A Historical Analysis of the LDP’s 2018 Constitutional Amendment Proposals

Asian Survey ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 882-904
Author(s):  
Christian G. Winkler
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Article 9 ◽  
The 1950S

In 2018 Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party announced four new proposals to amend the seven-decades-old and thus-far unamended constitution of Japan. These include adding a third paragraph to Article 9, as well as state-of-emergency provisions, support for students in need, and changes to the electoral system. By analyzing each proposal’s place in the debate on amendments dating back to the 1950s, I show that these very different proposals share one important feature that sets them apart from recent drafts aiming for wholesale reform of the constitution: they are relatively minimalist in nature. This new modesty is due to the necessity to win over other parties and voters, but it is also an attempt to cement rather than to change the LDP-made status quo.

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.

scholarly journals Electoral incentives, policy compromise, and coalition durability: Japan's LDP–Komeito Government in a mixed electoral system

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam P. Liff ◽  
Ko Maeda
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
Coalition Politics ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Mixed Electoral System

AbstractPolitical parties’ behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politics. LDP–Komeito cooperation has sustained for two decades despite vastly different support bases and ideological differences on fundamental policy issues. LDP leaders also show no signs of abandoning the much smaller Komeito despite enjoying a single-party majority. We argue that the remarkable durability of this puzzling partnership results primarily from the two parties’ electoral incentives and what has effectively become codependence under Japan's mixed electoral system. Our analysis also demonstrates that being in a coalition can induce significant policy compromises, even from a much larger senior partner. Beyond theoretical implications, these phenomena yield important real-world consequences for Japanese politics: especially, a far less dominant LDP than the party's Diet seat total suggests, and Komeito's remarkable ability to punch significantly above its weight and constrain its far larger senior partner, even on the latter's major national security policy priorities.

Japanese Politics in Transition: A Theoretical Review

1993 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takashi Inoguchi
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Type System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Income Tax Law ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Party Dominance

THE END OF ONE-PARTY DOMINANCE BY THE LIBERAL Democratic Party of Japan came as abruptly as the fall of the Berlin wall four years before. It started with the debate on electoral system change, ostensibly as an attempt to curb corruption. The LDP has been plagued by a series of large-scale corruption scandals since the Recruit scandal of 1989. The latest concerned former vice-president Shin Kanemaru's alleged violation of the political money regulation law and the income tax law in 1992–93. The Prime Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, accepting a fair degree of compromise with opposition parties, wanted to pass a bill to change the current electoral system. The LDP initially wanted to change from the system of choosing a few persons in each district by one vote to the Anglo-American type system of selecting one person in each district by one vote. The opposition wanted to change to the continental European system of proportional representation. A compromise was made by the LDP's proposal to combine the latter two systems. Then two dissenting groups emerged suddenly in the LDP. One took the exit option by forming new political parties. The other took the voice option by backing away from the Miyazawa compromise plan. Miyazawa was humiliated by his failure to have the bill enacted and a motion of no confidence was passed. He then called for a general election, which took place on 18 July 1993. The outcome did not give a majority to the LDP and subsequently a non-LDP coalition was formed to produce a non-LDP government for the first time since the foundation of the LDP in 1955

Selection

2018 ◽  
pp. 115-178
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
National Level ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Supply Side ◽  
Demand Side ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Dynastic Politics

This chapter examines dynastic candidate selection in Japan under the single nontransferable vote (SNTV) electoral system and the changes that have occurred since the adoption of a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system, which combines first-past-the-post and closed-list proportional representation. Dynasties under SNTV were more common in larger, decentralized parties—especially the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The MMM system shifted the focus of elections from candidates to parties. Subsequent party reforms within the LDP have expanded the pool of candidates and placed greater control over nominations with national-level party leaders, who have selected a more diverse range of candidates. Legacy candidates are still nominated, but recently, only the most powerful and longest-serving incumbents are likely to be succeeded in politics by a family member. This suggests that demand-side incentives have changed, leaving mainly supply-side incentives to explain the continued persistence of dynastic politics.

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).

