How the LDP Survives

For most of Japan’s postwar years, a single party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has been in control of the government. While various other parties have garnered a considerable share of the vote, until the 1990s none of these parties posed a serious threat to the monopoly of the LDP. In this brief survey of Japanese postwar politics, we discuss how the LDP has managed to hold on for so long.

THE CREATION OF THE LDP

In the years following World War II, Japanese politics was deeply polarized, in part over foreign and security policy and in part over domestic issues, many of which were a legacy of the postwar Occupation reforms.¹ In 1955 two smaller parties consolidated to form the Japan Socialist Party. This event placed pressure on the two conservative parties, the Liberal Party and the Japan Democratic Party, also to merge, which they did that same year, forming the Liberal Democratic Party. We present the creation and dissolution of postwar political parties graphically in figure 1.

The merging of the conservative parties, which together had the support of the majority of the voting public then and for many years thereafter, ensured the conservatives’ long-term control of the government. It also indirectly served industrial, commercial, and farm interests, which were the conservatives’ major supporters. The JSP and other opposition parties continued to voice strong resistance, however, and they were able to marshal the support of the trade union movement and appeal to popular apprehension about the fragility of peace and the new democratic reforms. The "1955 system" that continued for many years thereafter was based on competition between the JSP and the LDP and manifested itself in the cleavage that most divided the electorate, pitting the leftist defenders of Japan’s postwar pacifist Constitution against the conservative defenders of the Japan-US Security Treaty. The security treaty issue culminated in massive demonstrations against the renewal of the treaty in 1960.² Once the controversial renewal was accomplished, the government turned its focus toward economic growth.

GROWTH, STABILITY, AND INCOME EQUALITY

The rapid economic growth of postwar Japan, often referred to as an "economic miracle," is at variance with some of the dominant theories of political development.³ Japan pursued a model of political and economic development in which growth, income egalitarianism, and stable democracy were achieved simultaneously.⁴

This is not to say that Japan has been an ideal democracy. The LDP has managed to maintain power through a wide variety of means, both fair and questionable (since mid-1997 the LDP has maintained power as the dominant partner in coalition governments). However, elections are regular, free, and open, allowing voters to use the ballot in strategic ways to achieve policy change. Thus, even during its heyday, the LDP had to be somewhat responsive to public opinion, enacting policies the public favored to win votes that might otherwise have gone to the opposition parties.

The "supportive participation" of the farmers and old middle class provided the LDP with a consistent mandate that allowed it the freedom to pursue its economic policy agenda. The farmers and small shopkeepers disproportionately turned out to vote, and they overwhelmingly voted for the LDP (a vote that was magnified by malapportionment favoring the rural areas). In return for their electoral support, the farmers and the old middle class benefited from various kinds of patronage. The LDP system helped redistribute national wealth to rural districts, but the system soon became a breeding ground for political corruption.

Until 1994 the electoral system for the House of Representatives, the more powerful lower house of the National Diet, was based on districts represented by multiple members (generally three to five). This multi-member district electoral system was blamed for many of the ills in Japanese politics, particularly the money-based nature of politics and the lack of focus on policy issues.⁵ The argument usually went that since more than one candidate from the same party ran in any given district, this provided an incentive for candidates to pursue a personal vote; it did not make sense for candidates to attempt to distinguish themselves from their opponents on the basis of policies, party label, or ideology, as some of their opponents were from exactly the same party. Candidates in Japan developed personal support networks—kôenkai—and tended to emphasize local, rather than national, issues. The necessity for candidate-based support systems (and the fund raising and distribution of pork that was part of this system) was often seen as a major cause of corruption, as many LDP representatives relied on contributions to offset the exorbitant costs of election campaigns. Typical LDP politicians directed financial aid from the government to the rural areas they represented and in return received campaign contributions. This broad-based, supportive participation admittedly does not fit the citizen-based "town meeting" ideal of democracy. But it helped preserve the democratic system in the period after World War II by softening the divisiveness and tensions among social groups and moderating demands for radical change that accompanied rapid economic development.

