Your browser does not support the PubReader view.
Go to this page to see a list of supporting browsers.
International Area Studies Review
[ Article ]
International Area Studies Review - Vol. 28, No. 3, pp.301-333
ISSN: 2233-8659 (Print)
Print publication date 25 Sep 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69473/iasr.2025.28.3.301

Factions, Policy, and Electoral Interests in the Selection of LDP Leaders: Evidence from the 2021 and 2024 Presidential Elections

Masahiko Asano ; Dennis Patterson*
Takushoku University, Japan
Department of Political Science, Texas Tech University, TX

Correspondence to: *Email: dennis.patterson@ttu.edu

Abstract

The president of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has long been said to be chosen according to a “factional logic,” but after the electoral reform of 1994, much research has been devoted to the question of just how influential factional affiliations continue to be in this process. Some studies have suggested that factional influences have diminished, while others have argued that factions remain significant, leaving no definitive conclusion. This paper contributes to this dabate by using unique data from two LDP presidential elections, one held in 2021 and the other in 2024. Our analysis of these data considers the influence of LDP voting members’ policy preferences and electoral concerns, in addition to factional affiliations, and our results indicate that, while still influential in determining who becomes the LDP’s leader, the importance of factional affiliations has varied across LDP Presidential elections, manifesting more complicated patterns of influence than suggested in the scholarly literature, but also declining in importance in the 2024 LDP presidential election.

Keywords:

Factions, Japan, Liberal democratic party, Elections

AI Acknowledgment

Generative AI or AI-assisted technologies were not used in any way to prepare, write, or complete essential authoring tasks in this manuscript.

Conflicting Interests

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest in this research.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

