Who is the Japan Innovation Party? A Primer on the LDP’s New Coalition Partner
Nippon Ishin no Kai campaigning at Yokohama station
Fast Facts
English Name: Japan Innovation Party (JIP)
Japanese Name: 日本維新の会 (Nippon Ishin no Kai)
Founded on: November 2, 2015
Headquarters: Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture
Current Number of Members in the Diet: 35 in the Lower House, 19 in the Upper House
Left: Osaka Governor, Hirofumi Yoshimura
Right: House of Representatives member of Osaka’s 12th District, Fumitake Fujita
History
The prefectural and city governments of Osaka (Japan’s second largest city after Yokohama) have long been criticized for lacking inter-governmental coordination and for wasting government resources and funds. With each level of government pursuing its own approach to economic development and infrastructure planning, critics argue that bureaucratic inefficiencies have taken root, leading to what has come to be known as “fushiawase,” a term meaning “unhappy,” formed from fu (prefecture), shi (city), and awase (joined together).
Things began to change for the prefecture in 2008, when TV personality and lawyer Toru Hashimoto, backed by the local chapters of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Komeito, was elected governor with ambitions to straighten out what he viewed as a dysfunctional system. At first, he maintained a good relationship with the city’s then-mayor, who supported his proposal to merge the prefectural and municipal water management systems. Tensions soon emerged, however, as the two sides clashed over the management of this policy.
The entrepreneurial governor then decided to advance a more ambitious plan: abolishing the city of Osaka altogether. To support this vision, the Osaka Restoration Association was established as a new political party with Hashimoto as the head. This initiative was part of the broader Osaka Metropolis Plan, which proposed dissolving the cities of Osaka and Sakai and restructuring them into special wards modeled after Tokyo’s 23 central divisions. Under this plan, responsibilities would be split between the metropolitan government and the wards: the metropolitan government would oversee regionwide issues such as urban planning and economic development, while the wards would manage local services, including welfare and waste collection. By abolishing the city of Osaka's 24 small wards and redistricting them, the Osaka Restoration Association claimed that this would eliminate government inefficiencies and reduce costs for residents.
It was in this context that the Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Innovation Party or JIP), the national affiliate of the Osaka Restoration Association and the main vehicle for Hashimoto and his allies to promote their vision of a decentralized central government, was created. Initially founded in 2012 as the Japan Restoration Party, it went through several reorganizations after Hashimoto stepped down in 2014, including a merger with the Unity Party and a name change to the Japan Innovation Party. In 2015, internal divisions prompted some members to seek cooperation with the Democratic Party of Japan (later absorbed into the Democratic Party), while others regrouped under new banners such as Initiatives from Osaka and Vision of Reform. In 2016, with renewed ambitions to expand nationally, Initiatives from Osaka rebranded itself once again as the Japan Innovation Party, the name it retains today.
Beliefs
As soon as it was announced that the Japan Innovation Party would become the LDP’s new coalition partner following the LDP’s split with Komeito in 2025, political observers immediately renewed debate over where the JIP sits on the political spectrum. In 2021, The Guardian referred to them as “rightwing populists,” TIME described them as “libertarian,” and the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan called them “right-leaning.” Meanwhile, a 2021 online survey by JAG Japan found that while voters generally viewed the LDP and Komeito as conservative, the JIP was perceived as centrist, and even slightly more liberal among younger respondents. Among those who reported voting for the JIP, more than 40% described the party as liberal or somewhat liberal, a larger share than those who considered it conservative.
These mixed perceptions stem from the party’s ideological complexity. Fundamentally, the party promotes market-oriented reforms, administrative efficiency, and smaller government; positions often associated with the center-right. At the same time, it supports certain socially liberal policies, including same-sex marriage and free high-school education (the latter reflecting its populist emphasis on reducing household burdens rather than expanding the welfare state in a traditional left-wing sense). However, the party’s nationalist and revisionist tendencies, often linked to the far right, complicate this classification further, especially for Western observers. For example, in 2018, Osaka’s then-mayor and party co-representative Hirofumi Yoshimura severed sister-city ties with San Francisco over the installation of a comfort women statue. It is this blend of economic neoliberalism, selective social liberalism, and historical conservatism that makes the JIP difficult to place within familiar Western ideological categories. Depending on which elements people focus on, its reformist pragmatism, its populist rhetoric, or its nationalist undertones, both foreign observers and Japanese voters arrive at very different judgments about what the JIP represents politically.