Although some analysts see policymaking during this period as dominated by an "iron triangle"—comprised of conservative politicians, top bureaucrats, and big business —the political opposition, concentrated largely in the JSP, was not entirely marginalized. The JSP gained enough support to block any LDP attempt to revise the postwar Constitution and functioned successfully as a "party of pressure," often setting the agenda for national discussion and legislation.⁶ Another crucial characteristic of the postwar system in Japan was the relative autonomy of the national bureaucracy, especially the economic ministries, which facilitated growth while being permeable enough to allow politics to shape development in an egalitarian direction. A new axis of conservative-progressive confrontation emerged during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Citizen activism surged as the undesirable byproducts of rapid economic growth became apparent. Criticizing the policies of the LDP administration, the opposition parties pushed for expansions of social welfare programs and environmental measures, policies that the LDP eventually co-opted in the face of electoral pressure.

But then, during the 1970s and 1980s, the ideology of neoconservatism emerged in Japan. Japan found itself descending into a spiral of deepening government debt, with the authorities having to issue more bonds to service its existing debt. A proposal to introduce a consumption (sales) tax to stem the flow of red ink resulted in a resounding defeat for the LDP in the 1979 lower house election. Administrations in the 1980s called for fiscal responsibility without increased taxation and pushed a small-government agenda built on a program of administrative reform.

The consumption tax was not enacted until 1989, during the tenure of Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru. The unpopular tax, together with the Recruit scandal, led to significant losses for the ruling LDP in the July 1989 House of Councillors election.⁷ Highly publicized corruption scandals also led to increasing public distrust of politicians and dissatisfaction with politics, stimulating voters’ hopes for political reform.⁸ A consensus grew among pundits, citizens, and some politicians that major political reforms were necessary.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NEWPARTIES

Yet the LDP administration of Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi (1991–93) seemed reluctant to pursue reform. The largest faction within the LDP, led by Hata Tsutomu, a leading reform advocate, seceded from the LDP to form the Japan Renewal Party (Shinseitô) in 1993. The party was officially led by Hata, but Ozawa Ichirô, a former power broker within the LDP with an ambiguous attitude toward reform, also wielded substantial power.⁹ Hata forced an election by having his faction support a no-confidence motion against the Miyazawa cabinet. Around this time a number of new small parties were formed by politicians departing from the existing parties (see figure 1). Former LDP member and governor of Kumamoto Prefecture Hosokawa Morihiro formed the Japan New Party (Nihon Shintô) in May 1992. Two other new parties derived from splits from the LDP: One group of incumbent LDP legislators set up the Japan Renewal Party (Shinseitô), and a group of reformers led by Takemura Masayoshi, also an LDP legislator and former governor of Shiga Prefecture, formed the New Party Sakigake (Shintô Sakigake). In December 1994, Ozawa engineered a merger of several of these parties into the New Frontier Party (Shinshintô). Just three years after that, however, the NFP fragmented, leaving Ozawa as the leader of the much smaller Liberal Party.¹⁰

The LDP had never seemed as doomed as it did in the wake of the 1993 general election. The LDP lost its majority in the House of Representatives, winning only 223 out of 511 seats. This loss marked an end to its 38-year single-party rule. The Socialists won just 70 seats, an all-time low, while the new parties made a dramatic debut, winning a combined 103 seats. The new parties represented "change" to the electorate, and the single most powerful predictor of a vote for one of the new parties was the desire for a change of government.¹¹

The new parties "won" the 1993 election both in the sense that they enjoyed the biggest gains in seats and in the sense that the LDP was denied any chance of retaining its majority by the combination of seat losses and defections. The biggest loser, however, was not the LDP but the Socialist party. The Socialists had experienced a surge of their own in 1989 and 1990: In 1989, led by Doi Takako, the first woman ever to head a major party in Japan, the JSP ran against corruption and the new consumption tax and defeated the LDP in the House of Councillors election. The party also did well in the 1990 general election for the House of Representatives, though not well enough to unseat the LDP. Yet the Socialists were unable to capitalize on these gains, and by 1993 they had lost the mantle of being "the alternative to the LDP" to the new parties. After that the party’s vote share returned to its pre-1990 pattern of slow but continuous decline.¹² (The JSP changed its English name to "Social Democratic Party of Japan" in February 1991 [though it continued to be "Nihon Shakaitô" in Japanese], and it became the Social Democratic Party [Shakai Minshutô] in January 1996.)

