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A Step Toward One-Party Predominance: Japan’s General Election of 20 October 1996
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
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THE GENERAL ELECTION IN JAPAN OF OCTOBER 1996 brought back the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a position of predominance, if not preponderance, in the House of Representatives. Out of 500 seats, the LDP acquired 239, while the second largest New Frontier Party (FNP) won 156, the newly-formed Democratic Party 52, the Communist Party 26, the Social Democratic Party of Japan (SDPJ) 15, and the Sakigake New Party two seats. Prior to the general election, the LDP, the SDPJ and the Sakigake had cooperated in a coalition government with 211, 30 and 9 seats, respectively. After the election, the LDP formed a minority government without making a formal coalition arrangement with the much enfeebled SDPJ and Sakigake. Why was the LDP able to make this sort of comeback? Why have ‘reformist parties’, starting with the New Japan Party, the Renewal Party, the New Frontier Party and most recently the Democratic Party, experienced such a brief period of increased power before their fall (or stagnation)? These are the questions that this article addresses in describing and explaining Japanese politics today.
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References
1 In writing this article I have extensively consulted four major newspapers, Asahi, Yomiuri, Mainichi and Nikkei. My writing on reformism is found in: Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘The Rise and Fall of “Reformist Governments”: Hosokawa and Hata, 1993–94’, Asian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 2, No. 2, 12 1994, pp. 73–87 Google Scholar.
2 See Inoguchi, Takashi, Nihon: Keizai taikoku no seiji un ei (Japan: The Governing of a Great Economic Power), Tokyo, University of Tokyo Press, 1993 Google Scholar, a translation of which is to be published by Routledge.
3 Inoguchi, Takashi, ‘The Political Economy of Conservative Resurgence under Recession: Public Policies and Political Support in Japan, 1977–1983’, in T. J. Pempel, (ed.), Uncommon Democracies: The One-Party Dominant Regimes, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1990, pp. 189–225 Google Scholar; Inoguchi, Takashi, Gendai Nihon Seiji keizai no kozu (The Framework of Contemporary Japanese Political Economy), Tokyo, Toyo Keizai Shimposha, 1983 Google Scholar.
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5 Two Major Policy Cleavages, as Revealed by Responses from Parliamentarians’, Bungei shunju, August 1996. pp. 94–124. Inoguchi, Takashi: Public Policies and Elections: An Empirical Analysis of Voters-Parties Relationship Under One Party Dominance, Papers in Japanese Studies, No. 2, Department of Japanese Studies, National University of Singapore, 02 1989 Google Scholar; ‘Japan 1960–1980: Party Election Pledges’, in Budge, Ian, Robertson, David, and Hearl, Derek, (eds), Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analyses of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 369–387 Google Scholar; see also Takashi Inoguchi, Gendai Nihon seiji Keizai no lozu, op. cit.
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8 Takashi Inoguchi, ‘Asian-Style Democracy’, paper presented at the United Nations University Conference on the Changing Nature of Democracy, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies and St Antony’s College, Oxford, 25–27 July 1996.