Ending the LDP Hegemony: Party Cooperation in Japan. By Ray Christensen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000. 228p. $52.00 cloth, $27.95 paper.

Abstract

The Japanese party system has been in flux in recent years. In 1993, two groups defected from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and joined with the opposition to form a broadly based coalition government. A year later, the LDP regained power by creating a coalition government with its ideological opponent, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). Both events shocked virtually everyone at the time. The LDP had been in power for so long-almost 40 years-that it seemed almost inconceivable that it could lose power. For just as long, the JSP had been the main opposition. By the 2000 election, a dozen parties had come and gone, the JSP's strength dropped to a very small fraction of what it was a decade earlier, and the LDP had to turn to various coalition partners to maintain its control of government. All this is quite puzzling to even close watchers of Japanese politics, because party politics, especially the role of opposition parties, has been a relatively understudied area. For those who want to make sense of how these events came to pass, Ray Christensen's Ending the LDP Hegemony will be very helpful.