi, 2014, pp. 36–37; Asahi Shimbun, 2012b). The conflict had already drawn widespread public attention in 2010 following media coverage of the Japanese coast guard’s detention of Chinese fishing vessels. Amid rising tensions between Japan and China over the islands, which were increasingly perceived as strategically significant, public opinion polls at the time showed that China had surpassed North Korea as the greatest perceived threat to Japan (Midford, 2024, pp. 36–38).

The issue gained major national and international visibility only after Shintarō Ishihara, then Governor of Tōkyō and later co-leader of the Japan Restoration Party, declared during a press conference in Washington that he intended to resolve the dispute once and for all by having the Tōkyō Metropolitan Government purchase the islands. Ishihara not only gained significant media attention his proposal resonated widely on social networks, with supporters raising funds to turn the purchase into reality. A month after his proposal 1.47 billion yen were donated by individuals and civil society groups (Horiuchi, 2014, pp. 36–37; Asahi Shimbun, 2012b). In response to the heightened public attention, even the established parties felt compelled to react to Ishihara’s initiative. The incumbent government, led by Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko of the Democratic Party of Japan, ultimately declared the matter one of national importance and nationalized the islands before Ishihara could carry out his plan (Horiuchi, 2014, pp. 38–41).

In order to explain the rapid rise of the Japan Restoration Party (JRP) as a right-wing populist actor in Japan existing studies have primarily examined the rhetorical and media strategies employed by its leadership (Sasaki, 2018, pp. 167–168; Mizushima, 2020, pp. 37–51; Arima, 2017, pp. 2–8; Tsutsui, 2018). However, the specific issues and political positions that the JRP was able to claim and mobilize have received comparatively little scholarly attention. This study addresses this gap by examining the role of territorial conflicts within the public discourse surrounding the JRP in the months before and after the 2012 general election. This study therefore argues that the Japan Restoration Party (JRP) was able to capitalize on crises as discursive opportunities. However, unlike in many Western countries, these crises did not revolve around issues such as migration or social inequality, but rather centered on territorial conflicts.

2 Objectives

The following analysis examines the relevance of territorial conflicts in the establishment of the Japan Restoration Party in 2012 based on an examination of the public discourse around the party. The study investigates how the political discourse surrounding the Senkaku Islands dispute contributed to the rise and early political relevance of the Japan Restoration Party (JRP). Through a blog analysis the impact and reception of political positions voiced by the JRP in the broader public discourse are observed. By focusing on the discursive resonance of geopolitical issues, this study contributes to a better understanding of how populist actors in Japan anchor their agendas in existing public concerns by using territorial disputes, addressing a notable gap in the current literature.

The study answers the following research question:

What role do Japan-China territorial conflicts play in the establishment of the right-wing populist Japan Restoration Party in its first national election in 2012?

3 Theoretical approach

Theoretical definitions of right-wing populism present a unique challenge due to its adaptability to context-bound factors such as regional, cultural or chronological factors making it difficult to identify common core elements. In response, some Western scholars argue that dominant theoretical models which are largely developed in Western contexts fail to fully capture specific characteristics of Japanese populism. They therefore advocate for a contextualized revision of existing frameworks to account for the particularities of Japanese right-wing populist discourse (Lindgren, 2015; Kyianytsia, 2022). In Japanese scholarship, researchers tend to rely on domestic conceptualizations of populism, which, however, often focus only on specific aspects such as the communication strategies of individual politicians rather than offering a comprehensive theoretical approach to populism as a broader political phenomenon (see, e.g., Arima, 2017).

In response, this study draws on the concept of populism proposed by Diehl (2024), which emphasizes the complexity and multi-layered character of populist politics and allows for a more context-sensitive application to the Japanese case. Diehl’s multidimensional and gradual concept of populism describes populism as a fluid, chameleonic phenomenon and attempts to unite both the observed ideological and strategic aspects of populism. Diehl thus contradicts the tendency to find a minimal definition of populism that offers a unified concept but at the same time has to disregard certain aspects in order to achieve a common definition. While the theoretical approaches mentioned above are each limited to individual subject-specific perspectives, Diehl defines populism as consisting of three core elements: Ideology, political communication and organization-specific aspects (Diehl, 2024, pp. 24–25). In addition, she considers these to be components that vary in degree and intensity depending on specific cases. This makes the concept broadly applicable even in its complexity.

