Ein Populistischer Moment? Populistische Parteien und die Wahlen 2024 und 2025

The slogan »Japanese first« (Nihonjin fāsuto) dominated the political landscape in Japan in the summer of 2025 to an extent that no other political slogan had managed to do for a long time. The radical right-wing Sanseitō experienced a meteoric rise in the weeks leading up to the upper house election on July 20, 2025, with this slogan reminiscent of Donald Trump. While the party had only recorded approval ratings of one to two percent until May of this year, its poll results jumped to the level of the strongest opposition parties from mid-May onwards. In fact, the Sanseitō came third in the proportional representation block in the upper house election. Since then, there has been heated debate between those who fear a dramatic shift to the right and those who consider the excitement to be exaggerated. While Japan was recently considered largely immune to »populist seductions« (Buruma 2018; Lind 2018), the election results of recent years point to a possible »populist moment« (Mouffe 2018). In order to analyze the impact of populist logics in Japan’s current political climate, this article aims to reveal underlying shifts within Japanese politics and – based on
approaches from critical populism research – to explain the success of the Sanseitō. It emphasizes that while successful populism is often a symptom of the destabilization of established politics, a specific form of populist articulation does not necessarily emerge from this. It is therefore necessary to examine more closely shifts in the broader field of political activity, the relationship between different forms of populist articulation, and the behavior of established parties. The analysis is based on primary sources from the parties under investigation as well as field research on the left-wing populist party Reiwa Shinsengumi, which was conducted in the Kansai region in February 2025. In addition to the two parties mentioned above, the neoliberal populist party Japan Restauration Party (JRP), the centrist Democratic Party for the People (DPFP), and the radical right-wing Conservative Party of Japan (CPJ) are also taken into account.