  • Allison, P. D. (2014). Measures of logistic regresson. Paper 1485-2014. University of Pennsylvania.
  • Arslantas, D., & Arslantas, S. (2021). The evolution of the party model in Turkey: From cadre to cartel parties. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 50(3), 609–626. [https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2021.1990745]
  • Baerwald, H. (1974). Japan’s parliament: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.
  • Beer, S. H. (1982). Modern British politics: Parties and pressure groups in the collective age (3rd ed.). W.W. Norton.
  • Belloni, F., & Bellar, D. (1976). The study of party factions as competitive political organizations. The Western Political Quarterly, 29(4), 531–549. [https://doi.org/10.1177/106591297602900405]
  • Cohen, J., Cohen, P., West, S., & Aiken, L. (2002). Applied regression analysis for the behavioral sciences (3rd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  • Cox, G. (1997). Making votes count. Cambridge University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174954]
  • Cox, G., Rosenbluth, F., & Thies, M. (1999). Electoral reform and the fate of factions: The case of Japan’s liberal democratic party. British Journal of Political Science, 29, 33–56. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123499000022]
  • Croissant, A., & Vokel, P. (2010). Party system type and party system institutionalization: Comparing new democracies in East and Southeast Asia. Party Politics, 18(2), 235–265. [https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068810380096]
  • Curtis, G. L. (1988). The Japanese way of politics. Columbia University Press.
  • Curtis, G. L. (1999). The logic of Japanese politics: Leaders, institutions, and the limits of change. Columbia University Press.
  • Ehrhardt, G. (2006). Factional influence on the 2001 LDP primaries: A quantitative analysis. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 7(1), 59–69. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109905002100]
  • Fukui, H. (1970). Party in power: The Japanese liberal democrats and policy making. University of California Press. [https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520329423]
  • Hamilton, A., Madison, J., & Jay, J. (1961). The federalist papers. The New American Library of American Literature. [https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674332133]
  • Hanmer, M. J., & Kalkan, K. O. (2013). Behind the curve: Clarifying the best approach to calculating predicted probabilities and marginal effects from limited dependent variable models. American Journal of Political Science, 57(1), 263–277. [https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00602.x]
  • Hrebenar, R. J., & Nakamura, A. (2000). The liberal democratic party still the most powerful party in Japan. In R. J. Hrebenar (Ed.), Japan’s new party system. Westview Press.
  • Iida, K., Ueda, M., & Matsubayashi, T. (2010). Sesshu Giin no Jissho Bunseki (An empirical analysis of inherited politicians). Senkyo Kenkyu, 26(2), 139–153.
  • Kabashima, I., & Steele, G. (2007). How Junichiro Koizumi seized the leadership of Japan’s liberal democratic party. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 8(1), 95–111. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109907002496]
  • Katz, R. S., & Mair, P. (1995). Changing models of party organization and party democracy: The emergence of the cartel party. Party Politics, 1(1), 5–28. [https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068895001001001]
  • Koellner, P. (2002). Upper house elections in Japan and the power of the organized vote. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 3(1), 113–137. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S1468109902000166]
  • Koellner, P. (2004). Factionalism in Japanese political parties revisited or how do factions in the LDP and DPJ differ? Japan Forum, 16(1), 93–104. [https://doi.org/10.1080/0955580032000189348]
  • Koellner, P. (2009). Japanese lower house campaigns in transition: Manifest changes or fleeting fads? Journal of East Asian Studies, 9(1), 121–149. [https://doi.org/10.1017/S1598240800002836]
  • Knapp, A., & Wright, V. (2006). The government and politics of France (5th ed.). Routledge. [https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203003497]
  • Krauss, E. S., & Pekkanen, R. J. (2011). The rise and fall of Japan’s LDP: Political party organizations as historical institutions. Cornell University Press. [https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801460029]
  • McFadden, D. (1974). Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. In P. Zarembka (Ed.), Frontiers of econometrics. Academic Press.
  • Nakakita, K. (2017). Jiminto: “Ikkyo” no Jitsuzo. Chuo Koronsha.
  • Nagelkerke, N. J. D. (1991). A note on a general definition of the coefficient of determination. Biometrika, 78, 691–692. [https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/78.3.691]
  • Nemoto, K. (2021). Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party: Changes in party organization under Shizō Abe. The Oxford handbook of Japanese politics (pp. 161–181). Oxford University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190050993.013.3]
  • Nevell, J. (2000). Parties and democracy in Italy. Routledge.
  • Nicholas, R. W. (2004). Factions: A comparative analysis. In M. Banton (Ed.), Political systems and the distribution of power. Routledge.
  • Park, C.-H. (2001). Factional dynamics in Japan’s LDP since political reform. Asian Survey, 31(3), 428–461. [https://doi.org/10.1525/as.2001.41.3.428]
  • Pempel, T. J. (1990). Uncommon democracies: The one-party dominant regimes. Cornell University Press. [https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501746161]
  • Przeworski, A., & Sprague, J. (1986). Paper stones: A history of electoral socialism. University of Chicago Press.
  • Ramseyer, J. M., & Rosenbluth, F. (1993). Japan’s political marketplace. Cambridge University Press.
  • Reed, S. (1984). Factions in the 1978 LDP presidential primary. Journal of Northeast Asian Studies, 3, 31–38. [https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03025099]
  • Richardson, B. (1997). Japanese democracy: Power, coordination, and performance. Yale University Press.
  • Rosenbluth, F. M., & Thies, M. F. (2010). Japan transformed: Political change and economic restructuring. Princeton University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400835096]
  • Sartori, G. (1976). Parties and party systems: A framework for analysis. Cambridge University Press.
  • Smith, D. M. (2018). Dynasties and democracy: The inherited incumbency advantage in Japan. Stanford University Press. [https://doi.org/10.11126/stanford/9781503605053.001.0001]
  • Thayer, N. B. (1969). How the conservatives rule Japan. Princeton University Press.
  • Thies, M. F. (2002). Changing how the Japanese vote: The promise and pitfalls of the 1994 electoral system reform. In J. F. S. Hsieh & D. Newman (Eds.), How Asia votes. Chatham House.
  • Woodall, B. (1996). Japan under construction: Corruption, politics, and public works. University of California Press. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-997-1093-0]