Ch 5, Japan, pp 150-193

Japan: The Rise and Fall of the LDP

Introduction

In 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi painted in the first eye of a Daruma doll for good luck at the outset of the election.
The second eye is left to be filled in after victory.
In 2009, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) ended the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) political dominance.
The chapter aims to answer how the LDP dominated Japanese democracy for over half a century.

The DPJ's Victory in 2009

In August 2009, the DPJ won an overwhelming majority in Japan's lower house of parliament, ending over half a century of LDP dominance.
The LDP had briefly lost its place in government for 11 months in 1993-1994 but remained the largest party and formed a coalition.
The 2009 election marked the first time a single party had bested the LDP.
The LDP had controlled Japan's government for 54 years since its formation in 1955, except for a brief period in 1993-1994.
Japan is a democracy, but the LDP's dominance implies that Japanese politics resembled a one-party non-democratic state.

The LDP's Long Rule

The LDP won elections for many years because it could take credit for economic growth.
Between 1950 and 1973, Japan's gross national product grew more than 10 percent per year.
Through the 1980s, Japan's growth rates exceeded the average for other wealthy democracies.
Beginning in 1990, the economy stagnated, with growth slowing to less than 2 percent annually in the 1990s and even lower in the 2000s.
Numerous corruption scandals generated widespread voter disillusionment with the LDP.
In the 1990s and 2000s, polls indicated that the LDP had only about a 25 percent approval rate.
In one poll in the early 2000s, 44 percent of respondents said that the LDP was the party they most disliked.
However, it was not until 2009 that the LDP finally lost power to the DPJ.

The Question of Democracy in Japan

In a democracy, participation and contestation offer the possibility of holding government accountable.
The Japanese case confounds this expectation and brings into question the very definition of democracy.
What prevented party alternation in power for so long after Japan's economy began to stagnate and the LDP acquired an image as corrupt and out of touch?

Definitions

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ): Japan's leading opposition party after 1997; defeated the LDP in the 2007 House of Councillors election and the 2009 House of Representatives election.
Liberal Democratic Party (LDP): Political party that dominated Japan's government for all but 11 months from 1955 until 2009.

Historical Overview of Japan

Japan does not have a long tradition of democracy.
Prior to World War II, except for a brief period in the 1920s, Japan had long been ruled by non-democratic regimes.
The LDP's loss in 2009 was an important step in the development of a Japanese democracy founded on participation and competitive party contestation.

Early-Modern Japan (1600-1853)

This was a period of peace in which the central government exerted substantial influence throughout the country but did not maintain the same sort of strong state that was emerging in countries such as France, England, and Germany at the time.
During this period, Japan was essentially a military dictatorship, led by the shogun (generalissimo or supreme military ruler).

Mid-1850s Onward

Japan entered a period of warfare and constant change.
Beginning in 1868, Japan developed a centralized state focused on the country's monarch, the emperor.
This centralized state, led by a new bureaucratic elite, pushed economic and military growth, which ultimately led the country into World War II.
After World War II, Japan became a democracy, but one dominated by a single political party, the LDP, which used the strong economy to its great advantage.
In the 1990s, the economy soured, and 20 years later the economy still had not improved.
Nevertheless, until 2009, the LDP did not lose its position as the predominant party in Japan.

The Tokugawa Era (1603-1868)

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Japan faced constant civil war, with no central state.
Regional warlords led samurai (warriors) against each other in battles over land, leaving Japan socially and economically devastated and politically unstable.
Beginning in the 1570s, three warlords in succession pulled order from the chaos.
These leaders ruthlessly put down their enemies, but rewarded those who joined them.
By 1591, they consolidated control over all of Japan.
After the battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Japan became unified under Ieyasu Tokugawa, the last of the three powerful warlords.
In 1603, Tokugawa had Japan's monarch, the emperor, declare him to be shogun.
The Tokugawa era was largely peaceful and stable and saw the introduction of central control by the government.
Led by the Tokugawa shogunate, the country was controlled by the central bakufu, or military government.
During this period, the emperor largely held a symbolic role.
Although Japan was unified, its system during this period is often referred to as "centralized feudalism," since each local domain and its ruler, the daimyo, held considerable independence as long as it remained loyal to the bakufu and offered various required tributes.
The Japanese state was nowhere near the strong, centralized force that it was to become after the Tokugawa period or that Western European countries like France or England were during this period.
Travel into Japan was forbidden for most foreigners except the Dutch (who were relegated to a small trade outpost), and Japanese were largely prohibited from travel overseas.
Japan's leaders sharpened the hierarchical distinctions among the people according to their inherited status to create stability and an economy where each person had a specific role.
Samurai were at the top—they had moved from being warriors to elite bureaucrats who received a salary for running the business of the government and their home domain.
Most people were commoners, with the greatest respect given to farmers, then artisans (craftsmen), and then, at the lowest status level, merchants.

