The LDP was formed in 1955 as a merger of two conservative parties; the Liberal Party and the Japan Democratic Party. Since its foundation, the LDP has been in power almost continuously—a period called the 1955 System—except between 1993 and 1994, and again from 2009 to 2012. In the 2012 election, it regained control of the government.[21] After the 2021 and 2022 elections it holds 261 seats in the House of Representatives and 119 seats in the House of Councillors, and in coalition with Komeito since 1999, a governing majority in both houses.
The LDP is often described as a big tent conservative party.[22] While lacking a cohesive political ideology, the party's platform has historically supported increased defense spending and maintaining close ties with the United States.[23] The party's history and internal composition have been characterized by intense factionalism ever since its emergence in 1955, with its parliamentary members currently split among six factions, each of which vies for influence in the party and the government.[24][25] The incumbent Prime Minister and party President is Fumio Kishida, the leader of the party's moderate Kōchikai faction.
The LDP was formed in 1955[26] as a merger between two of Japan's political parties, the Liberal Party (自由党, Jiyutō, 1950–1955, led by Shigeru Yoshida) and the Japan Democratic Party (日本民主党, Nihon Minshutō, 1954–1955, led by Ichirō Hatoyama), both right-wing conservative parties, as a united front against the then popular Japan Socialist Party (日本社会党, Nipponshakaitō), now the Social Democratic Party (社会民主党, Shakaiminshutō). The party won the following elections, and Japan's first conservative government with a majority was formed by 1955. It would hold majority government until 1993.[27]
The LDP began with reforming Japan's international relations, ranging from entry into the United Nations, to establishing diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union. Its leaders in the 1950s also made the LDP the main government party, and in all the elections of the 1950s, the LDP won the majority vote, with the only other opposition coming from left-wing politics, made up of the Japan Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party.
From the 1950s through the 1990s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation spent millions of dollars attempting to influence elections in Japan to favor the LDP against more leftist parties such as the Socialists and the Communists,[28][29] although this was not revealed until the mid-1990s when it was exposed by The New York Times.[30]
1960s to 1990s
For the majority of the 1960s, the LDP (and Japan) were led by Eisaku Satō, beginning with the hosting of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and ending in 1972 with Japanese neutrality in the Vietnam War and with the beginning of the Japanese asset price bubble. By the end of the 1970s, the LDP went into its decline, where even though it held the reins of government many scandals plagued the party, while the opposition (now joined with the Kōmeitō (1962–1998)) gained momentum.
In 1976, in the wake of the Lockheed bribery scandals, a handful of younger LDP Diet members broke away and established their own party, the New Liberal Club (Shin Jiyu Kurabu). A decade later, however, it was reabsorbed by the LDP.
By the late 1970s, the Japan Socialist Party, the Japanese Communist Party, and the Komeito along with the international community used major pressure to have Japan switch diplomatic ties from Taiwan (Republic of China) to the People's Republic of China.
Liberal Democratic Hall Bldg., Headquarters of the LDP in Tokyo
The LDP managed to consistently win elections for over three decades, and the LDP's decades in power allowed it to establish a highly stable process of policy formation. This process would not have been possible if other parties had secured parliamentary majorities. LDP strength was based on an enduring, although not unchallenged, coalition of big business, small business, agriculture, professional groups, and other interests. Elite bureaucrats collaborated closely with the party and interest groups in drafting and implementing policy. In a sense, the party's success was a result not of its internal strength but of its weakness. It lacked a strong, nationwide organization or consistent ideology with which to attract voters. Its leaders were rarely decisive, charismatic, or popular. But it functioned efficiently as a locus for matching interest group money and votes with bureaucratic power and expertise. This arrangement resulted in corruption, but the party could claim credit for helping to create economic growth and a stable, middle-class Japan.[citation needed]
Despite winning the 1986 general election by a landslide, by the end of 1980s, the LDP started to suffer setbacks in elections due to unpopular policies on trade liberalisation and tax, as well as a scandal involving their leader Sōsuke Uno and the Recruit scandal. The party lost its majority in the House of Councillors for the first time in 34 years in the 1989 election.[32]
Seven opposition parties—including several formed by LDP dissidents—formed a government headed by LDP dissident Morihiro Hosokawa of the Japan New Party who became the prime minister preceded by Kiichi Miyazawa. However, the LDP was still far and away the largest party in the House of Representatives, with well over 200 seats; no other party crossed the 80-seat mark. Yohei Kono became the president of the LDP preceded by Kiichi Miyazawa, he was the first non-prime minister LDP leader as the leader of the opposition.
