Abstract
This paper is a case study of organizational transformation in a prefectural party unit of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Ibaraki prefecture was one of the bulwarks of LDP dominance and the prefectural organization (“kenren”) had been proud of own strength. But, at the defeat in the 2009 gubernatorial election, many conservative local politician and interest organizations were against the “kenren” and supported the incumbent governor, Masaru Hashimoto, and let him win. The defeat broke the previous regime at the “kenren”, and the Ibaraki-kenren was forced to rebuild its organization and to try transforming itself from being a prefectural member-centered organization to becoming a more inclusive organization. The purpose of this article analyzes the process of the gubernatorial defeat and the organizational reformation in the kenren following that defeat, to claim the necessity of further accumulation of analysis about local organizations of political parties, not only from perspective of national level confrontation among parties, but also local conflict among local politicians and interest organizationswith a peculiar dynamism.
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