1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Change and Continuity of Legitimacy in Postwar Japanese Political System
| Project/Area Number |
07620066
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Politics
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| Research Institution | Aoyama Gakuin University |
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Principal Investigator |
TANAKA Aiji Aoyama Gakuin University, Faculty of Law, Professor, 法学部, 教授 (40188280)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1995 – 1997
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| Keywords | system support / the 1955 Party System / Political Attitudes |
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| Research Abstract |
This research focused on Japanese public attitudes toward the political system as well as party system of postwar Japan. This research tested the phypothesis that Japanese voters supported the LDP leading government not because they supported the LDP itself but because they supported Japanese political system as a whole. In other words, the "1955 Party System" of postwar Japan (55-nen Taisei) was maintained by the electorate because Japanese public supported the basic political system of postwar Japan under which the "1955 Party System" (i.e., the LDP dominant party system) was operated.
To test this hypothesis, I examined Japanese public opinion survey data from the 1950s through the 1995, and found the following findings. After the end of World War II,Japanese public became supportive of the postwar democratic system regardless of which party they support in the 1950s and early 1960s. Then, after the high growth period, Japanese public was increasingly accepting the LDP dominant party system. However, they basically accepted the polotocal system as a whole, but all of them did not necessary support the LDP itself.
In the same token, while the Liberal Democratic Party's dominance in Japanese political system ended in July 1993, the public attitudes toward the political system stayd the same and Japanese public did not choose the LDP but chose the coalition government which maintained the same political system.
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