To operationalize Diehl’s concept in the empirical analysis, the study focuses on both the ideological and communicative dimensions of populism. In particular, it examines how the Japan Restoration Party’s use of narratives such as “the voice of the people” and the framing of political conflicts and especially territorial disputes as crises is received and reflected in public discourse. These are understood as distinct populist strategies that contribute to the party’s differentiation from the political mainstream. Methodologically, these dimensions are traced through topic modeling to identify recurring themes across a large corpus of blog posts, followed by qualitative content analysis to reconstruct the underlying rhetorical patterns and opinion formation processes in selected entries.

First, referring to ideological aspects, Diehl emphasizes the populist advocacy of popular sovereignty as well as the dichotomy of the ‘common people’ and a ‘corrupt, overpowering elite’ (Diehl, 2024, pp. 26–27). According to this populist core narrative, established political elites govern merely on the basis of their own interests instead of addressing the interests of the true sovereign – the general population (Hartleb, 2014, p. 47; Hawkins et al., 2019, pp. 3–5; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 9–16). The dichotomy between citizens and the powerful elite is a central motif that is reflected in the party’s agenda and communication strategy. This includes rhetorical means to appear as the representative of the ‘voice of the people’ and to focus on citizens’ concerns and fears (Norris, 2020, pp. 698–699). While populist politicians appear as opponents of established politics claiming to represent the will of the people, ‘the people’ as a concept are usually idealized as a homogeneous unit of righteous, hard-working citizens whose political will needs to be given priority. In line with that, the populist politician’s identity as representative and part of the ordinary citizens and as an outsider within the political arena in contrast to members of elites is a crucial aspect of populist politics (Wolf, 2017, pp. 8–11; Hartleb, 2005, p. 11; Hartleb, 2014, pp. 48–50).

However, the specific political manifestation of these core aspects of populism such as the characteristics of ‘the righteous people’ as well as the actual political agenda of the respective parties differs according to regional circumstances of populist movements and politicians but also ideological characteristics (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017, pp. 1–2). Right-wing populist politics is characterized in particular by references to neo-liberal, nationalist or xenophobic ideologies. Thus, in the right-wing populist worldview, the people are characterized by a common cultural and ethnic identity (Lewandowsky, 2022, p. 19; Decker, 2006, pp. 18–22). Accordingly, a distinction is made between the people and, for example, minorities within the population but also other nation-states (Hartleb, 2011, p. 30; Wolf, 2017, pp. 13–15).

Secondly, populist political communication is characterized as using rhetorical means in order to construct a sense of relatability towards the electorate and appeal to the people. By using rhetorical elements such as emotionalization and dramatization or simplified terms they create the impression that they are part of the ordinary public and thus distinguish themselves from the political elite. Populism further creates the impression of a crisis situation in order to create an urgent need for political action and to emphasize the relevance of their demands (Diehl, 2024, pp. 28–29). Based on the observation that right-wing populist politicians are particularly successful in attracting the attention of the mass media, even if their position within the political landscape does not necessarily indicate this prominent role, their communication strategy is descirbed as media-centric. This can be attributed in part to the rhetorical strategy of right-wing populist politics. Politicians use cleverly positioned provocations in a way that attracts the attention of mass media and, ultimately, of the public. This media-centric political action is seen as one of the reasons for the success of right-wing populist politicians worldwide. With the development of new media at the beginning of the 21st century, social media platforms have also become a tool that right-wing populist politicians have successfully used to communicate directly with the public without having to use the traditional mass media as gatekeepers (Diehl, 2012; Hillje, 2017, p. 42; Schröder, 2018, pp. 60–63; Pajnik and Meret, 2018, pp. 42–47).

4 Research material and methodology

This study is based on a corpus of over 100,000 Japanese blog posts collected from major Japanese blog servers. The data was retrieved via the API of the blog search engine kizashi.jp using the keyword ‘ishin’, the Japanese term for ‘restoration’. As a part of the name of the party, the keyword allows for a broad and thematically unrestricted acquisition of blog entries. Blogs written between 2012 and 2014 were included and collected iteratively over the course of 2013 until 2015. This is in line with the inductive approach of this study with the aim of including any aspects of the discourse during the acquisition stage. As a result, 102,205 blog entries were acquired for the corpus.