In 1994, the Socialist Party and New Party Sakigake left the ruling coalition, joining the LDP in the opposition. The remaining members of the coalition tried to stay in power as a makeshift minority government, but this failed when the LDP and the Socialists, bitter rivals for 40 years, formed a majority coalition. The new government was dominated by the LDP, but it allowed a Socialist to occupy the Prime Minister's chair (Tomiichi Murayama) until 1996 when the LDP's Ryutaro Hashimoto took over.
1996–2009
In the 1996 election, the LDP made some gains but was still 12 seats short of a majority. However, no other party could possibly form a government, and Hashimoto formed a solidly LDP minority government. Through a series of floor-crossings, the LDP regained its majority within a year.
The party was practically unopposed until 1998 when the opposition Democratic Party of Japan was formed. This marked the beginning of the opposing parties' gains in momentum, especially in the 2003 and 2004 Parliamentary Elections, that would not slow for another 12 years.[citation needed]
In the dramatically paced 2003 House of Representatives elections, the LDP won 237 seats, while the DPJ won 177 seats. In the 2004 House of Councillors elections, in the seats up for grabs, the LDP won 49 seats and the DPJ 50, though in all seats (including those uncontested) the LDP still had a total of 114. Because of this electoral loss, former Secretary-General Shinzo Abe turned in his resignation, but Party President Koizumi merely demoted him in rank, and he was replaced by Tsutomu Takebe.[citation needed]
On 10 November 2003, the New Conservative Party (Hoshu Shintō) was absorbed into the LDP, a move which was largely because of the New Conservative Party's poor showing in the 2003 general election. The LDP formed a coalition with the conservative BuddhistNew Komeito (party founded by Soka Gakkai) from Obuchi Second shuffle Cabinet (1999–2000).[citation needed]
In the 2009 general election, the LDP was roundly defeated, winning only 118 seats—easily the worst defeat of a sitting government in modern Japanese history, and also the first real transfer of political power in the post-war era. Accepting responsibility for this severe defeat, Aso announced his resignation as LDP president on election night. Sadakazu Tanigaki was elected leader of the party on 28 September 2009,[36] after a three-way race, becoming only the second LDP leader who was not simultaneously prime minister.[citation needed]
2009–present
The party's support continued to decline, with prime ministers changing rapidly, and in the 2009 House of Representatives elections the LDP lost its majority, winning only 118 seats, marking the only time they would be out of the majority other than a brief period in 1993.[37][38] Since that time, numerous party members have left to join other parties or form new ones, including Your Party (みんなの党, Minna no Tō),[citation needed] the Sunrise Party of Japan (たちあがれ日本, Tachiagare Nippon),[39] the New Renaissance Party (新党改革, Shintō Kaikaku), and the Party of Hope (希望の党, Kibō no Tō).[citation needed] The party had some success in the 2010 House of Councilors election, netting 13 additional seats and denying the DPJ a majority.[40][41] Abe became the president again in September 2012 after a five-way race. The LDP returned to power with its ally New Komeito after winning a clear majority in the lower house general election on 16 December 2012 after just over three years in opposition. Shinzo Abe became Prime Minister for the second time preceded by Yoshihiko Noda who was the leader of the DPJ.[42]
The LDP is usually associated with conservatism[20] and Japanese nationalism.[45] The party though has not espoused a well-defined, unified ideology or political philosophy, due to its long-term government, and has been described as a "catch-all" party.[10] Its members hold a variety of positions that could be broadly defined as being to the right of main opposition parties. Many of its ministers, including current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida[46] and former Prime Ministers Yoshihide Suga,[47]Shinzo Abe are affiliated with the parliamentary league of Nippon Kaigi, an ultranationalist and traditionalist lobby group.[e][50] In Japanese politics, the convention is to classify the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party as occupying the conservative and progressive ends of the ideological spectrum respectively, however this classification faces challenges, especially among younger generations, after the 1990s.[51]