The Meiji Era

In the mid-nineteenth century, Japan faced a series of domestic and external threats that led to the Meiji Restoration, a revolution led by samurai who "restored" power to the emperor—specifically the Emperor Meiji—and created a new governmental system centralized around him that exerted power throughout the country.

The Fall of the Tokugawa Regime

Over time, the revenue sources of the Tokugawa bakufu dried up.
Much of the problem was complacency on the part of the leaders of the state.
Leaders rarely carried out land surveys, which made it hard to tax subjects fully.
The bakufu did not bother to tax merchants' wealth.
Many samurai grew disenchanted with their place in the economic and social order.
Lower-ranking samurai grew increasingly resentful and received smaller stipends.
The Western powers forced Japan to open up to the outside world.
In 1853, U.S. navy ships arrived in Japan and, threatening military force, forged trade agreements.
The Western powers instituted a series of "unequal treaties" that favored the West, infringed on Japanese sovereignty, and forced Japan to forfeit its legal power over foreigners who stepped on Japanese soil.
Unable to protect Japan from outside "barbarians," the bakufu lost credibility.
Domains that had long quietly opposed the bakufu from afar sought to take a greater leadership role.
They developed their own armies and defeated the forces of the bakufu.
In 1868, the victorious forces brought an end to the Tokugawa bakufu and "restored" power to the Meiji emperor.

The Meiji System

The growth of the Japanese state matches many classic notions of state development founded on war-making capacity and tax extraction.
The Meiji state was in large part a response to the decline of the legitimacy of traditional forms of authority but also designed to develop a stronger Japanese military and economy to catch up to the West.
The Meiji system did not merely replace the shogun with the emperor; it created a wholly new structure.
Meiji leaders ended status distinctions between samurai and commoners—all Japanese people became equal under the emperor.
Japanese developed national pride and desire to protect themselves from Western colonialism.
In 1889, the reformers instituted a national constitution, with the emperor at the center.
The emperor was largely directed by 10 to 20 leaders of the restoration—that is, former samurai of the Tokugawa period—who are often known as the Meiji oligarchs.
The restoration instituted a centralized state in which national bureaucrats served as the principal policymakers.
The constitution gave a small number of wealthy people the right to vote and established a parliament.
For more than a decade, the oligarchs chose the leaders of the cabinet, and the imperial bureaucracy dominated policymaking.
The reformers believed their best chance of removing the yoke of the unequal treaties was to catch up to the West economically.
They instituted a systematic land tax, a national currency, and a new infrastructure that included a government-led railroad.
The land taxes from the agrarian sector supported Japan's economic growth.
Government leaders deliberately financed likely industry and corporate winners, which they supported with public funds.
They created huge transportation networks and placed tariffs on potentially competitive imports.
From 1895, the government used state funds to develop heavy industry.
The government led the way to organizing and financing Japan's late nineteenth-century development.
Official status distinctions were eliminated.
In 1887, employment in the highly esteemed government bureaucracy became dependent on merit-based civil service examinations rather than personal connections and social status.
In 1873, Japan instituted a military draft.
Although unpopular at first, the draft made military service a tool to instill Japanese patriotism and loyalty.
Simultaneously, the government introduced compulsory education, which promoted patriotism and developed an educated citizenry that helped develop Japan's economy.

