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Social inequality is a central issue of modernity in the intersection between the idea of a market economy, with competition as an irreplaceable element, and democracy, with equality as one of its fundamental principles. In postwar Japan, after a period of fierce conflicts, a shared growth model that included a redistribution from urban centers to the rural peripheries was established as a highly successful solution to this inherent contradiction. Upward mobility and increasing incomes, as well as the support of the countryside, led to a narrative of Japan as a general middle-class society and made it exemplary regarding social and political stability. However, since the late 1990s, due to missing growth and social stagnation, this model is no longer functioning, and a new narrative of Japan as a gap society has become dominant. Since 2000, Japanese governments have tried to establish alternative models of neoliberal growth, welfare growth, and Abenomics, but these have not been able to emulate the success of the former shared growth model.

Social and regional inequality remained of secondary importance in the 2017 House of Representatives election, especially in comparison to national security and constitutional reform. Still, the election victory of the coalition between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō was also due to its ability to shape the debate concerning Japan’s political-economic model of growth and inequality. Abenomics and regional revitalization were the dominating policies, which opposition parties criticized without having a real counter-model. A more detailed analysis shows, however, that Abenomics has not yet fulfilled its promise of shared growth, and that the governing coalition’s discursive control over the political-economic agenda has significantly weakened. This creates opportunities for opposition parties in the future.