Following the 1993 election, the chance finally to unseat the LDP after so many years overrode other considerations, and that August all the opposition forces excluding the Communists formed a coalition government under the premiership of Hosokawa Morihiro, the leader of the JNP. The LDP attacked this as "strange bedfellows" (yagô), and unsurprisingly, the coalition did not last long. The big shock was what followed: On June 30, 1994, the Socialists joined their historic enemy, the LDP, and Sakigake to form a new coalition government. The competition between the Liberal Democrats and the Socialists that had defined the Japanese party system since 1955 had seemingly ended.

Data from a nationwide panel survey, the Japan Election Survey II, show that voters reacted to this "historic compromise" by adjusting their attitudes to the new reality. At the individual level, this process involved revising attitudes both toward traditional enemies and toward their own party. Citizens were able to understand the situation described in the mass media and political commentary remarkably well. The public accurately revised their perceptions of the political space, even incorporating the most bizarre and subtle twists of elite maneuvering.¹³

Despite all expectations, the "new party boom"—as the surge in popularity of the new parties was labeled—was short-lived. Once the Hosokawa cabinet failed after only a short term in office, the parties lost the momentum to remain small and independent, and they were absorbed sooner or later by other parties. The Democratic Party of Japan then emerged as the major opposition party, having absorbed much of the SDP (the former JSP), along with some conservative politicians. This union of politicians from across the ideological spectrum, as we have seen, lacked a coherent party platform. However, the merger was successful enough against the background of Japan’s continuing recession to convince people of the DPJ’s ability to become an alternative to the LDP and to vote for it in the House of Councillors election of 1998.¹⁴

Another crucial factor leading to the LDP’s defeat in the 1998 upper house election (though it held on to its ruling-party status) was the rise of unaffiliated voters as an important group. The growing significance of a strong opposition party finally enabled these individual voters to "punish" the LDP. In addition, the phenomenon of "split voting" was notable; voters were more likely to cast their ballot for the LDP candidate in their constituency than they were to pick the LDP in the proportional-representation vote.

THE ERA OF PARTY COALITIONS: THE LDP SHARES POWER

By the late 1990s, the LDP was generally no longer capable of sustaining majority rule alone. In addition to urbanization, which contributed to the long-term contraction of the party’s support base, the 1994 electoral reform played a major part in creating an environment necessitating the formation of coalitions.¹⁵

Coalitions of strange bedfellows seem less strange after examining the political ideals and ideologies of the individual legislators belonging to the parties in coalition. In November and December 1998, the Political News Department of the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun and the Kabashima Research Group at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Law jointly conducted a survey of the political attitudes of the 752 members of the two houses of the Diet.¹⁶ The survey asked Diet members to express their opinions on a number of policy issues and to place themselves ideologically on a scale ranging from 1, most progressive (kakushin), to 10, most conservative (hoshu).¹⁷

Figure 2 presents the Diet members’ ideological self-placements in the form of distribution curves for each of the six major parties. LDP legislators are weighted toward the conservative side, but the ideological diversity of the party is clearly visible in the two peaks representing the conservative and the middle-of-the-road groups. The LDP’s lack of ideological cohesion made it ideologically feasible for it to team up with a wide range of partners. Kômeitô members positioned themselves more centrally.¹⁸ The Kômeitô could feasibly be a coalition partner to either the LDP or the DPJ, affording it considerable negotiating power in the coming years of coalition government. The DPJ was a relatively new party in 1998, the year the survey was conducted, and the party was even less cohesive than was the LDP, with its members ranging from progressive to conservative. This lack of cohesion reflects the fact that the party was formed by a variety of existing political forces of diverse stripes. Its ideological breadth allowed it the flexibility of possibly allying itself not just with the Kômeitô but also with the SDP and the JCP. The DPJ formally merged with the small, center-right Liberal Party led by Ozawa Ichirô in 2003.