The texts included are private weblogs of individuals written in Japanese. As this study is concerned with the public blog discourse as a whole, in the sense of a collection of different perspectives, it does, however, not focus on the identity or personal attributes of the individual bloggers. Rather, the aim is to capture the relation and overlaps of central topics, positions and points of view irrespective of the socio-demographic background of individual persons.

Blog posts are particularly well suited for examining public political discourse, as they reflect unfiltered opinions from the population rather than responses shaped for instance by interview settings. Moreover, blog data captures a broad range of positions and participants in the discourse. Given that key figures of the Japan Restoration Party such as founder Hashimoto Tōru are especially active on social media and shape political debates through these channels, blogs represent a valuable and relevant source for scholarly analysis.

The large corpus of unstructured texts requires a mixed-methods approach including quantitative as well as qualitative methods supported by digital tools. In the first step, topic modeling was used to structure the blog posts and categorize them, enabling an overview of the themes discussed in relation to the party as well as the temporal dynamics of the discourse. Secondly, qualitative methods are necessary in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of arguments and positions of the public discourse as well as details about the role of the JRP in the Japanese party landscape.

4.1 Topic modeling

In the first step, the extensive blog corpus was thematically analyzed using machine learning methods, more precisely topic models were utilized. The algorithm-based system TopicExplorer classifies texts into thematic categories, namely topics, on the basis of the statistical computation of frequently occurring words, and thus performs a pre-sorting of the texts (Hinneburg et al., 2014; Blei, 2012, p. 2). The underlying assumption of this approach is that texts consist of several topics which are represented to varying degrees through words within the text. Therefore, individual words are assigned to a topic and weighted in the course of the calculation according to probabilistic models. Since texts always contain several topics, they can also be assigned to several topics within the framework of the topic model. The classification relies on two basic principles. As few different words as possible should be assigned to each topic. At the same time, as few topics as possible should appear within a text (Hinneburg et al., 2014). According to these two opposing principles, the algorithm determines the categorization of the texts. This means that words that appear in blog posts together are assigned to the same topic(s), so that they form a semantically meaningful unit for researchers to interpret (Blei, 2012, p. 2).

The blog texts acquired and available metadata such as the publication date and the URL of every blog entry were stored in SQL databases. Before topic models can be calculated, data was first cleansed to ensure that, as far as possible, only data that promise meaningful results are used to create the topic model. For this purpose, stop words were be defined. This relates to words that should not be included in the calculation, for example, because they occur so frequently or rarely that they are unlikely to produce meaningful results. For this corpus, all words that appeared only 1–50 times within the entire corpus were excluded. In addition, words were excluded that would provide little insightful information due to their frequency of occurrence. Among the verbs, this is naru (to become). In the case of nouns, the following words were further excluded: getsu (month), me (eye), tsugi (next), te (hand), shita (under), ki (spirit, character), hitotsu (one), saki (first), ato (after), aida (meantime, in between), kuchi (mouth), top, betsu (different), hoka (other), kazu (number), ue (above), rei (example), krikku (click), saito (site).

In a subsequent step, the blog texts were classified into 50 thematic categories using a topic modeling algorithm¹. The number of categories was determined based test calibrations, aiming to identify the number of topics that would produce the most distinct and coherent thematic clusters. Each topic can be interpreted by examining the most frequently occurring words within the topic and by thematically analyzing the blog entries assigned to it. This allows for a substantive understanding of the thematic structure of the corpus. The machine learning approach therefore allows for an inductive analysis of text data as topics are derived from the texts at hand instead of a deductive selection on the basis of individual keywords.

4.2 Content analysis

At this point, the pre-structuring of the text material using topic modeling served as a tool for implementing an inductive sampling approach (Waldherr et al., 2019). This means that texts were selected on the basis of the results of previous, quantitative analysis steps to select a sub-corpus of relevant blog entries for the subsequent qualitative content analysis with a focus on foreign policy and territorial conflicts in particular.

