Democracy Without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State

By Ethan Scheiner

Book Overview

Despite its democratic structure, Japan's government has been dominated by a single party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1955. This book offers an explanation for why, even in the face of great dissatisfaction with the LDP, no opposition party has been able to offer itself as a credible challenger in Japan. Understanding such failure is important for many reasons, from its effect on Japanese economic policy to its implications for what facilitates democratic responsiveness more broadly. The principal explanations for opposition failure in Japan focus on the country's culture and electoral system.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521609690
• ISBN13: 9780521609692
• Release Date: April 2010
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Best Book on Japanese Politics in Years

This is the best book on Japanese politics in years. For years, we Japan experts have known that the opposition parties in Japan had a problem, but the diagnosis was always based more on unique factors of each party or the strength of the ruling LDP. Now Scheiner comes along and provides a systematic and creative answer to why opposition parties never seem to be able to take power in Japan. His answer--a vicious circle based on the LDP's access to pork barrel that winds up depriving the oppositon parties of reasons for local politicians to join them, giving a huge advantage to the LDP to stay in power--is brilliant and probably right. He makes his case with detailed evidence from Japan, using just enough simple statistics to be persuasive, and confining more sophisticated methodologies to an appendix for the expert. Scheiner is one of those rare political scientists who is comparative, methodologically sophisticated but also a real country expert. If you want to understand one major dimension of Japanese politics, read this book.

Excellent Analysis of Why the LDP Won and the Opposition Lost in Japan

This is an excellent book. It fundamentally challenges scholars understanding of one of the most interesting party phenomena in industrialized democracies: the long-term dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in party politics or Japanese democracy. Scheiner is also a gifted writer, so the book is often a pleasure to read.