Economic Growth and the Rise and Decline of Democracy before World War II

Japan's economy grew rapidly from 1880 to 1900.
Monopolies or zaibatsu (financial cliques) led much of the economic development process.
These companies had a hand in nearly every part of the economy and maintained close ties to the government, through which they received favored treatment.
The Japanese leadership sought to build up its military, partly as a tool to keep order at home, but also to start to create its own empire.
Especially beginning in the 1890s, Japan faced major tensions with its neighbors, which ultimately led to armed and bloody conflict—much of it focused on Korea.
Japan, China, and Russia all sought control over Korea for strategic security reasons, because of Korea's natural resources, and generally as part of their efforts to build empires.
Conflict turned to war with China (1894-1895), which Japan ultimately won.
The victory established Japan as a regional power in Asia and stoked greater nationalism at home.
Japan and Russia engaged each other in battle in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
Japan was widely viewed as the victor—a shocking result at the time for a "non-white" nation to defeat a major "white" power.
Japan colonized Korea beginning in 1905, occupying the peninsula until the end of World War II.
With its success in these battles, Japan gained both international esteem and the resentment of its Asian neighbors.
This resentment grew as Japan took on an increasing presence in China beginning in the 1930s.
As Japan's power and prestige grew, so did its economy.
From the early 1900s, with the co-optation of some of the more liberal oligarchs, political parties began to play a more positive role in the parliament (called the Diet).
Particularly in the late 1910s, parties began to play such a significant role that we can see the beginning of what was to be called Taisho Democracy, named after the new emperor of the time (who reigned 1912-1926).
Beginning in the 1890s, the parliament asserted some of its own will through its ability to reject budgets put forward by the oligarchs.
Political parties began to organize more seriously for elections and started to mobilize voters.
Over time, workers gained greater rights, and in 1925, universal male suffrage was instituted.
The decline of the economy in the 1920s helped drive Japan towards authoritarianism.
Economic decline led to a backlash against the government and business leaders.
Many Japanese viewed their leaders as corrupt, greedy, and weak, and support for military buildup grew.
The Japanese military instigated war in China, effectively beginning World War II in Asia.
In 1937, Japan began the war in China in earnest.
When the United States and Britain condemned Japanese aggression, Japan formed an alliance with Germany and Italy in 1940.
When the United States froze Japanese assets and blocked oil supplies to Japan, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii in 1941, bringing the United States into the larger world war.
Japanese forces committed atrocities against many civilians and forced many civilian women from East and Southeast Asian countries to work as prostitutes in "comfort stations" for Japanese forces near the front lines.
Food was hard to come by, and Allied bombing devastated the country.
Japan did not surrender until August 1945, when American forces dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the only time nuclear weapons have ever been used in warfare.

Rebuilding in the Postwar Era

In the aftermath of the war, the American occupation of Japan, led by the U.S. military and General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), instituted a sweeping reorganization of Japanese institutions.
The American occupation focused on demilitarization and democratization.
Article 9 of the new 1947 Constitution—written under the guidance of American authorities—eliminated Japan's military and renounced Japan's right to wage war.
Japan later established self-defense forces, which ultimately grew into a military in everything but name.
The constitution also wholly transformed Japan's non-democratic system, reducing the emperor to a mere figurehead symbol of the Japanese state, like the UK's monarch.
The new constitution listed civil liberties for Japan's citizens, established a democratically elected bicameral parliament, which would determine the prime minister, gave women the right to vote, dispersed the power of the zaibatsu, and eliminated the emphasis on nationalism in primary and secondary education.
American occupation authorities needed locals to run the Japanese government on a day-to-day basis, so they left the bureaucracy largely intact.
This permitted the Japanese bureaucracy to continue its major involvement in running the country's economy.
The Japanese government adopted democracy, but not American-style free-market capitalism.
Instead, it continued to protect and promote key domestic industries, and eventually, the zaibatsu were re-established as what were called keiretsu—a network of interlocking firms that share their own central bank.
In 1952, the United States formally ended its military occupation of Japan.
Conservative politicians from the Liberal and Democratic parties dominated. * In 1955, two smaller socialist parties joined together to form the Japan Socialist Party (JSP).
The JSP's base of support was organized labor, and the party devised an "us versus them" mode of appeals designed to attract voters fed up with the dominance of big business in government and politics and Japan's partial rearmament and alliance with the United States.
The Liberals and Democrats merged into a single party offsetting the JSP's strength among workers.
The new Liberal Democratic Party appealed to voters in rural areas and among both small and big business owners.
Many observers expected that the emergence of party alternation in power in Japan would eventually drive policymaking, but instead, the LDP ultimately remained the dominant party in Japan for decades.
With the exception of a few elections for the less important upper chamber of parliament known as the House of Councillors, the LDP was the top vote-getter in every election for roughly the next 50 years.
Except for an unusual period in 1993-1994, the LDP and its typically politically conservative allies would control the majority in the House of Representatives until 2009.
Japan's strong postwar economy was a big part of the LDP's success for many years.
The government promoted specific industries and firms, which it protected against foreign competitors.
The government pursued a strategy of industrial policy, whereby, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, the Japanese government bureaucracy shifted resources and provided regulatory advantages to specific firms in industries in which it wanted Japan to become internationally competitive.
High rates of education meant that companies had a skilled and disciplined workforce.
Japanese citizens saved much of their income in government-run postal savings banks, which gave the government funds it could lend out at low-interest rates to support small and medium-sized businesses.
From 1950 to 1973, Japan's gross national product grew by an average of more than 10 percent a year, far greater than the 4 percent rate of annual growth in the United States for the same period.
During this time, the LDP dominated politics.
In 1960, it appeared the Socialists might be able to mount a challenge to the LDP, after the LDP had forced through a renewal of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, which maintained the close alliance between the two countries.
The Socialist Party's platform had little appeal for most Japanese, who benefitted from Japan's fantastic economic growth.
The LDP lost votes from its peak in 1958 and never won a majority of the vote after 1963.
It continued to win nearly 60 percent of seats throughout the 1960s, in part because of the tremendous economy and the party's strength in rural areas, which had more seats than they deserved by population.
Although the LDP's performance stagnated in the 1970s, it improved in the 1980s, again due in large part to rapid Japanese economic growth.
By the 1980s, Japan was seen throughout the world as an economic superpower.
Some Americans resented seeing "Made in Japan" on cars, electronics, and other consumer goods.
Some believed that Japanese investment in U.S. government bonds, American factories, and famous American properties represented a Japanese takeover of the U.S. economy.
The 1980s proved to be Japan's high point in the postwar period.
The country impressed the world with its stunning economic growth, which also helped the LDP dominate Japanese politics.
Although more Japanese began to complain about corruption within the LDP during the 1980s, the party always managed to maintain control of the government.