First, on the basis of the quantitative analysis, parts of the corpus that were not relevant to the research question were identified and excluded for the qualitative analysis. Since the material to be examined was chosen to be as open and broadly based as possible, topics identified by Topic Explorer that contain texts in which the search term ishin occurs but is not used in connection with the Japan Restoration Party are excluded at this point. This applied to 28 topics, leaving a total of 22 topics that were relevant to the JRP and therefore included in the analysis.

Second, blog entries were selected on three different levels: the ranking of texts within the topics, significant keywords and relevant timeframes. In the process, further texts were added iteratively during the qualitative analysis process in accordance with the inductive approach used in this study (Flick, 2007, pp. 158–164).

The following qualitative analysis of 160 selected blog entries provides more in-depth insights into individual perspectives, arguments and attitudes. Texts were analyzed by means of an inductive qualitative content analysis using Kuckartz’s content structuring analysis (Kuckartz, 2018). The MAXQDA analysis software (MAXQDA Analytics Pros Pro Release 22.1.1) was applied for the content analysis, the organization and coding of texts as well as the visualization of inter- and intra-code relations (Kuckartz, 2018, pp. 175–196). The inclusion of blog entries was considered to be complete when no additional categories emerged and all relevant questions regarding the material had been addressed (Flick, 2007, 163–164).

Content structuring analysis was selected as a methodological approach for this study because it is particularly suitable for exploring unstructured text data. This is because blog posts which serve as the basis for this analysis, cannot be considered uniform, neither thematically nor in terms of formal layout. The multi-stage process according to Kuckartz is characterized by a detailed and repeated examination of the available material, whereby texts or relevant text passages are consulted and read in their entirety several times for the purpose of structuring until the coding process is complete. In contrast to other methods of qualitative content analysis, such as Mayring’s approach (see, e.g., Mayring, 2022), text passages are structured and interrelated by coding with thematic categories, but not paraphrased, so that the complexity and diversity of statements within individual categories is preserved and nuances can be extracted as part of the analysis (Kuckartz, 2018, pp. 97–100).

In order to be able to identify the characteristics of the Japanese case study, an inductive approach was chosen, which allows the Japan-specific topics and positions in the discourse on Japanese right-wing populism to be revealed without falsely imposing theoretical findings onto the material, most of which originates from the Western context.

Categories, or codes, were created iteratively, with main categories being developed in a first coding round. This step resulted in 4 main categories as part of the code system. The subcategories were developed in a total of three coding processes and adjusted iteratively until the sampling was completed and all categories were sufficiently described and differentiated (Kuckartz, 2018, pp. 100–110). As a result, the 4 main categories were further differentiated by an additional total of 49 subcategories divided into three levels with 18 codes on the first, 29 codes on the second and a further 2 codes on the third level (see also Appendix 1).

The further evaluation process of the developed categories also followed the guidelines established by Kuckartz and concentrated on the thematic evaluation of individual categories as well as the analysis of intra- and inter-correlations of main and sub-categories (Kuckartz, 2018, pp. 118–121).

5 Results

The blog analysis initially revealed that foreign policy issues played a central role in how the Japan Restoration Party (JRP) was discussed in Japanese blogs. Foreign policy issues appeared in three of the 22 topics, making them, alongside media coverage, domestic politics, and election results, one of the key focal points in the blog discourse. These categories cover topics such as Japan–U. S. relations and Japan’s global role with particular emphasis on its position in East Asia and territorial disputes, which were identified as a distinct thematic category.

5.1 Territorial conflicts as a central topic within the blog discourse

The category contains comments on the territorial conflicts including the dispute between Japan, China, and South Korea over the Senkaku Islands, and the conflict over the Takeshima Islands. The peak of the topic at which the highest number of blog entries were located was in the week of September 24–30, 2012 (see Figure 1). At that time, the conflict over the Senkaku Islands with neighbor China boiled up (Horiuchi, 2014, p. 37; Asahi Shimbun, 2012b, p. 1; Sakaki and Wacker, 2017, pp. 10–11). At the same time, the merger between the Japan Restoration Party, which was founded by Hashimoto Tōru in early 2012 and the Sunrise Party, led by former Tōkyō Governor Ishihara Shintarō, was publicly announced. The topic of the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands thus became salient within the blog discourse on the JRP at the moment when Ishihara entered the political narrative surrounding the party (Asahi Shimbun, 2012a, p. 1). The discussion continues in blog discourse for several months and reappears with renewed intensity in blogs shortly before the House of Commons election in December 2012 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