Legislators rated their own positions on 14 basic policy issues using a five-point scale ranging from 1 (agree strongly) to 5 (disagree strongly). Responses can be divided into three categories: (1) issues on which there is broad agreement among the legislators regardless of party, (2) issues on which there is some agreement, though less than in the previous category, and (3) issues on which opinions diverge widely among the parties.

Broad agreement existed on the issues of providing a stronger say for the emperor in government affairs and possessing nuclear weapons; virtually all the legislators opposed both. A broad consensus also appeared to exist on the issues of improving social welfare and implementing reforms to elevate the status of women. The SDP legislators were most in favor, followed by the JCP, Kômeitô, DPJ, LDP, and then the Liberal Party, in that order. Responses also showed some overlap between the parties on the ideas of greater gender equality and broader participation by women in the public sphere, which have come to the fore since the 1960s. All the parties leaned toward support for improving social welfare, reforming systems to elevate the position of women, and carrying out administrative reform.

There was more variation in opinion on the neoliberal agenda of achieving small government, promoting self-reliance, and raising the share of indirect taxes. The Liberals were the most strongly in favor, followed by the LDP, while the DPJ, Kômeitô, SDP, and JCP were more negative.

Areas in which wide variation was evident among the parties include the strengthening of Japan’s defense capabilities and of its security arrangements with the United States, the quest for a permanent seat for Japan on the UN Security Council, and revision of the Constitution. The Liberals were the most heavily in favor of strengthening Japan’s defense capabilities, followed by the Liberal Democrats. Unsurprisingly, both the SDP and the JCP were definitively opposed, and the Democratic and Kômeitô legislators had intermediate views, though leaning toward opposition.

THE EMERGENCE OF KOIZUMI AND THE LDP’S NEOLIBERAL TILT

By 2000, public opinion had turned against the Liberal Democrats, and long-term demographic trends had reduced substantial parts of their electoral base. Support for the administration of Prime Minister Mori Yoshirô (invariably described as "the gaffe-prone Mori"), who took office in April of that year, fell dramatically, and by February 2001 only 14% of the electorate expressed support for the Mori cabinet.¹⁹ LDP party members were bracing for defeat in the upcoming July 2001 House of Councillors election.

Against this background, the LDP decided to select a new president to replace Mori at the helm. Of all the candidates, Koizumi Jun’ichirô appeared most likely to stem the electoral losses. Galvanized by the LDP’s plummeting popularity, Koizumi was the most outspoken in calling for change in the party, and his sense of crisis resonated with party members. Since defeat seemed imminent, local party members were convinced that politics as usual would lead to defeat, and that electing a party insider would spell doom. To reverse the slump, someone new was needed, rather than someone like Hashimoto Ryûtarô, the initial front-runner and leader of the largest faction, who had been prime minister from 1996 to 1998. Despite Koizumi’s neoliberal reform agenda, members broke from the usual factional allegiances to throw their support behind him because they were hopeful that changes in their party could lead to changes in Japan and the survival of the party.

Koizumi won the presidency because of his flair for public relations, and he benefited from the ways in which the media portrayed him. The media presented Koizumi as personally newsworthy; he was idiosyncratic and fresh on a stage that had generally been dominated by party insiders, selected more on the basis of their effectiveness as intra-LDP political operatives than as media-aware national leaders.²⁰ His iconoclasm appealed to the media’s anti– status quo streak.²¹ Kyôgoku Jun’ichi notes that officials and politicians use the media to generate a sense of crisis necessary to shift the policy "mood" toward a new "common knowledge."²² The necessity for reform became virtually a consensus issue: To be popular, politicians had to be reformist. Journalists, by consistently describing Koizumi as a reformer, connected him to these aspects of national life. Koizumi the reformer could pull Japan out of recession, and at the same time save the LDP.

