Supportive Participation with Economic Growth: The Case of Japan

1984 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ikuo Kabashima
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Economic Equality ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Party Support

Whether political participation is positively related to economic equality is still a paradox. This paper explores the relations among political participation, economic equality, and economic development in Japan after World War II. There was little income bias in political participation in Japan during its period of rapid growth, partly because farmers who benefited inadequately from economic development participated more in politics. This rural bias in participation allowed significant redistribution of income from the urban to rural sector through the budgeting system, thus preventing the natural tendency of widening income inequality at the early stage of development. However, high rural participation did not undermine the rate of growth because it was supportive participation. Farmers overwhelmingly supported the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party, support that enhanced government's continuity and in turn nurtured growth.

The Liberal Democratic Party: Its adaptability and predominance in Japanese politics for 60 years

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-22
Author(s):  
Michio Umeda
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Allocation System ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Liberal Democratic

This article discusses the origin and continuity of the predominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japanese politics since the party’s formation in 1955. The LDP experienced two crises in its history, the first owing to the transformation of Japanese society by rapid economic development during the 1960–1970s, and the second due to the electoral reform in 1994 and the challenge from the Democratic Party of Japan thereafter. I argue that the LDP’s continuous success is attributable to its adaptability to new environments: the party overcame the first crisis by shifting the policy focus, reorganizing its support base and the party organization to achieve intraparty consensus. It coped with the second crisis by forming a coalition with the Clean Government Party and reforming the party’s presidential election and the ministerial post-allocation system. The article concludes with a summary and a brief discussion regarding the future of the LDP.

Race

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schickler
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Business Regulation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Status

This chapter examines the status quo before the start of the civil rights realignment, showing that civil rights was simply not viewed as part of the standard “liberal program” as of the early 1930s. Although African Americans were vocal in attacking Franklin D. Roosevelt's weak civil rights record, they were largely alone. When whites on the left pushed Roosevelt to be a more forthright liberal or progressive, they criticized him for inadequate support for labor, weak business regulation, and insufficient recovery spending—but not for his failure to back civil rights. At this early stage, the “enemies” of a liberal Democratic Party generally were not identified with the South but instead were probusiness Democrats from the Northeast, associated with Al Smith of New York. Economic questions were the key battleground in the eyes of white liberals, and civil rights did not figure in these debates.

Elections in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan under the Single Non-Transferable Vote: The Comparative Study of Embedded Institution. Edited by Bernard Grofman, Sung-Chull Lee, Edwin A. Winckler, and Brian Woodall. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999. 495p. $74.50.

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 236-237
Author(s):  
Tun-jen Cheng
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Allied Occupation ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Unique System ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
Political Act

Under an electoral system of single nontransferable vote (SNTV) with multiple-seat districts, each voter can cast only one vote and only for one candidate, surplus votes cannot be transferred between candidates, and seats go to those candi- dates with the plurality of votes. Initially crafted by Japanese oligarchs in 1900, this unique system was continuously em- ployed for Japan's lower house elections till 1995, with a brief interlude during the Allied occupation. The SNTV system has been in use in Taiwan since World War II and was adopted in Korea during the Fourth and the Fifth Republic (1973­88). It is ironic that academic interest in this electoral system should increase just when it is being abandoned in its birthplace, Japan, in a fin-de-siecle political act that also ended political dominance of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

scholarly journals SOKA GAKKAI AS A CHALLENGE TO JAPANESE SOCIETY AND POLITICS

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-96
Author(s):  
Okuyama Michiaki
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Social ◽  
Soka Gakkai ◽  
Restructuring Process ◽  
The Cold War

A new Buddhist group Soka Gakkai started its movement in 1930. After World War II it grew rapidly to claim more than eight million families as its members in Japan in 2005. Soka Gakkai International (SGI), which Soka Gakkai organized as its international network in 1975, now extends to over 190 countries and areas worldwide, claiming twelve million members globally, according to their own calculations. Soka Gakkai started a domestic political movement in the early 1960s, establishing Komeito in 1964 that would mostly keep the third position between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Social Democratic Party throughout the Cold War era. When the political scene in Japan saw a restructuring process in the 1990s, Komeito joined in the coalition government with the LDP in 1999. The general election in 2009, however, turned out to be a failure both to the LDP and Komeito, while the Democratic Party of Japan won the election to lead the new government, almost for the first time since the establishment of LDP in 1955. This paper tries to situate Soka Gakkai and Komeito in the context of Japanese politics and society and attempts an evaluation of the current situation after the 2009 election.