The blog analysis reveals that the blog debate around territorial disputes in East Asia was initially triggered by Hashimoto’s statements about the necessity of a cooperation between Japan and South Korea. His statement relating to the territorial conflict over the Takeshima Islands was reported to have caused a major backlash on Twitter. The leader of the Japan Restoration Party argued that only a settlement of the territorial conflict would allow for clear regulations for the use of fishing grounds surrounding the islands (Asahi Shimbun, 2012c). In the blog discourse Hashimoto was criticized for supporting a settlement of the issue and therefore suggesting giving in on South Koreas territorial claims. One blogger assesses the impact of his statements as follows: ‘When Hashimoto made these left-wing comments, his approval rate dropped. The Japanese people do not want a Korean-Japanese or Chinese-Japanese friendship’ (blog post 13,257 01.10.2012). Hence, critical voices were raised against Hashimoto’s diplomatic stance in the blog discourse.

However, the focus of the debate shifted with the start of talks on a merger between Hashimoto’s Restoration Party and Ishihara’s Sun Party. Ishihara Shintarō occupied a new discourse within the blogs from this point on. The focus remains on Japan’s territorial conflicts with its East Asian neighbors. Ishihara, however, brings a different view on this topic into the debate. He had previously addressed the territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands in April of the same year, when he suggested during a press conference on a trip overseas in the USA that the Tōkyō Metropolitan Government should buy the Senkaku Islands, located in the East China Sea, from the private owner (Horiuchi, 2014, pp. 23–25; Asahi Shimbun, 2012b).

Shortly after his statement, Ishihara set up a fund to raise money for the purchase, mobilizing the public. On May 18, it was already 766 million yen, on August 14 it was 1.4 billion yen and a month later 1.47 billion yen was donated by individuals and civil society groups. Supporters were mainly right-wing and nationalist groups. These funds made it increasingly likely that the local government would actually be able to buy the islands which increased the pressure on the Noda government (Horiuchi, 2014, pp. 36–37).

These events are taken up again months later in the blog entries when Hashimoto’s plans on cooperating with Ishihara and his party became publicly known. The cooperation with Ishihara shifts the overall blog discourse on the Japan Restoration party as Ishihara is perceived as a strong voice vis-à-vis the neighboring states. Instead of critical voices towards Hashimoto’s suggested cooperation between the states of East Asia, expectations towards Ishihara’s strong stance in regard to diplomatic relations now dominate.

Bloggers first refer to the public reaction and the political consequences following Ishihara’s initiative to buy the islands. One blogger, i.e., noted the surprising speed with which the government proceeded to purchase the Senkaku Islands, pointing to a lack of transparency and public debate. The blogger remarked that this course of action contributed to a perception of disarray within the Democratic Party of Japan, as it struggled to position itself ahead of the approaching national elections (blog post 12,416 06.10.2012, blog post 19,550 03.09.2012).

Ishihara had made his position known to the general public through mass media and was able to gain broad public support for his plan. The crisis was followed almost daily in the media. Yahoo! conducted a survey among its users shortly after Ishihara’s announcement. 250,471 people cast their vote. Of these, 92% supported the purchase of the Senkaku Islands. Only 7% opposed the purchase (Horiuchi, 2014, p. 37). In the blogs, the impact of the strong public support is primarily seen as a means of exerting pressure on the ruling Democratic Party of Japan. As shown, for instance, by blog posts such as the following comment on the DPJ’s helplessness and lack of sovereignty in dealing with the resulting situation. Ishihara Shintarō’s statement not only provoked China, but also undermined the authority of the Japanese government, which was seemingly not in a position to claim the territory. The popularity of Ishihara and his idea was seen as causing the then Prime Minister Noda to feel compelled to raise the issue as head of government.

