The main purpose of this paper is to examine how women’s interests are substantively represented in the Japanese legislature (Diet) by utilizing the concept of representative claims. Following the recent line of research that does not assume the content of “women’s interests” prior to the empirical analysis and that includes not only women but also men as well as not only feminists but also non- and anti-feminists into the analysis, this paper qualitatively analyzes the representative claims made by various types of Diet members when they are allowed to express their opinions and questions during the Diet sessions. Then, by comparing representative claims made by different groups of Diet members, this paper examines if the Diet members’ gender and party affiliation are correlated with the frequency and the content of representative claims, and if so, how. To see the potential correlation between the gender and party affiliation of representatives and substantive representation of women in Japan, it is useful to focus on representative claims instead of policy outputs or roll-call votes because Japanese legislators are expected to follow party lines at the final stage of policymaking. The time frame of this analysis is when the government has been led by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party and Prime Minister Abe Shinzo (December 26, 2012 – today). PM Abe, while being an outspoken anti-feminist, also promotes the idea of “society where women can shine” where women can keep working while raising children. Under this administration, how are women’s interests represented in the legislature? By answering this question, in addition to contribute to the literature on women’s representation by adding the case of Japan, this paper also seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the current situation of women’s substantive representation in Japan.