As we discuss in more detail elsewhere, the neoliberal reforms Koizumi proposed were anti-populist in that they were inherently "painful," but Koizumi was able to describe his policies in ways that appealed to party members.²³ Koizumi’s reforms stem from his opposition to big government—eliminating inefficiency and waste became important targets for the proponents of reform, and thus important components of populism.²⁴ In contrast with economic populism that inherently involves excessive government spending, Koizumi’s political populism combines neoliberalism and populism since both have anti–status quo orientations; some interest groups have considerable political influence, and populist neoliberalism condemns such groups, which include established politicians and government bureaucrats, as serving "special interests."²⁵ This ideological combination makes painful economic measures politically viable. And as political scientist Yamada Masahiro points out, the electorate may not know the details of neoliberal reform policies, but they can use their own anti– status quo sentiments as voting cues.²⁶

Throughout his tenure as prime minister, Koizumi has had to exert much energy on maintaining public approval. This is true of most democratically elected leaders, but it is particularly true in Koizumi’s case. Since he lacked a support base in the Diet among his own party, he was forced to rely on the strength that public support gave him: Diet members would not jettison a popular leader, risking their own positions in an election. Initially his stratospheric approval ratings guaranteed his position, but as his ratings began to fall, he relied on a series of strategies to shore up his support. These strategies were of dramatic, but transient significance to his ratings; as soon as the temporary stimulus was removed (such as visiting North Korea and bringing home abducted citizens) his popularity levels returned to their preexisting level of stability.²⁷ Koizumi’s popularity levels had rebounded somewhat at the beginning of 2005.

Koizumi proposed a series of postal privatization bills that squeaked through the lower house on July 7, 2005, but failed to pass in the upper house. This led the prime minister to dissolve the lower house (since the upper house cannot be dissolved) and call a general election. Koizumi dominated the agenda and fought the election on the issue of postal reform. He was able to turn the September 2005 election, his final general election as prime minister, into an attention-grabbing "theater." In the most exciting campaign in decades, he denied party endorsement to the LDP Diet members who had voted against the postal bills, and handpicked his own candidates to run against them. These so-called "assassins" were high-profile women, other celebrities, and relatively young, successful nonpoliticians. The outcome of the election was a stunning victory for the LDP.

The ideological survey of Diet members conducted after the 2005 election shows that Koizumi was able to pull the LDP in a more progressive direction.²⁸ On the average, the lower house LDP Diet members, compared with their predecessors, are slightly less ideologically conservative, and a number of the new LDP legislators favor reform, as shown in figure 3. However, in policy terms, the LDP Diet members are slightly more likely to favor strengthening Japan’s defense capabilities and revising the pacifist provisions of the Constitution. Both the DPJ and the Kômeitô have become more conservative since 1998, perhaps locating themselves closer to the position of the LDP. The JCP and the SDP have remained comparatively ideologically stable since 1998. The JCP has remained at 1—the most progressive position—and the SDP has remained around 2.4 on the 10-point scale.

Focusing only on average ideological placements obscures the intra-party heterogeneity that characterizes all of Japan’s political parties except the JCP. This heterogeneity is clear in figure 4, which presents the distribution curves of the Diet members’ ideological self-placements. As already noted, on average the LDP became slightly more progressive on the whole, but note also that the whole LDP distribution has shifted slightly toward the progressive end of the scale. The conservatives still dominate the party, but it is an overall more progressive party that they dominate. In contrast, the DPJ has shifted rightward and now has fewer progressive Diet members.

The LDP’s ideological shift can be seen as a classical Downsian strategy, since the median citizen thinks of herself as neither conservative nor reformist, but as neutral.²⁹ To maximize votes, the LDP is gradually moving toward the position of the median voter. DPJ Diet members, too, have taken a rational course of action and located themselves ideologically close to the LDP, that is, close to the position of the median voter. In 1998 the DPJ was slightly more progressive than the median voter, but by 2005 DPJ legislators were slightly more conservative than the median voter, and they were ideologically closer to the popular LDP.