At the core of the party stems from its frustrations with the Osaka municipal governments. The JIP is a reformist-minded party dedicated to downsizing the role of government, now, at the national level. The central pillar of the JIP’s platform has long been political reform, symbolized by its “sacrificing ourselves first” approach, cutting politicians’ own pay and privileges before demanding sacrifices from citizens. In its base city of Osaka, the JIP has slashed public spending, privatized the bus and subway system, and decreased the fixed number of elected officials. This strategy has proved effective among voters frustrated with the political process, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the national level, the party seeks to reduce Tokyo’s dominance by shifting authority and financial resources to regional governments, increasing local autonomy. A central proposal is the establishment of a “vice-capital” or secondary administrative hub to serve as a contingency in major crises and disperse national functions currently concentrated in Tokyo. Since coming to power as the LDP’s new coalition partner, it is closer to achieving this goal. Under the new LDP–JIP coalition agreement, it states that a joint consultative body will be formed in 2025 to define the roles of the capital and the proposed secondary site, with related legislation expected in the 2026 ordinary Diet session. Details have not yet been settled. Other pet issues of the JIP’s outside of the establishment of a secondary capital include legally codifying the use of former surnames, strengthening Japan’s active defense capabilities, and prohibiting corporate, organizational, and union donations to legislators and political parties.
Challenges Ahead
In the agreement between the LDP and JIP, they promise to explore enacting the following:
Taxes and Fiscal Policy
Set the consumption tax at 8%
Abolish the provisional gasoline tax
Abolish the consumption tax on food and beverages for two years
Immigration and Foreign Nationals
Strengthen restrictions on requirements for foreign workers
Formulate a “population strategy” that clearly states numerical targets and basic policies for the acceptance of foreign nationals
Strengthen responses and institutional underpinnings regarding illegal acts related to foreign nationals
Energy and Environment
Look to restart nuclear power plants
Accelerate the development of fusion reactors and promote renewable energies
Government Efficiency
Promote AI and other emerging technologies and use AI within government to reduce administrative costs
Look into establishing a Government Efficiency Bureau
Furthering the privatization of public transportation
Political Reform and Party Governance
Establish a consultative body to discuss the modalities of party fund-raising, including donations from corporations and organizations, donations from political organizations, restrictions on recipients, caps on amounts, and the nature of party business income and disclosure
To reduce the number of members of the House of Representatives by ten per cent
Labor and Employment
Review the retirement age so that people can continue working regardless of age
Imperial and Constitutional Reform
Amend the Imperial House Law to allow adoption of men in the male line belonging to the Imperial lineage, thereby making them members of the Imperial Family
Establish a joint drafting council between the LDP and JIP on amendment of Article 9 of the Constitution
National Symbols and Civic Laws
Make damaging the national flag of Japan a crime
Education
Make high school free
Implement free school lunches at primary schools
A more detailed version of the coalition agreement can be found here.
The Japan Innovation Party has faced growing pains as it has expanded into a national political force, including internal disputes and shifting power dynamics. These challenges have also shaped how the party approaches its new role as an LDP coalition partner. For instance, while participation in the Cabinet would offer significant policy influence, it would also expose the party to heightened scrutiny during Diet deliberations. Compounding this caution is the fact that only one JIP lawmaker (Seiji Maehara) has prior cabinet experience, raising concerns within the party about its limited governing know-how. As a risk-management strategy, the JIP ultimately chose not to place any of its members in the cabinet.
The future of the LDP–JIP coalition hinges on how long both sides can manage its contradictions. For the JIP, the challenge is to shape national policy without being eclipsed by the LDP; for the ruling party, it is deciding how much influence to grant a partner that derives strength from its outsider posture. Shared priorities in deregulation may support continued cooperation, but deeper tensions over governance and ideology could reemerge, as seen in the JIP’s push to reduce House of Representatives seats by the end of the extraordinary session. Should conversations around cutting government size proceed and disagreements intensify between the LDP and JIP, negotiations on other policy matters could grow tense. Whether this coalition becomes a vehicle for reform or ends as another short-lived political arrangement will be a key storyline to watch during this period of Japanese politics.
Meanwhile, back in Osaka, with key executive posts held by JIP members, tensions between the prefectural and municipal governments have eased, and both governments have since merged their research institutes, business support organizations, and port authorities. As a result of these initiatives to reduce administrative overlap, Osaka has moved closer to the vision Hashimoto had originally proposed, except in one key domain. The Osaka Metropolis Plan was put to a public referendum twice in 2015 and 2020: both times narrowly rejected with the LDP in full opposition to the plan. The failure of the referendum stems from misunderstandings about what the reform would do, its costs, attachment to existing ward identities, and widespread distrust or misperception of the Japan Innovation Party, all of which obscured the plan’s intended purpose of improving governance efficiency.
More broadly, the JIP’s inability to secure support for its flagship reform underscores the limits of pursuing sweeping structural change in the current political climate, a mark that the party now carries into its coalition with the LDP as it works to balance its reformist ambitions with national political constraints. The latest test for this party is that they must now show that its policies can deliver benefits nationwide and that it can earn the confidence of citizens beyond its Osaka base. After meeting with now-Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to discuss the coalition agreement, Yoshimura remarked, “We share the same vision for the nation and the desire to make Japan stronger.”
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Photo Credits
Nippon Ishin no Kai campaigning at Yokohama station
By Noukei314 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112338164, via Wikimedia Commons
Hirofumi Yoshimura and Fujita Fumitake
By 地方創生図鑑, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=171957457, via Wikimedia Commons