The 1990s

Beginning in 1990, Japan's economy began to decline. Yet, despite economic stagnation and increasing reports of LDP corruption, the party somehow managed to maintain its hold on power.
In the 1980s, property values in Japan skyrocketed.
The government took steps to slow this growth, but it was too aggressive in its efforts and, instead of halting price increases, caused real estate and stock prices to plummet.
The Tokyo stock market lost the equivalent of 2 trillion dollars, or 38 percent of its total value, by the end of 1992, and real estate prices fell by two-thirds.
The decline in stock market and property values left many investors unable to repay their bank loans.
This, in turn, left many major Japanese banks insolvent.
By then, there were nearly 1 trillion in bad loans on the banks' books.
Financial assistance covered roughly half of the bad loans or about 15 percent of GDP.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the media regularly revealed scandals surrounding the exchange of money for favors between business and politicians and illegal ties between organized crime and the LDP.
Exposing these scandals caused increasing public outrage.
Given the economic decline and the succession of major scandals, the opposition had a great opportunity to oust the LDP from power in the 1993 elections.
A number of high-profile politicians had left the LDP to form new parties, partly out of frustration with the party's unwillingness to reform the political system.
In the election that followed, the LDP remained the largest party, but for the first time in its history—and only time prior to 2009—did not win enough seats to form a majority in the House of Representatives.
The new parties formed an anti-LDP coalition with longtime opposition parties such as the JSP and managed to pass electoral reform in 1994.
However, the anti-LDP coalition would not last and broke up after less than 11 months when the LDP convinced the Socialists—its longtime enemy!—to join it in a coalition government.
As time passed, Japan's economy continued to stagnate—so much so that the 1990s became known as the "lost decade"—and the country was afflicted by other major problems as well.
Japan had been ranked the most internationally competitive economy in the world in 1990, but by 1997 it had fallen to fourteenth.
By the end of 2002, unemployment hit a then-record 5.5 percent—unheard of in a country where large firms are known for guaranteeing workers lifetime employment— and the Tokyo Stock Exchange dropped to its lowest levels in more than 15 years.
In 1995, a massive earthquake hit the city of Kobe and killed thousands of people, and in 1996, it was revealed that government ministries covered up negligence that had led to the transfusion of HIV-tainted blood to many Japanese citizens.
Japan Socialist Party and Liberal Democratic Party were both formed in 1955
The anti-LOP coalition collapses as the LOP convinces the Socialist Party to join it in a coalition government
Except for 1993-1994, the LDP maintained control over the Diet but remained unpopular.
In the 1990s, new parties—most notably, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)—took up the mantle as Japan's leading opposition.
Tapping into anger with the LDP, the DPJ first emerged in 1996 but was unable to seriously challenge the ruling party for more than a decade.