Even in the wake of this astounding electoral victory, though, cracks began to show within the LDP. The final stretch of Koizumi’s term of office (through September 2006) has been marked by criticism of his domestic and foreign policy. Various corporate scandals of Enron-like proportions are viewed by some critics as symbolic of the excesses of laissez-faire economics—labeled "market fundamentalism"—to which Koizumi’s reforms could lead.³⁰ These incidents may dampen the public mood for broad-based reform, particularly as the DPJ was quick to exploit the scandals by criticizing Koizumi’s government for allowing unfettered corporate greed. Added to these scandals was more soul searching in the Diet and in the media over the widely reported growing income disparity that some thought symbolized the negative aspects of Koizumi’s market reforms. Since some critics see the neoliberal reforms as an American import, a scandal over beef imported from the United States that erupted in January 2006 seemed to be emblematic of a too-close Japan-US relationship.³¹

THE FUTURE OF THE LDP: RAMIFICATIONS OF THE "KOIZUMI REVOLUTION"

With the "Koizumi revolution" have come benefits, but also potential risks, both domestically and internationally. Koizumi’s influence over policymaking has further weakened the policymaking dominance of the "iron triangle" (conservative politicians, top bureaucrats, and big business). This in itself brings more openness to the political system. Also, though LDP legislators who opposed the prime minister’s initiatives have often been able to block or dilute them through the party’s powerful Policy Research Council, power is now more concentrated in the hands of the prime minister’s office and the LDP secretary general (who is appointed by the LDP president).

Koizumi reinvigorated the LDP’s popularity, increasing the likelihood that his successor will follow the same strong leader/populist model, since it has proved to be so successful. It would be too risky electorally for the LDP to shy away from the increasing "presidentialization" of the Japanese political system and choose an old-guard anti-reformist.

The 2005 election showed that Japanese voters can be successfully mobilized around policy issues: It is possible for a leader to shape public opinion and secure support for policies that require short-term sacrifices if they are presented cogently. Koizumi has demonstrated that the LDP need not rely on the "politics of redistribution." This stronger role for the prime minister is likely to become an institutionalized feature of the political system, not only due to institutional change, but also given the success with which Koizumi routed the rebels and showed how popular a strong, decisive leader can be.

On the other hand, the sheer size of the LDP majority may encourage complacency and inaction, with Diet members feeling their huge victory means that they can continue politics as usual. Note that if that should be the case, the DPJ may be able to reassert itself. The growing and increasingly important cohort of nonaligned urban voters is the key to future elections. Koizumi understands that without urban support the LDP cannot survive. In the past two elections, he has transformed the LDP’s support base, and whereas previously the LDP relied on the rural vote, it now draws votes almost equally from rural and urban areas. But the urban floating voters are not guaranteed to support Koizumi’s successor; they were largely "one-issue voters," and when the postal reform issue has gone, they may turn from the LDP. In 2005 these voters chose the charismatic Koizumi who promised change, but shortly thereafter various scandals were exposed that reminded citizens of possible negative aspects of reform. Voters could easily swing back to the DPJ if it is able to capitalize on worries over reform. In addition to worries about reform, a backlash may result if Koizumi’s successor pursues an activist foreign policy, since urban voters did not vote on the issue of national security.

Once Koizumi has stepped down, his successor will have to maintain the upper hand, prevent the old guard from reasserting itself, and convince the public that further reform is still desirable. Despite Koizumi’s victory, the LDP remains a deeply divided party, and fissures are appearing in its new support base.

International repercussions, including those pertaining to Japan’s relations with the United States and with other Asian countries, will depend on whether Koizumi’s successors continue his brand of politics and leadership. Again, this seems likely. Koizumi is the heir to the Kishi-Fukuda-Abe line of LDP leaders, who are ideologically different from the classic LDP line—rural-oriented, social democratic, and redistributive—epitomized by Tanaka Kakuei. The ideological line that Koizumi inherits has both a market-oriented and a nationalistic component. The nationalistic strand focuses on independence from the United States, national security, and a desire for Japan to assert itself more in international affairs. Koizumi’s agenda has included an activist role internationally, but he has focused his energies much more in the domestic arena, pressing for market-oriented reforms.