The LDP's Japanese nationalism shows a pragmatic nature, divided internally into realist doves and nationalist hawks, as it considers China's strong economic position. However, South Korea has much weaker economic and national power than Japan, Japan's right-wing conservatives, including the LDP, show almost entirely hawkish diplomacy in South Korea. This causes great political friction with South Korean liberals with anti-imperialist sentiment toward China and Japan.[52]VANK, a South Korean liberal-nationalist group, accused Japanese conservatives of apologizing only to China and not to South Korea for forced labor in World War II in July 2022.[53] Almost all major South Korean media outlets point out that the LDP and its politicians have anti-Korean sentiment, and that the party's main support base is "Hate of [South] Korean" (Korean: 혐한; Hanja: 嫌韓).[54][55][56] Western experts say that the conflict between the two countries intensifies the most when a conservative (mainly LDP) regime is established in Japan and a liberal (mainly DPK) regime is established in South Korea.[52]
The 2019–2020 Japan–South Korea trade dispute was triggered by the Japanese government's exclusion of South Korea from the trade 'white list'. Germany's newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung criticized only the Japan's government, because the Japanese politicians and Japan's governments have never properly reflected on their historical perceptions related to Japanese war crimes in World War II.[57] According to Michael J. Green in January 2022, presidential candidates in the 2022 South Korean presidential election are willing to improve relations with Japan, but Japanese political leaders are not willing to improve relations with South Korea.[58]
Major LDP politicians tend to deny that comfort women were forced sexual slavery by the Empire of Japan. Many LDP members also take a negationist view of other war crimes (ex: forced labor, massacre, etc) against other Koreans committed by the Empire of Japan.[57][59][60][61][62]
Historical
In the case of the LDP administration under the 1955 System in Japan, their degree of economic control was stronger than that of Western conservative governments; it was also positioned closer to social democracy.[63] Since the 1970s, the oil crisis has slowed economic growth and increased the resistance of urban citizens to policies that favor farmers.[64] To maintain its dominant position, the LDP sought to expand party supporters by incorporating social security policies and pollution measures advocated by opposition parties.[64] It was also historically closely positioned to corporate statism.[65][66]
During the 2021 general election the released LDP policy manifesto, titled "Create a new era together with you" included among other things support for:[69][70][71]
Raising Japan's defense budget from the current 1% to "two percent or more" of gross domestic product (GDP) and enhancing Japan's defense capabilities
Advance understanding of LGBT rights, although the party is not in favor of same-sex marriage with 50% of its election candidates being "undecided" and those opposed largely outnumbering those in favor[72]
Acceptance of foreign workers and improving management to cover labor shortages
Support Taiwan's bid to join the CPTPP agreement and WHO observer status
Promoting further nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation
Structure
At the apex of the LDP's formal organization is the president (総裁, sōsai), who can serve three[73] three-year terms (The presidential term was increased from two years to three years in 2002 and from two to three terms in 2017). When the party has a parliamentary majority, the party president is the prime minister. The choice of party president is formally that of a party convention composed of Diet members and local LDP figures, but in most cases, they merely approved the joint decision of the most powerful party leaders. To make the system more democratic, Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda introduced a "primary" system in 1978, which opened the balloting to some 1.5 million LDP members. The process was so costly and acrimonious, however, that it was subsequently abandoned in favor of the old "smoke-filled room" method—so-called in allusion to the notion of closed discussions held in small rooms filled with tobacco smoke.
After the party president, the most important LDP officials are the Secretary-General (kanjicho), the chairmen of the LDP Executive Council (somukaicho), and of the Policy Affairs Research Council or "PARC" (政務調査会, seimu chōsakai).
Since the genesis of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1955, factions have existed, but they have changed over time. Despite this change, factions in the party today can be traced back to their 1955 roots, a testament to the stability and institutionalized nature of Liberal Democratic Party factions.[74] The party's history and internal composition have been characterized by intense factionalism ever since its emergence in 1955, with its parliamentary members currently split among six factions, each of which vies for influence in the party and the government.[25] The incumbent Prime Minister and party President, Fumio Kishida, is the leader of the party's Kōchikai faction.