Today we have the news that the government is finalizing the direct purchase of the Senkaku Islands […] We are surprised to see it carried out like this before we knew it. […] We will have to wait and see. The Democratic Party of Japan is beginning to look a bit ridiculous as they scramble for the next elections (blog post 19550 03.09.2012).

Bloggers acknowledge that just 3 years ago, the DPJ was perceived as a progressive force that would bring lasting political change through the implementation of long-awaited reforms. But as expressed in the blogs, the bloggers’ expectations of a new political course were not met over the course of the DPJ term in office. Instead the party appeared to be inexperienced, and disorganized. Among the main points of criticism is the party’s chaotic handling of the Great East Japan Earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant following it. Likewise, the perception of the DPJ not having the interests of citizens in mind is a generally mentioned criticism in the blogs. Against this backdrop, the JRP can establish itself as a political alternative in the blogs that pursues a clear course to safeguard national interests when dealing with territorial conflicts as a crisis situation.

Further, Ishihara occupied a clearly right-wing discourse in the blogs and can further transfer the support of associated bloggers to the Japan Restoration Party which is therefore seen as a promising political force in the upcoming election. This is because Ishihara’s statements lead to the assumption that Japan could gain control over the islands if the Japan Restoration Party were to gain political influence. Reflecting a broader sense of political dissatisfaction, another blog criticized the incumbent government for its perceived indifference toward the Senkaku issue, accusing it of prioritizing relations with China over Japan’s national interests (blog post 18,743 06.09.2012).

The current government is not very interested in the Senkaku issue. It is far from being a representative of the people of Japan, which puts the interests of China before the national interest of the Senkaku Islands. […] If the government is shifted to the LDP and the Restoration Association exercises its influence, it is certain that it will strengthen its effective jurisdiction over the Senkaku Islands (blog post 18743 06.09.2012).

The terminology used in particular links the majority of these comments with right-wing discourses. For example, terms such as han’ichi [anti-Japanese] or baikoku [traitors], which are usually linked to extreme right-wing groups, can be found in this discourse (see e.g., Schäfer et al., 2017). In the blog discourse these terms were used to refer to the established parties as well as traditional media which are perceived as not acting upon the interests of the Japanese people. This could be seen in the fact that they either do not stand up for Japanese national interests or withhold information that would be necessary for an evaluation of the foreign policy issues.

5.2 The JRP as the only strong voice for an active Japanese foreign and security policy

The JRP, who had previously come under criticism due to Hashimoto’s statements, thus appears to be a promising representative of the demands for a more active foreign policy thanks to Ishihara’s appointment as chairman. This is particularly to be viewed against the backdrop of the perception of the ruling DPJ as lacking sovereignty in the case. The Japan Restoration Party, which appears to be the hope for a shift in Japanese foreign policy, can therefore also be seen as representing a position that has not yet been represented in Japan’s mainstream politics. Particularly through the decision to collaborate with Ishihara Shintarō, the JRP attracted a predominantly right-wing part of the blog sample.

Those in favor of the JRP are also in favor of a more active foreign policy, which they see as being addressed by Ishihara in particular. As a result, the party also came to be perceived in relation to other aspects of Japanese foreign policy. While supportive blog posts prior to the merger of Ishihara and Hashimoto primarily expressed hopes for structural reforms under the JRP, the party was now also seen as a strong voice in dealing with international partners, particularly Japan’s East Asian neighbors. Against the backdrop of unresolved diplomatic tensions during the Noda administration, the growing prominence of political actors such as the Japan Restoration Party, led by Ishihara and Hashimoto, who had in the eyes of bloggers long articulated assertive positions toward key regional actors including the United States, China, South Korea, and North Korea, was noted as well. One comment further pointed to then-opposition leader Abe, who appeared to align himself increasingly with their stance (blog post 6039 16.11.2012).

The party also began to be portrayed as a new hope for advancing the revision of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. This proposed revision, which aims to grant Japan’s Self-Defense Forces authority beyond the defense of national territory, has been a long-standing issue particularly debated in right-conservative circles. In light of the deteriorating bilateral relationship following Japan’s nationalization of the Senkaku Islands, another blog highlighted the growing threat posed by China’s increasingly assertive military posture, including public statements indicating a willingness to use force. Within this context, the blog post called for the urgent revision of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, framing it as a necessary step to ensure national preparedness for a potential armed conflict with China (blog post 11,462 15.10.2012).