The 2000s

In 2001, the LDP put forward Jun'ichirō Koizumi as its new prime minister.
Koizumi talked about genuine change.
Known as a "maverick," he challenged his own party to reform many of its inefficient programs that advantaged rural parts of the economy, even though such changes might undermine the party's strongest base of support.
Koizumi was wildly popular with the public and utilized television coverage to help create his own base, independent of the party.
Under his leadership, the LDP had one of its most successful elections in history in 2005.
By 2006, the last year of Koizumi's prime ministership, the economy was growing, unemployment was dropping, wages were rising, and stock and land prices were increasing.
The Koizumi premiership did not permanently reverse the LDP's decline.
When the world economy crashed in 2008, Japan's economy entered into another recession.
In 2009, unemployment reached 5.7 percent, and Japan faced negative economic growth.
The LDP proved incapable of reversing the economic slide, corruption scandals continued to plague the party, and its leaders appeared increasingly out of touch with average voters' concerns and stopped talking about reform.
In the 2009 elections, the DPJ finally swept the LDP out of power in the lower house of parliament.
The DPJ proved unable to address a number of important issues—such as the relocation of American military bases in Japan—and started losing popularity quickly.
On March 11, 2011, the country was hit by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, which immediately led to a devastating tsunami that crushed vast portions of northeast Japan.
The tsunami destabilized nuclear reactors, which led substantial radiation to leak into the air, ground, and water.
The Japanese government acted swiftly, immediately mobilizing more than 100,000 troops and accepting assistance from countries around the globe.
The government also provided more than 27,000 temporary housing units to the devastated areas within ten weeks of the earthquake.
Public frustration with the government grew, as the DPJ prime minister put forward inconsistent and unclear statements about the implementation of safety measures involving the reactors and the future of nuclear power in Japan.
The government's handling of the response to the disaster became a political issue, as the LDP and opponents of the prime minister even within the DPJ criticized the government, in part in the hopes of gaining electoral advantage.
The result was a badly weakened DPJ government but still clear signs that Japan had become a competitive party system.
It is important not to overlook what a dramatic shift it is away from decades of LDP dominance and how was the LDP able to hold onto power for so many years, despite almost 20 years of economic stagnation and popular discontent over the party's economic policies, compounded by party corruption and overall ineffectiveness?

Institutions of Japan

Japan's democratic institutions promote limited government by offering citizens extensive rights and privileges.
The constitution guarantees numerous individual freedoms, such as equality before the law; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; freedom of assembly and association; and universal suffrage.
Free and fair elections are held regularly, and candidates' and parties' right to contest those elections is protected.
Japan's political institutions helped perpetuate the LDP in power by centralizing political authority in a unitary, parliamentary system.
Electoral rules helped governing parties like the LDP channel state resources to the districts of their candidates.
Japan's powerful bureaucracy worked in support of the ruling party, and for years, Japan's weak judiciary failed to stand up to the ruling government party.

Unitarism

Unlike federal countries, such as the United States, that give substantial political authority to sub-national units, Japan places most power in the hands of the central government.
Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, which are Japan's largest administrative subunits—something like the states in the United States, but with much less independent authority.
Most prefectures and lower-level municipalities still rely upon the central government to fund projects, and in this way, the central government can push its own priorities at the local level by providing or denying subsidies.
The party that controls Japan's central government has power over the prefectures that rely upon state resources.
Large numbers of local voters and politicians grew to support the LDP securing its national dominance.

Parliamentarism

Japan's postwar constitution provides democratic accountability through elections to its Diet or bicameral parliament.
Members of the lower chamber of parliament, the House of Representatives (HR), serve for four-year terms.
The HR can also hold early elections at any point before the term is up.
Members of the upper house, the House of Councillors (HC), serve fixed six-year terms.
Like unitarism, parliamentarism in Japan tends to centralize political power.
Japanese politics has narrowed the possible arenas in which an opposition can gain power.
A parliamentary system does not formally separate the executive and legislative branches of government, so a single party can more easily wield power without constraint.
When parliamentarism is combined with single-party government, we have a recipe for effective government, but such a combination also tends to constrain opposition parties' ability to limit government power.
Opposition parties can use no-confidence motions to check the authority of the ruling party.
However, no-confidence motions have rarely passed in Japan, simply because during the postwar era, the LDP typically had an overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives.
A majority in the House of Representatives determines Japan's prime minister, who, in turn, selects the cabinet.
For years, Japan's prime minister has been a particularly weak leader: in order to maintain party stability, the LDP spread important government posts roughly evenly throughout all factions in the party.
In addition, "iron triangles" developed on most major issues, with small groups of LDP politicians (who were not necessarily in the cabinet), government bureaucrats, and key interest groups working together to determine policy.
Japanese prime ministers have typically had far less centralized power than their counterparts in other countries, such as the UK.
Recent years the prime minister has gained power with some taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the media and legislation that centralized governing power more thoroughly in the cabinet.
Changes in the way Japanese Diet members get elected promoted a shift to more centralized parties.
The key way that opposition parties can exercise some check on government power is by winning control of the upper chamber of the Diet with winning a majority allowing them to block legislation
For example, in 1998, the majority held by non-LDP parties in the upper house forced the LDP to address the banking crisis.
From 2007 to 2009, the LDP controlled the lower house, but the DPJ was the largest party in the upper house and, therefore, held off some LDP legislation.
Parliamentary government controlled by a single party in Japan has allowed the LDP to centralize power in the cabinet with few checks and balances from outside forces.

