Contemporary Politics in Japan, by Junnosuke Masumi and Lonny E. Carlile

Abstract

This study by one of Japan's foremost political scientists examines the unfolding relationship between the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the state and the forces of industrialization in Japan from the 1950s through the 1980s. Masumi argues that Japan's rapid economic growth was promoted by an iron triangle among three actors - the LDP, the bureaucracy and big business. This growth fueled the enormous social changes of the 1960s and 70s, which in turn forced the transformation of the iron triangle and the basis of party power. In a final chapter Masumi reflects on the end of LDP rule in 1993.