Election statistics show that, while the LDP had been able to secure a majority in the twelve House of Representatives elections from May 1958 to February 1990, with only three exceptions (December 1976, October 1979, and December 1983), its share of the popular vote had declined from a high of 57.8 percent in May 1958 to a low of 41.8 percent in December 1976, when voters expressed their disgust with the party's involvement in the Lockheed scandal.[citation needed] The LDP vote rose again between 1979 and 1990. Although the LDP won an unprecedented 300 seats in the July 1986 balloting, its share of the popular vote remained just under 50 percent. The figure was 46.2 percent in February 1990. Following the three occasions when the LDP found itself a handful of seats shy of a majority, it was obliged to form alliances with conservative independents and the breakaway New Liberal Club. In a cabinet appointment after the October 1983 balloting, a non-LDP minister, a member of the New Liberal Club, was appointed for the first time. On 18 July 1993, in lower house elections, the LDP fell so far short of a majority that it was unable to form a government.
In the upper house, the July 1989 election represented the first time that the LDP was forced into a minority position. In previous elections, it had either secured a majority on its own or recruited non-LDP conservatives to make up the difference of a few seats.
The political crisis of 1988–89 was testimony to both the party's strength and its weakness. In the wake of a succession of issues—the pushing of a highly unpopular consumer tax through the Diet in late 1988, the Recruit insider trading scandal, which tainted virtually all top LDP leaders and forced the resignation of Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru in April (a successor did not appear until June), the resignation in July of his successor, Uno Sōsuke, because of a sex scandal, and the poor showing in the upper house election—the media provided the Japanese with a detailed and embarrassing dissection of the political system. By March 1989, popular support for the Takeshita cabinet as expressed in public opinion polls had fallen to 9 percent. Uno's scandal, covered in magazine interviews of a "kiss and tell" geisha, aroused the fury of female voters.
Uno's successor, the eloquent if obscure Kaifu Toshiki, was successful in repairing the party's battered image. By January 1990, talk of the waning of conservative power and a possible socialist government had given way to the realization that, like the Lockheed affair of the mid-1970s, the Recruit scandal did not signal a significant change in who ruled Japan. The February 1990 general election gave the LDP, including affiliated independents, a comfortable, if not spectacular, majority: 275 of 512 total representatives.
In October 1991, Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki failed to attain passage of a political reform bill and was rejected by the LDP, despite his popularity with the electorate. He was replaced as prime minister by Miyazawa Kiichi, a long-time LDP stalwart. Defections from the LDP began in the spring of 1992, when Hosokawa Morihiro left the LDP to form the Japan New Party. Later, in the summer of 1993, when the Miyazawa government also failed to pass political reform legislation, thirty-nine LDP members joined the opposition in a no-confidence vote. In the ensuing lower house election, more than fifty LDP members formed the Shinseitō and the Sakigake parties, denying the LDP the majority needed to form a government.
Extension of term of office by one year (Unanimously re-elected Nakasone's term of office at the general meeting of LDP National Diet members of both houses)
Mainichi Shimbun – It has a historical relationship with the Heisei Kenkyukai (Keynesian principle). However, the relationship with the faction is not as strong as the Asahi Shimbun.
^Some sources also assessed that the LDP was founded with funds from ultranationalist, and some sources refer to the LDP as far-right ultranationalist:
Matthew Pointon, ed. (2017). Across Asia With A Lowlander. Lulu.com. p. 12. ISBN9780244043544. Ever since the culmination of the Second World War, the far right Liberal Democratic Party has firmly held the reigns of power, with only a couple of minor interruptions.
"Beautiful Harmony: Political Project Behind Japan's New Era Name – Analysis". eurasia review. 16 July 2019. The shifting dynamics around the new era name (gengō 元号) offers an opportunity to understand how the domestic politics of the LDP's project of ultranationalism is shaping a new Japan and a new form of nationalism.
Margaret DiCanio PhD, ed. (2004). Encyclopedia of Violence. iUniverse. ISBN9780595316526. In 1955, with funds from the ultranationalists, the conservatives merged the Liberal Party with the Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democratic Party (LPD), which effectively held the Japanese Communist Party in check.
^Glenn D. Hook; Julie Gilson; Christopher W. Hughes; Hugo Dobson (2001). Japan's International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security. Routledge. p. 58. ISBN978-1-134-32806-2. Retrieved 24 September 2020. The LDP is a 'catch-all', diverse political party, which is reflected in its make-up and the party's complex and shifting range of views on Japan's international relations.
Akito Okada, ed. (2022). Japan's School Curriculum for The 2020s: Politics, Policy, and Pedagogy. Springer Nature. p. 14. ISBN9789811920769. In the case of Japan, the ideological basis of the right-wing LDP had almost no element of liberal (as in libertarian) thought, such as reliance on anti-nationalist liberalism and individualism, or vigilance against a centrally planned economy and welfare system.
