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Paper short abstract

The paper examines the effect of LDP factionalisation on Japan's foreign affairs decision-making ability in 1980-82 period, characterised by one of the most intense phases of LDP factionalism. The research provides insights into the impact of domestic institutions on the formation of foreign policy.

Paper long abstract

In contemporary International Relations, neorealism has been the dominant realist theory for explaining state decision-making in international politics. Over the past two decades, this approach has guided research on Japan’s foreign policy, particularly in Japan’s relations with China and the U.S. However, the exclusive focus on structural factors fails to fully account for Japan's predominantly restrained and reactive foreign policy in the face of threats from external powers. Other realist approaches, such as neoclassical realism—especially its focus on the impact of elite fragmentation on foreign affairs decision-making and unit-level characteristics—have been largely overlooked in analyses of Japan’s foreign affairs decision-making.

This study presents the results of a scrutiny of the relatively neglected 1980-82 period of Japanese foreign policy formation, marked by arguably one of the most intense phases of factionalism within the then-ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japanese political history. Using the case study, I argue that foreign policy-making was weakened by the intra-party rivalry among several powerful factions, rooted in unique institutional forms developed within the LDP. Applying the theory of neoclassical realism and drawing on available internal party reports, diplomatic bluebooks, and Cabinet records, my results demonstrate how elite fragmentation constrained Japan's ability to address external challenges, such as the shift in the U.S. policy under President Reagan towards Japan.

The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the institutional power of factions in overall decision-making and to refining the neoclassical theory of IR by incorporating the role of domestic political institutions.

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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the role of governing parties in Japan’s foreign and security policymaking by focusing on the formulation of the National Security Strategy (NSS) under the Abe and Kishida administrations.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines the role of governing parties in Japan’s foreign and security policymaking by focusing on the formulation of the National Security Strategy (NSS) under the Abe and Kishida administrations. Existing scholarship often portrays Japan’s security policy as an executive-dominated domain, emphasizing the centralization of authority in the Prime Minister’s Office and the expansion of prime ministerial leadership. While this literature captures significant institutional developments, it tends to understate the continued involvement of governing parties in shaping high-stakes strategic decisions.

To address this gap, the paper integrates insights from Principal–Agent (PA) theory and the Party Government perspective. PA theory conceptualizes governing parties as collective principals tasked with monitoring and constraining executive agents, but it also highlights the structural limits of such control in policy areas characterized by high information asymmetry and executive discretion. The Party Government approach, by contrast, emphasizes the organizational functions of governing parties in coordinating internal preferences, absorbing conflict, and providing political justification for government decisions. Rather than treating these approaches as competing explanations, this study advances a dual-function framework in which governing parties perform both control-oriented and coordination-oriented roles, with the relative balance between these functions varying according to prime ministerial leadership conditions.

Empirically, the paper conducts a comparative, process-oriented analysis of the NSS under the Abe and Kishida administrations. Drawing on official policy documents, party-level deliberations, and contemporaneous media reports, it traces governing party involvement across different stages of the policy process. The analysis suggests that under the Abe administration’s strong, centralized leadership, governing parties primarily served as mechanisms for absorbing conflict and legitimation, helping to internalize dissent and transform potentially contentious security reforms into party-backed policies. Under the Kishida administration, by contrast, governing party organizations played a more visible role as arenas of coordination and balancing, reflecting more constrained leadership conditions and heightened intra-party and coalition considerations.

As a preliminary study, the findings aim to establish the plausibility of this dual-function framework and lay the groundwork for future research on party–executive relations in foreign and security policy across parliamentary systems.

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Paper short abstract

This paper examines how institutionalized factions shape cabinet survival before and after the 1994 electoral reform. Using survival analysis of Japanese cabinets from 1958 to 2023, it shows how electoral rules change the relationship between factionalism and government durability.

Paper long abstract

Factionalism has been a defining feature of Japanese party politics, yet its implications for cabinet survival remain contested. While intra-party factions are often portrayed as sources of conflict and instability, postwar Japanese governments have frequently combined highly institutionalized factional structures with relatively durable cabinets. This paper revisits the relationship between factionalism and cabinet survival by examining how electoral institutions shape factional dynamics within governing parties.

Japan offers a particularly suitable case for addressing this question. For much of the postwar period, Japanese cabinets operated under the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system, which encouraged intra-party competition and strengthened factional organization within governing parties. The 1994 electoral reform, which introduced a mixed-member majoritarian system, fundamentally altered these incentives by centralizing candidate selection and resource allocation under party leadership. This institutional shift provides an opportunity to examine whether changes in electoral rules transformed the role of factions in sustaining or undermining cabinet survival.

Building on research on Japanese party factions, cabinet survival, and electoral institutions, this paper argues that factionalism is not inherently destabilizing. Instead, its impact on cabinet survival depends on whether electoral rules facilitate bargaining and coordination between party leaders and factions or disrupt established patterns of intra-party equilibrium. The empirical analysis draws on an original dataset covering Japanese cabinets from 1958 to 2023 and employs Cox proportional hazards models to examine cabinet termination. The key explanatory variables are the degree of factionalization within governing parties and the post-1994 electoral reform, alongside standard political and economic controls. By comparing pre- and post-reform periods, the analysis demonstrates how electoral rules change the relationship between factionalism and government durability.

By situating Japanese factional politics within an institutional framework, this paper contributes to debates in Japanese political studies while engaging broader comparative discussions on government stability. It also invites feedback on how electoral reform reshaped factional bargaining and leadership authority in postwar Japan.

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The 2022 assassination of Shinzō Abe exposed the clientelist ties between Japan’s LDP and the Unification Church. Using systems theory, the case exemplifies how parasitic structural couplings are inherent to clientelism and subsequently collapse under public scrutiny, restoring order through crisis.

Paper long abstract

The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe on 8 July 2022 brought the previously covert politico-religious clientelist relationship between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the 'New Religion' Unification Church (UC) to public attention. The perpetrator, Tetsuya Yamagami, attributed his motive to the disruptive impact of the UC on his family’s financial and interpersonal stability. According to his assessment, this was made possible by the political legitimization and structural protection that the LDP and especially Abe had granted the UC.

In clientelist relationships, client and patron monitor one another with regard to resources advantageous for their own structural development. The LDP translated the UC’s resources (personnel, finances, information, and mobilization capacity) into electoral and administrative benefits, while the UC translated political prestige, lobbying influence, and protection from regulatory oversight into support for its dogma. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory, the clientelist relationship can thus be analyzed as a form of structural coupling. Typical for such couplings, it remained functional as long as it remained concealed. However, such clientelist arrangements are only possible by accessing parasitic resource extraction from third-party systems – in this case, money from the family system. Building on Michel Serres’ concept of the parasite, it becomes evident that such precarious strains inevitably lead to the clientelist relationship becoming publicly visible – exemplified by the assassination of Abe. This resulted in scandal, a loss of legitimacy for the LDP, and attempts at political disentanglement, which in turn led to a (temporary) suspension of relations.

Thus, the guiding hypothesis is that the case exemplifies how parasitic dynamics and structural coupling are inherent to clientelism. They operate in a corrupting manner, yet also (unintentionally) restore political order through destabilization and subsequent implosion.