Meanwhile, relations between Japan and China have soured following the nationalization of the Senkaku Islands, and China's military has announced that it will not hesitate to intervene by force. Given this situation, Article 9 of the Constitution must be revised as soon as possible to prepare for an armed conflict between Japan and China (blog post 11462 15.10.2012).

5.3 The JRP loses dominance over foreign policy after the 2012 election

Although the Japan Restoration Party was able to enter parliament from a standing start, in regard to the number of seats it fell short of its own expectations (Asahi Digital, 2012). The hopes for extensive reforms and a fundamental change in the country’s domestic and foreign policy that prevailed in the blog discourse quickly faded into the background after the election. Then the party needed allies to be able to initiate reform proposals in the first place and was by far the smaller partner compared to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (Asahi Digital, 2012).

However, apart from issues relating to the political unification of the opposition and cooperation with Abe’s LDP, the blogs became rather quiet from 2013 onwards. The party no longer appears with its own political positions in the blogs. Isolated highlights in the discourse relate to the party’s response to government activities. Following the election, the party therefore lost its dominance over foreign policy issues to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Prime Minister Abe Shinzō.

6 Discussion

Over 100,000 blog entries from major Japanese blog servers discussing the Japan Restoration Party between 2012 and 2014 were collected and analyzed, serving as direct testimonies of public discourse and offering insight into public opinion. The analysis period thus covers the party’s formative phase from its foundation, through its first national election, to its restructuring 2 years later.

Amid escalating tensions and repeated provocations by Chinese fishing vessels in the waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands, Ishihara is viewed in the blogs as the only political actor to respond decisively. What distinguishes Ishihara’s intervention is the specific political context in which he raised the issue. At the time, the then-governing Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was widely perceived as lacking a clear position or viable strategy for addressing the long-standing territorial conflict. Ishihara’s proposal thus stood out by offering a concrete, unilateral course of action at a moment when political leadership on the matter appeared weak or absent according to results of the blog analysis. Ishihara thus filled a perceived void in the political discourse. In this sense, Ishihara was able to occupy the topic of territorial conflicts and helped establish an issue ownership that contributed to the Japan Restoration Party’s (JRP) profile as a political challenger.

Through the merger with Ishihara’s Sun Party, the Japan Restoration Party was able to claim ownership over the issue of Japan’s territorial disputes with China. The party effectively used this moment as a discursive opportunity to position itself as a strong voice and credible alternative to established foreign policy actors. The territorial conflict, especially as a moment of perceived crisis, allowed the JRP to distinguish itself through Ishihara’s bold demand and the DPJ’s more cautious, diplomacy-driven approach. Within the blog discourse, Ishihara’s hardline stance was interpreted as a signal of hope for a more assertive shift in Japan’s foreign policy.

This strategy not only challenged the existing foreign policy line but also enabled the JRP to gain visibility as a right-wing populist actor advocating a more confrontational approach in international relations. The analysis thus illustrates how right-wing populist actors can leverage political crises to propose polarizing, forceful solutions that resonate with conservative and anti-establishment segments of the public. However, once the JRP was unable to push through its own positions due to the parliamentary majorities after the 2012 election, it gradually lost its thematic dominance in the area of foreign policy and therefore its relevance in the blog-based public discourse.