Lam Peng Er; Purnendra Jain, eds. (2020). Japan's Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 96. ISBN9781498587969. The rising tide of hawkish nationalism and historical revisionism spearheaded by the right-wing LDP Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in recent decades seems to confirm the doubt.
S. Carpenter, ed. (2011). Japan's Nuclear Crisis: The Routes to Responsibility. Springer. p. 113. ISBN9780230363717. Kodama quashed all things he regarded as remotely communist and consistently supported the right-wing LDP.
^日本に定着するか、政党のカラー [Will the colors of political parties settle in Japan?]. The Nikkei (in Japanese). Nikkei, Inc. 21 October 2017. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
^"今さら聞けない?! 「保守」「リベラル」ってなんだ？" [Can't you ask about them now ?! What are "conservative" and "liberal"?] (in Japanese). Retrieved 5 June 2020. ところが、現実の政治はもっと複雑です。自民党にもリベラル派がたくさんいるからです。自民党は考え方の近い人たちが派閥というグループをつくっています。(Tr: However, real politics is more complicated. This is because there are many liberals in the LDP. The Liberal Democratic Party is made up of groups of people with similar ideas, called factions.)
Mark R. Mullins, ed. (2021). The Routledge Handbook of Japanese Politics. University of Hawaii Press. p. 94. ISBN9780824890162. The first is provided by Yamatani Eriko, one of the darlings of Shinseiren and a person who represents the far right of the LDP.
"The Dangerous Impact of the Far-Right in Japan". Washington Square News. 15 April 2019. Another sign of the rise of the uyoku dantai's ideas is the growing power of the Nippon Kaigi. The organization is the largest far-right group in Japan and has heavy lobbying clout with the conservative LDP; 18 of the 20 members of Shinzo Abe's cabinet were once members of the group.
"Why Steve Bannon Admires Japan". The Diplomat. 22 June 2018. In Japan, populist and extreme right-wing nationalism has found a home within the political establishment.
"For Abe, it will always be about the Constitution". The Japan Times. 4 July 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2020. Of those three victories, the first election in December 2012 was a rout of the leftist Democratic Party of Japan and it thrust the more powerful Lower House of Parliament firmly into the hands of the long-incumbent Liberal Democratic Party under Abe. The second election in December 2014 further normalized Japan's lurch to the far right, giving the ruling coalition a supermajority of 2/3 of the seats in the Lower House.
"Shinzo Abe? That's Not His Name, Says Japan's Foreign Minister". The New York Times. 22 May 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2020. Mr. Abe is strongly supported by the far right wing of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which hews to tradition and tends toward insularity.
Leonel Lim, Michael W. Apple, ed. (2016). The Strong State and Curriculum Reform: Assessing the politics and possibilities of educational change in Asia. Routledge. p. 167. ISBN9781317579236. ... Far right LDP legislators led by Prime Minister (PM) Shinzo ̄ Abe demanded the withdrawal of the 1993 Ko ̄no Statement and attacked the ...
Michael W. Apple, ed. (2009). Global Crises, Social Justice, and Education. Routledge. p. 62. ISBN9781135172787. Far-right politicians within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which achieved the half-century conservative political reign from 1955 to 1993, were nostalgic for the prewar elitist and imperial education system.
Trevor Harrison, ed. (2007). 21st century Japan: a new sun rising l Politics in Postwar Japan. Black Rose Books. p. 82. ... of the war and viewed the 1947 Constitution as illegitimate as it was written not by the Japanese people but forced upon the country by the U.S. Occupation Authority. Abe shares these beliefs, in common with many within the LDP's far right.
David E. Kaplan; Alec Dubro, eds. (2003). Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld. University of California Press. p. 60.
J. A. A. Stockwin, ed. (2003). Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Japan. Routledge. p. 88.
Searchlight, Issues 307–318. Searchlight. 2001. p. 31.
New Statesman Society. Statesman & Nation Publishing Company. 1995. p. 11.
Asia Pacific Business Travel Guide. Priory Publications (Cornell University). 1994. p. 173.
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Atomic Scientists of Chicago. 1983. p. 14. ... 12 Seirankai: an extreme-right faction formed within the LDP in July 1973; after Kim Dae Jung was abducted from ...