Electoral System

The rules used to elect politicians to seats in the Diet provided the LDP a number of advantages that helped it maintain its dominance.
Reform of the rules used to elect politicians to the lower house led to significant changes in political behavior in Japan but did not lead to the LDP's fall for many years.
SNTV electoral system encourages politicians to emphasize their own individual personalities and ability to bring benefits back to their districts.
Japan's 1947-1993 Lower House Electoral System:
- The single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system was used to elect politicians to both houses of Japan's Diet.
- As used in elections to the House of Representatives from 1947-1993, Japan was composed of more than 100 districts, with each typically electing three, four, or five candidates to office.
- In each district, each voter cast a single ballot for an individual candidate, and whichever candidates (up to the number of seats in the district) received the most votes were awarded the seats.
Elections to Japan's Upper House House of Councillors elections elect half of the upper house every three years-so each member of the upper house is up for election every six years-and treat each prefecture as an SNTV district-each with between two and ten seats (but only half of these seats are up for grabs in any given election).
- In upper house elections, Japanese voters cast two ballots. The first is for a candidate in an SNTV race, and the rules governing the second ballot have changed more than once over the years. In 2010, with this second ballot voters had a choice of casting their vote either for a party or for an individual candidate. 73 seats were allocated via prefectural SNTV districts, and 48 were allocated to parties and candidates according to their share of the second ballot votes cast across the country.
Personalistic Elections:
- The SNTV electoral system encourages politicians to emphasize their own individual personalities and ability to bring benefits back to their districts.
- Elections in Japan long turned on politicians' individual qualities rather than on parties' policy positions or ideological stances.
- LDP politicians in particular focused on developing a personal vote—building up electoral support through their individual efforts to aid constituents—rather than on ideological or policy appeals.
- Japanese politicians spent a great deal of time, energy, and money dealing with constituents' individual concerns attending weddings, funerals, and parties to pass out cash and other sorts of gifts.
- Japan's electoral rules forced politicians to compete not only with candidates from other parties but also other candidates from their own party as well, thus making it absolutely essential that they consolidate their electoral support based on the personal vote.
- Extensive personal contact with voters was essential because Japanese campaign laws restricted can- didates' and parties' access to TV and radio, making it difficult to rely on mass appeals channel through the media. Campaign official restricted for 2 weeks also gave a huge advantage to new candidates to attract voters.
- To develop a personal vote base of support, candidates in Japan long relied on koenkai, personal support organizations through which candidates create close ties to voters.
- Japanese politicians attempted to develop a personal vote based on their ability to bring government benefits back to constituents in their district such as price subsidies for farmers or massive construction projects, which both generated jobs and improved infrastructure.
Most voters support the LDP candidates because of their non-ideological approach to politics, and many LDP politicians made long careers out of their ability to obtain benefits for their constituents and districts
- The number of independent voters has grown dramatically since the 1970s and government spending encourages corruption bringing wealth to the LDP
SNTV electoral system and Koenkai are both Japanese traditions to gain political support
Government spending was particularly important in rural and less-wealthy constituencies, where LDP candidates tended to perform best.

Malapportionment

Malapportionment The LDP did not win a majority of votes in a House of Representatives election after 1963, but it still typically won a majority of seats.
A key way that political institutions helped the LDP maintain its position of power was through malapportionment, in which certain rural and underpopulated legislative districts tended to have many more seats per share of the population than certain urban and over-populated districts.
Put differently, many rural districts got more representation than they deserved according to population, and other urban districts got less representation than they deserved.
As shown in graphic provided LDP won more seats in rural then in the urban regions allowing them to remain in power.

Japan's New Electoral System and Changes in Campaign Behavior

After a series of corruption scandals involving L