The blog comments, further, show that the party is gaining popularity against the backdrop of fundamental criticism of established parties (DPJ and LDP). The Japan Restoration Party was able to take advantage of these developments in 2012 and position itself as an alternative to the establishment. Existing quantitative studies examining Japanese populism provided initial indications that a growing dissatisfaction with established parties played a role in the establishment of Japanese right-wing populism in general (see, e.g., Kida 2014, 2015; Mori 2006, 2007; Yoshida, 2019) and the Japan Restoration Party in particular (see e. g., Matsutani 2012a, 2012b; Hirai, 2012; Mizushima 2020, pp. 37–51; Arima, 2017, pp. 2–8). For example, the results of the 2012 lower house election were understood to be a result of dissatisfaction with the LDP and DPJ, as ‘protest voters’ who wanted to set an example against the established parties opted for the Japan Restoration Party (Watanabe, 2013, pp. 38–41). With the resentment of the established politics as a core theme, the blog analysis thus initially confirms assumptions from existing analyses of election results. Election analyses such as those by Watanabe Osamu suggest that the great dissatisfaction with established parties plays an important role in the election of the Japan Restoration Party. Watanabe therefore sees the party’s agenda fading into the background of the election decision, but emphasizes the prevailing mood within the population of wanting to punish the DPJ after its time in government (Watanabe, 2013, pp. 38–41; Watanabe and Schmidt, 2013, pp. 13–14). Adding to the state of research, this study shows that foreign policy discourses and in particular the discourse on the Japanese-Chinese territorial conflicts also played an essential role in this positioning of the JRP.

These findings must also be considered in light of former LDP prime minister Abe’s re-election in 2012 and his role in scholarly debates on populism in Japan at the time. During his tenure, his campaigns have frequently been associated with populist communication strategies, particularly in the realm of online media (Schäfer et al., 2017). Some Western scholars have argued that Abe successfully prevented the rise of right-wing populism by preemptively occupying key political discourses (Burrett, 2019). The present study supports this claim to some extent. However, an analysis of the discourse around territorial conflicts alone cannot fully clarify whether Abe’s dominance was rooted in his own political strength or rather in the Japan Restoration Party’s inability to maintain its credibility and challenger status after the 2012 election. Ultimately, the analysis suggests that Abe was able to outmaneuver the JRP and reclaim the political space it had sought to occupy.

This analysis provides a foundation for understanding crises as discursive opportunities in Japan, extending beyond the success of the Japan Restoration Party, and remains highly relevant in light of current political developments. While in 2025, topics that had previously been absent from the populist discourse in Japan, for instance economic pressures and debates over labor migration, are driving domestic dissatisfaction, in 2012 it was primarily foreign policy crises, such as territorial disputes, that served as focal points for populist mobilization (Schäfer, 2025). Despite the change in thematic focus, this indicates that the perceived ineffectiveness of established parties during times of crises persists as a core driver of populism in Japan. In both cases, the perceived weaknesses of established parties have created openings for populist challengers to expand their support. In 2012 it was the passivity towards China in 2012 and 2025 the debate is now evolving around shortcomings in economic and migration policy. These findings therefore offer a basis for further research on how crises and party weaknesses interact to shape populist success.

7 Limitations

As a limitation of this study, one may argue that the selection of new media as data sources results in the underrepresentation of certain groups and demographics who are less frequently active in digital media. Furthermore, the basic political attitudes of the bloggers cannot be directly contrasted with the analytical results, as no information on their ideological orientations or voting preferences is available beyond what can be inferred from the blog entries themselves. Nevertheless, in the absence of an alternative to the kizashi.jp search engine, which enabled the unrestricted search of Japanese online communication, unlike platforms such as X that are often subject to inherent sampling biases, it still appears to have been the most suitable choice for the sampling process applied in this study.

8 Conclusion

The analysis of the Japanese blog discourse between 2012 and 2014 demonstrates that territorial conflicts, with the dispute over the Senkaku Islands in particular, played a significant role in the early establishment of the Japan Restoration Party as a right-wing populist force. The party’s assertive stance on the Senkaku issue, introduced prominently through Shintarō Ishihara, played a central role in shaping its public image and political momentum. As such, the analysis provides evidence that the discourse around the territorial conflict functioned as a discursive opportunity that helped the JRP establish itself within the Japanese political landscape. However, this thematic dominance proved to be situational and short-lived. The findings underline the importance of political crises as windows of opportunity for populist actors to gain momentum, especially when they can present themselves as decisive voices in contrast to cautious or passive incumbents. Moreover, when compared to current populist discourses such as the agenda of the Party of Do It Yourself, the data provides insights into how discursive opportunities for populist parties in Japan have evolved over time. At the same time, it suggests that crises and the perceived failure of established political parties to respond effectively have consistently served as key drivers of populism, as observed in other parts of the world.

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