Party Organizations in Multiethnic and Homogenous Societies: Comparing India and Japan

Abstract

How do party organizations respond to newly evolving social groups? Research on Indian party organizations reveals that in multiethnic societies with uneven modernization between social groups, internally competitive parties respond better to newly evolving groups. Moreover, it is claimed: the same dynamic works vis--vis homogenous societies with cleavages based on economic differences; and, the pattern holds regardless of differences in electoral institutions. This study examines these claims by testing whether factional competition correlated with recruitment into Japan`s Liberal Democratic Party in 1972 and 1983. Japan had a single-nontransferable-vote system with multi-member districts, while the research on India assumes a first-past-the-post system with single-member districts. This study conducts a difference of means test on the population of new and old politicians in the LDP in 1972 and 1983 with a pooled variance adjustment to account for differences in populations` size. The findings show that intra-party competition and recruitment are not correlated in Japan, thus tentatively rejecting both claims.