Japanese foreign economic policy: the domestic bases for international behavior

1977 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 723-774 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.J. Pempel
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Economic Behavior ◽  
Foreign Economic Policy ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Formal Policy ◽  
The Face

By many criteria, Japan is weak internationally. As a consequence one would expect its foreign economic policy to have been marked by limited choice, weakness, and constant vacillation in the face of external pressures. The domestic political structures of the country, however, have for most of the period since World War II permitted wide choice, strength, and consistency. A corporatist coalition of finance, major industry, trading companies, and the upper levels of the national bureaucracy, coupled with the consistent rule of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, the systematic exclusion of organized labor from formal policy-making channels, and the lack of social overhead spending, has permitted the Japanese state to function as official doorman determining what, and under what conditions, capital, technology, and manufactured products enter and leave Japan. The strengths acquired from such past policies make it likely that the Japanese state will remain capable of dealing with the increasing domestic and international threats to its capacity to make relatively autonomous choices about Japan's international economic behavior.

Japanese Liberal Democratic Party Support and the Gender Gap: A New Approach

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 713-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel P. Aldrich ◽  
Rieko Kage
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Critical Determinant ◽  
Simulation Techniques ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Age Gap ◽  
Party Support

Scholars have argued that there is a broad gender gap in support for the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan. We uncover strong evidence that age, rather than gender, along with rural or urban location, serves as the most critical determinant of party support. Through logistic regression, propensity score matching and simulation techniques applied to four large-scale datasets; we demonstrate that age effects are consistent but slowly diminishing across cohorts between the mid-1970s and the early 2000s. As Japanese women and men age, they come to support the LDP at similar rates controlling for education, income and other demographic factors. We argue that this age gap is a result of socialization and redistribution and not educational levels or socio-economic status, as is often suggested.

Testing the Causal Mechanisms in Additional Cases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
System Stability ◽  
Relative Autonomy ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Case studies of Indonesia and Japan illustrate that party-system stability in patronage democracies is deeply affected by the relative autonomy of political brokers. Over the course of a decade, a series of decentralizing reforms in Indonesia weakened patronage-based parties hold on power, with the 2014 election ultimately being a contest between two rival populists: Joko Widodo and Subianto Prabowo. Although Japan was a patronage democracy throughout the twentieth century, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained robust to outsider appeals even in the context of economic and corruption crises. However, reforms in the 1990s weakened the hold of central factional leaders over individual members of the LDP and their patronage machines. This was instrumental to populist Junichiro Koizumi’s winning of the presidency of the LDP and ultimately the prime ministership of Japan. This chapter also reexamines canonical cases of populism in Latin America.

Japan's Post-Fukushima Energy Politics

2015 ◽  
Vol 07 (02) ◽  
pp. 109-116
Author(s):  
Tai Wei LIM
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Nuclear Reactor ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Nuclear Reactors ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Energy Politics ◽  
Gubernatorial Election

A 2011 earthquake damaged the Fukushima nuclear reactor and provided a galvanising point for anti-nuclear resistance groups in Japan. Their public cause slowly faded from the political arena after the Democratic Party of Japan fell out of power and anti-nuclear politicians lost the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election. The current Liberal Democratic Party Prime Minister Abe holds a pro-nuclear position and urges the reactivation of Japan's nuclear reactors after all safeguards have been satisfied.

Executive Turnovers in 2000

2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-331
Author(s):  
Masaru Kohno ◽  
Atsuko Suga
Keyword(s):  
International Trade ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Economic Planning ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Education Science

On April 5 2000, the Diet elected Yoshiro Mori as Japan's 55th prime minister. His predecessor, Keizo Obuchi, had suffered a stroke and became unable to carry out his official responsibility. Mori, who was the former Secretary General of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), inherited the three party coalition between the LDP, the new Komei Party and the Conservative Party, and reappointed all of Obuchi's cabinet members. Yohei Kono was reposted as the Minister of Foreign Affairs; Hideo Usui as Justice; Kiichi Miyazawa as Finance; Hirofumi Nakasone as Education, Science and Technology; Yuya Niwa as Health and Welfare; Tokuichiro Tanazawa as Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; Takeshi Fukaya as International Trade and Industry; Toshihiro Nikai as Transport; Eita Yashiro as Posts and Telecommunications; Takamori Makino as Labor; Masaaki Nakayama as Construction; Kosuke Hori as Home Affairs, Mikio Aoki as Chief Cabinet Secretary; Kunihiro Tsuzuki as Management and Coordination; Tsutomu Kawara as Defense; Taichi Sakaiya as Economic Planning; Kayoko Shimizu as environment; and Sadakazu Tanigaki as Financial Reconstruction.

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