Who succeeds Koizumi is important. His successor may turn to the somewhat neglected international sphere, and will be much aided in this sphere by two of Koizumi’s legacies: the increased role of the prime minister and the ideologically more conservative composition of the Diet, which favors an expanded role for Japan internationally. Particularly if reform induces economic growth, a populist leader could draw on nationalist feelings in a strong, proud Japan and sow the seeds of discord in Japan’s relations with the United States and with China.

This article was written in English for Japan Echo.

1. During the period from 1945 to 1952 when the Allies occupied Japan, the authorities at SCAP, the general headquarters of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, enforced a number of economic and social reforms designed to facilitate political democracy. These included land reform, the dissolution of the zaibatsu (family-led conglomerates), the legalization of the labor movement, the extension of political rights, including the rights of women to participate in politics, and educational reforms.

2. Although the cleavage weakened over time, voters’ stances on the security treaty issue remained the single best predictor of their vote as late as 1976. See Scott C. Flanagan, "Value Cleavages, Contextual Influences, and the Vote," in The Japanese Voter, ed. Scott C. Flanagan et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 117.

3. Simon Kuznets, "Quantitative Aspects of Economic Growth of Nations: Part VII, The Distribution of Income by Size," Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 11 (1963); Samuel P. Huntington and Joan M. Nelson, No Easy Choice: Political Participation in Developing Countries (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).

4. See Kabashima Ikuo, "Supportive Participation with Economic Growth: The Case of Japan." World Politics, April 1984.

5. See Ôtake Hideo, "Overview," in How Electoral Reform Boomeranged, ed. Ôtake Hideo (Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange, 1998).

6. See Gerald L. Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

7. The popularly elected House of Councillors is the upper house in Japan’s bicameral Diet (parliament). The Recruit scandal was an insider-trading scandal that involved some of Japan’s politicians and bureaucrats receiving gifts of stock in Recruit Cosmos, a new subsidiary of Recruit Co., in return for eased regulatory supervision of the latter. See Kabashima Ikuo, "89 nen San’in sen" (1989 House of Councillors Election), Leviathan, no. 10 (Spring 1992).

8. See Kabashima Ikuo, "Public Opinion and Power Change," in Dai seihen (Great Political Change), ed. Uchida Kenzô, Hayano Tôru, and Sone Yasunori (Tokyo: Tôyô Keizai Shinpôsha, 1994).

9. On the formation of this and other new parties in the early 1990s, see Ôtake Hideo, ed., Seikai saihen no kenkyû: Shin senkyo seido ni yoru sôsenkyo (A Study of Political Realignment: The First Election Under the New Electoral System) (Tokyo: Yûhikaku, 1997).

10. See Gerald L. Curtis, The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and the Limits of Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

11. Steven R. Reed, "Bûmu no seiji: Shin jiyû kurabu kara Hosokawa renritsu seiken e" (The Politics of Booms: From the New Liberal Club to the Hosokawa Coalition Government), Leviathan, no. 18 (Spring 1996); Kabashima Ikuo, "Shintô no tôjô to Jimintô ittô yûi taisei no hôkai" (The New Parties and the Cracking of the LDP’s One-Party Dominance), Leviathan, no. 15 (Autumn 1994).

12. Steven R. Reed, "The Japanese General Election of 1993," Electoral Studies, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1994).

13. See Kabashima Ikuo, Sengo seiji no kiseki (The Path of Postwar Politics) (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2004), chapter 9.

14. The House of Councillors has 252 members serving six-year terms, and an election for half of them is held every three years. Of the 126 seats at stake in the July 1998 election, the LDP captured just 45. Since it held only 58 of the seats not up for election, it was left with a total of 103, far short of a majority.

15. Electoral reform replaced the lower house system of multi-member districts that we described earlier with a "side-by-side system" combining single-member districts and regional blocks of proportional-representation seats.

