Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is easily the most successful political party in the developed capitalist world. While other long-standing parties of government have gone into crisis and decline, from the Italian Christian Democrats to Ireland’s Fianna Fáil, the LDP has retained its position at the head of the Japanese state through all the transformations that its society has undergone over the past seven decades.
The LDP was established in November 1955, shortly after the reunification of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) the previous month. One of the senior architects of the conservative merger commented that the new party, with its diverse and conflicting factions, would be lucky to survive ten years. Instead, the LDP went on to become the dominant ruling party throughout the Cold War and beyond.
After retaining its mantle as the ruling party for thirty-eight continuous years, the LDP was ousted from power in 1993 and again in 2009. After both electoral defeats, commentators proclaimed the long-awaited demise of an anachronistic and corrupt party. Such pronouncements proved to be premature.
Thanks to successful adaptations by the LDP itself and the failure of rival parties to capitalize on their own political mandates, the LDP reemerged as dominant as ever. However, recent scandals have led to another decline in LDP support. The party is now a minority force in both houses of parliament after electoral setbacks during the past two years.
The LDP’s name is misleading. It is neither particularly “liberal” nor “democratic” in nature, nor is it a typical “party” with a coherent leadership structure. It started as a conservative alliance against socialism and communism, uniting around the Cold War rallying cry of “freedom and democracy.”
The LDP was, first and foremost, a pro–big business coalition to stem the rise of the union-backed JSP. However, it avoided defining itself as such and stressed that it would be a “national…
Auteur: Kenji Hasegawa
