Download full text
(159.6Kb)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-371699
Exports for your reference manager
The Liberal Democratic Party at 50: sources of dominance and changes in the Koizumi era
[journal article]
Abstract More than 50 years after its founding, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is still going strong. It has become the dominant party within a democratic setting. How did the LDP manage to cling to its dominant position for such a long time? And to what extent has the LDP changed colours under the l... view more
More than 50 years after its founding, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is still going strong. It has become the dominant party within a democratic setting. How did the LDP manage to cling to its dominant position for such a long time? And to what extent has the LDP changed colours under the leadership of Koizumi Jun’ichiro? This survey article attempts to answer these questions by focussing on the three dimensions of LDP dominance: electoral, parliamentary, and executive dominance. It argues that clientelist politics explain a good deal of the success of the LDP in the past. Such an orientation however became decreasingly effective and sustainable in a political environment that has changed significantly since the early 1990s. In the Koizumi era, the LDP managed to rise again to the challenges posed to its dominance by appealing directly to voters, by optimizing electoral cooperation, and by making efforts to centralize policymaking. Whether these more recent approaches to maintaining LDP dominance can be sustained, however, remains an open question.... view less
Keywords
Japan; party; political power; political influence; party politics; clientelism; electoral system; election campaign; Far East
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan); Koizumi, Junichiro; politische Partei
Document language
English
Publication Year
2006
Page/Pages
p. 243-257
Journal
Social Science Japan Journal, 9 (2006) 2
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/ssjj/jyl026
ISSN
1369-1465
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Deposit Licence - No Redistribution, No Modifications
With the permission of the rights owner, this publication is under open access due to a (DFG-/German Research Foundation-funded) national or Alliance license.