16. The response rate was 59% (297 members of the House of Representatives and 150 members of the House of Councillors).

17. In Japan, the term kakushin, or progressive, is generally taken as being the opposite of hoshu, or conservative, and referring to the forces, thinking, and policies of left-wingers, socialists, and those of a similar bent. One problem with the term kakushin is that it means favoring reform of the status quo, but it does not in itself indicate the direction of the desired change. So it is possible for a conservative to be "progressive" as well. And in fact, some of the legislators we surveyed labeled themselves highly progressive even as they declared their support for the strengthening of Japan’s defense capabilities and revision of its pacifist Constitution, two major planks of rightist thinking. But the vast majority of our respondents followed the traditional definition of kakushin versus hoshu.

18. This party is officially the New Kômeitô, having reconstituted itself in 1998, four years after formally merging into the now-defunct NFP. Kômeitô was the political arm of the Sôka Gakkai, a lay organization of the Nichiren Shôshû Buddhist sect. The two have been formally separate since 1970, but still maintain close ties. Analysts estimate that around half of the Kômeitô votes come from those belonging to the Sôka Gakkai. See Watanuki Jôji, "Social Structure and Voting Behavior," in Flanagan et al., Japanese Voter, p. 77.

19. Mainichi Daily News, February 9, 2001.
20. See Ofer Feldman, "Personality and Leadership," Asia Program Special Report on Undercurrents in Japanese Politics (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars), February 2002.

21. Koizumi does not mark the beginning of a new era in Japanese politics, as Krauss and Nyblade demonstrate, but he is thus far the culmination of a trend of "presidentialization" that accords the prime minister increasing importance. See Ellis S. Krauss and Benjamin Nyblade, "‘Presidentialization’ in Japan? The Prime Minister, Media, and Elections in Japan," British Journal of Political Science, vol. 34 (2004).

22. See Kyôgoku Jun’ichi, Nihon no seiji (Japanese Politics) (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1983), cited in John Creighton Campbell, "Media and Policy Change in Japan," in Media and Politics in Japan, ed. Susan J. Pharr and Ellis S. Krauss (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996). Similarly, Zaller describes "frames of reference"—news stereotypes—that the media present to the public with no alternative visions of the issues. See John Zaller, The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

23. Kabashima Ikuo and Gill Steel, "The Koizumi Revolution: Origins, Survival, and Popularity Explosion," PS Political Science & Politics, forthcoming.

24. Ôtake Hideo, Nihongata popyurizumu (Japanese-style Populism) (Tokyo: Chûô Kôron Shinsha, 2003).

25. See Kurt Weyland, "Neoliberal Populism in Latin America and Eastern Europe," Comparative Politics. vol. 34, no. 4 (July 2001).

26. Yamada Masahiro, "The Effectiveness of Adopting a Populist Strategy and the Importance of Trust," paper presented at the 2004 conference of the Japanese Political Science Association, Sapporo University, Hokkaidô.

27. Carmines and Stimson describe such a pattern as an "impulse-decay model" in their study of race as an issue in US politics, suggesting that it is possible for issues to have a short but powerful influence on the political system. See Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stimson, Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 139.

28. This survey was conducted by Asahi Shimbun and the Kabashima Research Group.

29. Gill Steel, "What Voters Want, What Voters Get: Citizens’ Policy Preferences vs. Party Platforms," in Reform in Japan: Assessing the Impact, ed. Sherry Martin and Gill Steel (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, forthcoming).

30. These scandals included the high-profile Livedoor group’s fall from grace amid apparent violations of the Securities and Exchange Law in manipulating the market and illegal accounting practices and the falsification of quake-resistance data on buildings by the architect Aneha Hidetsugu, in conjunction with Kimura Construction Co. and the developer Huser Ltd., apparently in pursuit of higher profits.

31. Japan partially lifted its two-year-old import ban on US beef on condition that brains, spines, and all other parts with high risks of mad cow disease infection be removed, but just one month later spinal material was found in a cargo of imported US beef.

© 2006 Japan Echo Inc.