Policy and structure

The LDP can best be described as conservative to moderate in its political ideology. It has a broad appeal similar to the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States; just as there are conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans in the United States, the LDP embraces a wide spectrum from right-wing nationalists to relatively liberal, progressive politicians. Splits within the party on such issues as the constitution, the military, and foreign policy are often generational, with younger politicians supporting some form of constitutional reform and older politicians expressing a more cautious attitude.

The party has focused on providing a favourable environment for business, endorsing low taxes, and supporting the development of Japanese industry through government subsidies and protectionist trade policies (particularly from the 1950s to ’70s). In foreign affairs, the LDP has been a strong and consistent ally of the United States, though tensions have arisen over the specifics of the security alliance (e.g., over U.S. military bases in Japan, the presence of nuclear weapons, relations with China, and Japan’s military contributions to East Asian security) and over economic relations. By the late 20th century a consensus within the LDP had emerged in favour of revising Japan’s constitution to allow the Japanese military to play a more significant role in international peacekeeping.

For much of its history, the LDP was built on a system of factions based on personal ties between politicians and faction bosses rather than ideology. Tanaka, notably, used massive amounts of money to attract prospective politicians to his faction, thus giving him a strategic advantage in battles for LDP leadership positions and, ultimately, control over who became the country’s prime minister. In periods of scandal or crisis, however, LDP leaders have turned away from factional battles and have selected politicians with greater public appeal in order to burnish the party’s tarnished reputation. Miki Takeo in 1974, Kaifu Toshiki in 1989, and Koizumi in 2001 were all made party president not because they led the most powerful faction but because they possessed reformist credentials that would help boost LDP popularity. Koizumi’s reforms considerably weakened the faction structure of the LDP, though the question remains as to whether the factions will reemerge as important features of the LDP’s internal politics.

Koizumi also tried to reform the LDP by forcing changes in the party’s traditional campaign methods. LDP politicians traditionally have won victories by building personal support organizations (koenkai), which were nurtured by large amounts of money, intimate constituency service, and extensive public works projects built in the districts of LDP politicians. LDP electoral success was also built on the support of agricultural households and small shopkeepers, and the party was popular with certain new religions and with military, veterans’, business, and construction groups. By the last decades of the 20th century, the relative size of these groups had begun to decline, however, and the number of unaffiliated voters had grown. Koizumi’s reforms thus targeted unaffiliated urban voters by promising to cut back on so-called pork-barrel spending and by reviving the economy through deregulation and privatization. Such reforms tended to alienate some traditional LDP voting blocs by reducing the benefits that they customarily accrued from the political system. Thus, the LDP found its support stagnating or declining in rural areas, its traditional power base, and increasing in urban areas, areas historically the stronghold of the opposition.