Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) (Japan) Japan's most established party of government was formed in 1955 as a congeries of centre and conservative groupings with the encouragement of business interests. In many respects, anxiety concerning the electoral potential of the newly united
Socialist Party rather than any other common purpose created Japan's conservative consensus, but despite such beginnings the LDP was able to remain Japan's party in power for most of the postwar period.
One important consequence of the circumstances surrounding its birth has been that the LDP has resembled more an alliance of factions than a disciplined political party. Indeed, factionalism became a distinctive feature of the party. Between 1955 and 1993, it was reinforced by the convention that the party president also served as Prime Minister. Because the parliamentary party had a decisive role in the election for the party presidency, the recruitment of faction members from among the LDP's membership in the Diet, and the provision of adequate supplies of money to ensure their loyalty, became an increasing preoccupation for party leaders. On the other hand, this factionalism became a source of strength which allowed the LDP to accommodate a broad range of constituencies of support and political ideologies.
Opposing wings within the party have disagreed on even the most fundamental issues. This explains its confused policies, for example towards the
Japanese constitution, which it first attempted to rewrite, during the 1950s and early 1960s, and then accepted as it was, despite continuing calls for reform from senior party members. While pursuing perhaps its most important policy goals of industrialization and high economic growth between 1955 and 1970, the LDP also managed to cast itself as an ally of farmers and small businessmen. In foreign affairs during the 1960s, one group within the party promoted calls for the recognition of Communist China, while party policy supported the nationalist regime in Taiwan.
No doubt such amorphousness gave the LDP flexibility during its period of continuous rule (1955–93). By virtue of the length of that rule, it has become well ensconced in its relationships with the bureaucracy and big business. While the label of ‘Japan Incorporated’ is too superficial, the linkages of this ‘iron triangle’ (party, business, and bureaucracy) have nevertheless been intimate. Nearly half of the men (seven of the fifteen) who occupied the premiership between 1955 and 1993 had a background in the bureaucracy. While the civil service provided much of the LDP's talent, business provided the financial resources necessary for success in Japanese elections. The expense entailed in winning an election to the Diet involved the LDP and its leaders in a number of highly publicized scandals such as the Black Mist,
Lockheed, and Recruit affairs in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, respectively, while the party has rarely been free of less spectacular embarrassments.
For all the party's successes, there were periods where the LDP was vulnerable at the polls. Most ironically, between 1955 and 1976, when the party could claim credit for record levels of economic growth, its absolute share of the vote declined from 42 per cent in 1960 to 30 per cent in 1976. Indeed in every House of Representatives election between 1972 and 1983, more of the electorate voted for its opponents than voted for the government. Despite having only a wafer-thin majority after the 1976 Lower House election, the LDP government survived, thanks largely to the over-representation of the rural vote. The LDP recovered some of its former electoral position in the mid-1980s during an economic upturn and under the popular premiership of
Nakasone Yasuhiro. Even so, the party's confidence was undermined with its first ever loss of a majority in the House of Councillors in 1989.
Fittingly, the LDP's period of uninterrupted rule was brought to an end by its own hands, when Ozawa Ichirô led his faction out of the LDP and helped pass a vote of no confidence in June 1993. One year later the LDP found itself back in power, although this time its government relied on an improbable but durable coalition with its old rival, the Japanese
Socialist Party (JSP). Throughout the late 1990s the LDP was unsuccessful at dealing with the economic crisis which challenged Japan's economic model at its foundations. Led by
Obuchi, it continued in power in a coalition, from 1998, with the Liberal Party and, from 1999, with New
Kômeitô. However, the party leadership continued to be entangled in a series of corruption scandals, which came to a head in the short government of Yoshiro Mori (2000–2001), who became Japan's most unpopular Prime Minister since 1945. The LDP's fortunes were revived when the LDP chose the relative outsider,
Koizumi, as its party leader. Koizumi confirmed his radical reputation when he appointed a number of women to his cabinet. When the most prominent women minister, Makiko Tanaka, resigned as Foreign Minister in 2002, her accusations of bullying and chauvinism against the party and the government damaged Koizumi's authority and reputation. Koizumi recovered, but he failed to transfer his personal popularity to his party, which gained a reduced majority at the 2003 elections.
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