"Japan is having an election next month. Here's why it matters". The Japan Times. 22 November 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2020. When Abe appointed five female ministers in September, two of which were forced to step down over scandals, a number of political commentators viewed the move with some cynicism, suggesting that the prime minister didn't pay much attention to the qualifications of the candidates. Most of the women he chose were ultra-conservatives such as Eriko Yamatani, minister in charge of the North Korea abductee issue.
^Tsukamoto, Takashi (2012). "Neoliberalization of the developmental state: Tokyo's bottom‐up politics and state rescaling in Japan". International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. 36 (1): 71–89. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2427.2011.01057.x.
"As Hiroshima's legacy fades, Japan's postwar pacifism is fraying". The Conversation UK. 6 August 2015. Retrieved 21 February 2020. Even though much of the Japanese public does not agree with the LDP's nationalist platform, the party won big electoral victories by promising to replace the DPJ's weakness with strong leadership – particularly on the economy, but also in foreign affairs.
"Shinzo Abe and the rise of Japanese nationalism". New Statesman. 15 May 2019. Retrieved 21 February 2020. As a new emperor takes the throne, prime minister Abe is consolidating his ultranationalist "beautiful Japan" project. But can he overcome a falling population and stagnating economy?
A Weiss (31 May 2018). Towards a Beautiful Japan: Right-Wing Religious Nationalism in Japan's LDP.
^"No, Japan Should Not Remilitarize". Jacobin magazine. 24 October 2021. Retrieved 28 November 2021. Carrying the legacy of Japanese fascism, the LDP (and particularly Nippon Kaigi) is the knowing driver of both this growing racism and nationalism and Japan's swelling military fervor. The synthesis of remilitarization with reactionary politics is embodied in the party's longtime leader, Shinzō Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister, who retired only last year due to his declining health.
^"Shinzo Abe and the long history of Japanese political violence". The Spectator. 9 July 2022. Retrieved 3 March 2023. As the French judge at the trial, Henri Bernard, noted, Japan's wartime atrocities 'had a principal author [Hirohito] who escaped all prosecution and of whom in any case the present defendants could only be considered accomplices.' The result was that whereas ultranationalism became toxic in post-war Germany, in Japan neo-fascism — centred around the figure of the emperor — retained its allure and became mainstream albeit sotto voce within Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
^"일본, 1월 유엔서 "일제 징용은 강제노동 아냐"···위안부도 부정" [Japan said at the United Nation in January, "issue of conscription of [Koreans] by the Japanese Empire is not forced labor", and denied comfort women.]. 경향신문. 6 March 2023.
^"기시다, 독일 총리에 소녀상 철거 요청…"반응 안 좋아"(종합2보)" [Kishida called on the German Chancellor to remove the Statue of Peace... Kishida said, ""[German Chancellor] did not respond well."]. 연합뉴스. 11 May 2022.
^Japan Almanac. Mainichi Newspapers. 1975. p. 43. In the House of Representatives, the Liberal-Democratic Party, guided by conservative liberalism, is the No.1 party holding a total of 279 seats or 56.8 per cent of the House quorum of 491.
^Since the leadership election before 1972 is not a candidacy system, votes for members who did not campaign are also calculated as valid votes.
^Primary election by general party members. With a point system in which 1000 votes are calculated as 1 point and distributed proportionally to the top two candidates, the two candidates in the primary election will advance to runoff by members of the National Diet.
^Primary election by general party members. With a total vote system, the top three candidates will advance to runoff.
Bibliography
Helms, Ludger (2013). Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies. Routledge Press. ISBN978-1-31797-031-6.
Henderson, Jeffrey (2011). East Asian Transformation: On the Political Economy of Dynamism, Governance and Crisis. Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-1-13684-113-2.
Köllner, Patrick. "The Liberal Democratic Party at 50: Sources of Dominance and Changes in the Koizumi Era," Social Science Japan Journal (Oct 2006) 9#2 pp 243–257.
Krauss, Ellis S., and Robert J. Pekkanen. "The Rise and Fall of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party," Journal of Asian Studies (2010) 69#1 pp 5–15, focuses on the 2009 election.
Krauss, Ellis S., and Robert J. Pekkanen, eds. The Rise and Fall of Japan's LDP: Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions (Cornell University Press; 2010) 344 pages; essays by scholars
Scheiner, Ethan. Democracy without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
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