Conservative Women in Germany and Japan: Chancellors versus Madonnas

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alisa Gaunder ◽  
Sarah Wiliarty
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Christian Democratic Union ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Left Party ◽  
Women In Parliament ◽  
Party Strength ◽  
Conservative Women

AbstractDespite many similarities between them, the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have represented women in parliament at different rates. This article argues that differences in party organization, electoral system rules, and left party strength interact to explain the varying levels of representation of conservative women in parliament. The CDU's corporatist structure allowed it to represent diverse interests and successfully respond to challenges for female support from the left. As a result of a weaker left party challenge and a classic catch-all party organization, the LDP's attempts to incorporate women have been less extensive and largely symbolic.

Electoral Reform and the Fate of Factions: The Case of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
GARY W. COX ◽  
FRANCES McCALL ROSENBLUTH ◽  
MICHAEL F. THIES
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Electoral Reform ◽  
The Other ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Leaders And Followers ◽  
Short Run

For years, scholars and pundits have blamed Japan's single, non-transferable vote (SNTV) electoral system for the factions that divide and organize the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In January 1994, Japan abandoned SNTV, and the first election under the new rules occurred in October 1996. If SNTV did in fact sustain the factions, it makes sense that the factional structure ought to have weakened under the new rules. In this article, we provide an informal model of what the old factional exchange between leaders and followers was like and investigate the extent to which the terms of this exchange, and hence the characteristics of Japanese factionalism, have begun to change under the new rules. We expect and find the largest decline in factional leaders' role in the area of nominations, and the slightest changes, at least in the short run, in the allocation of posts. On the other side of the exchange, we find that followers appear less willing to march to their leaders' tunes in LDP presidential elections.

The Era of Coalition Government in Japan: The Institutional Logic of Surplus Majorities and Strange Bedfellows

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael F. Thies
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Coalition Government ◽  
Institutional Logic ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Lower House

For nearly four decades after its establishment in 1955, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party formed every government alone. Since mid-1993, however, coalition government has been the norm in Japanese politics. Interestingly, every coalition since 1999 has included a party with a lower house majority by itself. Nonetheless, these majority parties have taken on coalition partners. This chapter shows that the logic of “oversized” coalition government in Japan is driven in part by parliamentary bicameralism, and partly by the mixed-member electoral system, which incentivizes the formation of long-lived pre-electoral coalitions.

Dynasties and Democracy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Candidate Selection ◽  
System Reform ◽  
Incumbency Advantage ◽  
Career Selection ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Dynastic Politics ◽  
Comparative Theory

Democracy is supposed to be the antithesis of hereditary rule by family dynasties. And yet “democratic dynasties” continue to persist in democracies around the world. They have been conspicuously prevalent in Japan, where more than a third of all legislators and two-thirds of all cabinet ministers in recent years have come from families with a history in parliament. Such a high proportion of dynasties is unusual and has sparked concerns over whether democracy in Japan is functioning properly. This book introduces a comparative theory to explain the causes and consequences of dynasties in democracies like Japan. Members of dynasties enjoy an “inherited incumbency advantage” in all three stages of a typical political career: selection, election, and promotion. However, the nature and extent of this advantage, as well as its consequences for elections and representation, varies by the institutional context of electoral rules and candidate selection methods within parties. In the late 1980s, roughly half of all new candidates in Japan’s long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party were political legacies. However, electoral system reform in 1994 and subsequent party reforms have changed the incentives for party leaders to rely on dynastic politics in candidate selection. A new pattern of party-based competition is slowly replacing the old pattern of competition based on localized family fiefdoms.

Electoral Origins of Japanese Socialists' Stagnation

1997 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
MASARU KOHNO
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Socialist Party ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Why did the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) cling to its original leftist policies for so long? Traditionally, the JSP's failure to become a credible alternative to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been explained in terms of either the legacy of its disastrous coalition experience in the early postwar years, the party's organizational reliance on unionized labor, or its nervousness about the reactionary element in the LDP. None of these existing explanations is convincing, given that the adherence to its leftist policies had self-defeating electoral consequences for the JSP. This article explores an alternative explanation and provides empirical evidence which illustrates the link between the JSP's misfortune and the Japanese electoral system existing from 1947 to 1994.

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