Robert J. Pekkanen is Professor at the University of Washington, USA.  

Steven R. Reed is Professor at Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan. 

Ethan Scheiner is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis, USA. 

Daniel M. Smith is Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University, USA.

Read Chapter 3, "The 2017 Election Results: An Earthquake, a Typhoon, and Another Landslide" Free until July 31.

On October 22, 2017, Japanese voters went to the polls for the third time in five years for an election for the House of Representatives (the lower house of the national assembly, the Diet). And for the third time, the result was an overwhelming victory for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) under Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. The LDP won 284 of the 465 seats up for grabs, and together with coalition partner Kōmeitō control more than two-thirds of the Diet—a significant fraction since a two-thirds supermajority is required to revise the Constitution. The opposition to Abe’s LDP-led government remains in disarray following the election, split between two alternatives––the conservative Party of Hope and the liberal Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP)––both of which formed just a few weeks before the election following a hasty disbandment of lower house members of the previous main opposition party, the Democratic Party (DP). In calling the election when he did, a year earlier than constitutionally mandated, Abe once again demonstrated his mastery of political timing.

Add the 2013 and 2016 LDP victories in elections for the upper chamber, the House of Councillors, and Abe’s record now counts five election wins in just under five years. This half-decade record of stable victories for the LDP under Abe represents a remarkable run. Abroad, the rise of China and the threat of North Korea—a reason given by Abe for calling the early election—are a major concern for most Japanese. Many voters are also worried about the future of the core security and trade relationships with the United States since the 2016 election of President Donald J. Trump. At home, fears of weak domestic political leadership seem to have receded with Abe’s five years of stability.

LDP dominance under Abe represents a break from the pattern that characterized Japanese party politics throughout the 2000s. In 1994, Japan adopted a new electoral system designed to produce a two-party system with alternation in power. From the first election under the new system in 1996 through 2009, the fifth election, Japanese politics largely appeared to move in this direction, as the LDP gradually lost its grip on seats and ultimately lost control of government to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the precursor to the DP. However, the inexperienced and internally divided DPJ failed to govern the country effectively during its three years in power, and the story of elections and party competition since 2012 seems to contradict expectations.

The Party of Hope and the CDP offer different paths toward mounting a new challenge to the LDP’s dominance. The CDP offers a liberal alternative that is opposed to Constitutional revision or more assertive security policies. The Party of Hope offers a more “realistic” alternative with policies that are predominantly variations on existing LDP themes. Both parties are more internally coherent in terms of ideology and policy positions than the DPJ and DP had been. Voters who wanted to vote “not the LDP” in the 2017 election were split on which new opposition represented the ideal alternative, and many voters simply chose to stay home. It is as yet still unclear whether further maneuvering by opposition politicians since the election will clarify the choice for voters in the future.