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Explains how the persistence of party institutions (factions, PARC, koenkai) and the transformed role of party leadership in Japan contributed both to the LDP's success at remaining in power for 15 years and its downfall.
From its founding in 1955 and for the next thirty-eight years, Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won all but one national election and selected every prime minister and nearly every cabinet member. Other democracies have had similarly dominant parties, but none approaches the LDP for longevity in power and complete dominance of the political scene. Then, in 1993 a political earthquake transformed Japan from a country of unchanging one-party rule into a nation of ever-changing and free-flowing political coalitions. For the rest of the decade the LDP struggled to regain its position of dominance and for the most part succeeded. At the end of the millennium the LDP lacked a majority in the House of Councillors, the upper house of the Japanese Diet, but it was nevertheless strong and confident once again while the opposition was in disarray. The LDP's loss of control in 1993, however brief, made obsolete much of what had been written on Japanese politics. Ending the LDP Hegemony answers the need for an up-to-date analysis of the political scene, providing both the information and framework needed to unravel the tangle of coalition politics in the 1990s and anticipate the composition and policies of future Japanese governments. It is the first study in English to focus on and put into historical context interparty relations in Japan. Western scholars and media heretofore have focused either on the LDP's successes or the peculiarities of the individual opposition parties, ignoring interparty relations that are well known to the Japanese. Ray Christensen offers here a new perspective on the interaction among members of the Democratic, New Frontier, Japan Socialist, Japan Communist, Democratic Socialist, and Clean Government parties, as well as on their general political orientation and tactics. He challenges the assumption that the LDP's accomplishments can be attributed to its being the most efficient, capable, and intelligent party, and describes in detail the strategies of the opponents, demonstrating the political savvy of their leaders. His analysis of key data on cooperation and elections reveals that opposition parties actually outperformed the LDP. This study not only fills a gap in our understanding of modern Japanese politics, it is also adds a critical non-European perspective to analyses of opposition politics and social democracy. It argues that the Japanese experience requires a modification of analytical frameworks, which are based almost exclusively on Western European examples, and questions those who support a more authoritarian, "Asian" model of democracy by revealing the vibrancy of the opposition in Japan and the technical reasons for the LDP's success. Ending the LDP Hegemony amply demonstrates that democracy, indeed Western-style democracy, can take root and flourish in the fertile soil of East Asia and offers the experience of Japan's opposition parties as crucial evidence of Japanese democracy. It will be essential reading for all those interested in the functioning of democracy in Asia and other non-Western settings.
This book explains why no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a sustained challenger in Japan.
A study of the corrosive effects of corruption on one of the world's major liberal democracies. It explores the disconnection between democratic rules and undemocratic practices in Japan since World War II, with attention to corrupt practices of various prime ministers.
This work collects decades of the best published scholarship in English on the unequivocally most successful political party in Japanese history: the Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP). Governing Japan for almost the entirety of the post-war period, the LDP also has a claim to be the most successful political party in any post-war democracy. Seminal articles in this collection explore the key aspects of the LDP: the party’s evolution since its founding in 1955; key facets of the LDP’s internal organization including factions and koenkai; the LDP in policy-making, including its relationship with the bureaucracy and interest groups, as well as its policy-making committee apparatus; and, party leadership, including the premierships of Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe.
Decentralized policymaking power in Japan had developed under the reign of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), yet in the1990s, institutional changes fundamentally altered Japan's political landscape. Tomohito Shinoda tracks these developments in the operation of and tensions between Japan's political parties and the public's behavior in elections, as well as in the government's ability to coordinate diverse policy preferences and respond to political crises. The selection of Junichiro Koizumi, an anti-mainstream politician, as prime minister in 2001 initiated a power shift to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and ended LDP rule. Shinoda details these events and Prime Minister Koizumi's use of them to practice strong policymaking leadership. He also outlines the institutional initiatives introduced by the DPJ government and their impact on policymaking, illustrating the importance of balanced centralized institutions and bureaucratic support.
In August 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a crushing victory over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), thus bringing to an end over fifty years of one-party dominance. Around the world, the victory of the DPJ was seen as a radical break with Japan's past. However, this dramatic political shift was not as sudden as it appeared, but rather the culmination of a series of changes first set in motion in the early 1990s. The Evolution of Japan's Party System analyses the transition by examining both party politics and public policy. Arguing that these political changes were evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the essays in this volume discuss how older parties such as the LDP and the Japan Socialist Party failed to adapt to the new policy environment of the 1990s. Taken as a whole, The Evolution of Japan's Party System provides a unique look at party politics in Japan, bringing them into a comparative conversation that usually focuses on Europe and North America.
Politics in Japan is undergoing a major transformation. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has, since 2012, embarked upon an ambitious programme of policy reforms as well as changes to Japan’s governing structures and processes. At the heart of this policy agenda is ‘Abenomics’ – a set of measures designed to boost Japan’s flagging economy, but one which is yet to deliver on its promises. In this fully revised and updated second edition of his classic text, Ian Neary explores the dynamics of democracy in Japan, introducing the key institutions, developments and actors in its politics from the end of the Second World War to the present day. Packed with illustrative material and examples, this comprehensive study traces the continuities and the changes that are underway in five major policy areas: foreign and defence, industry, social welfare, the environment and human rights. Assuming no prior knowledge of Japan, this textbook will be an invaluable and welcome resource for all students interested in the government and politics of contemporary Japan and its international profile.
Japan's new politics challenge some basic assumptions about U.S.-Japan alliance management. CFR Senior Fellow Sheila A. Smith explores this new era of alternating parties in power and reveals the growing importance of Japan's domestic politics in shaping alliance cooperation.
The post-Cold War era has been difficult for Japan. A country once heralded for evolving a superior form of capitalism and seemingly ready to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy lost its way in the early 1990s. The bursting of the bubble in 1991 ushered in a period of political and economic uncertainty that has lasted for over two decades. There were hopes that the triple catastrophe of March 11, 2011—a massive earthquake, tsunami, and accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant—would break Japan out of its torpor and spur the country to embrace change that would restart the growth and optimism of the go-go years. But several years later, Japan is still waiting for needed transformation, and Brad Glosserman concludes that the fact that even disaster has not spurred radical enough reform reveals something about Japan's political system and Japanese society. Glosserman explains why Japan has not and will not change, concluding that Japanese horizons are shrinking and that the Japanese public has given up the bold ambitions of previous generations and its current leadership. This is a critical insight into contemporary Japan and one that should shape our thinking about this vital country.