GHOST-HUNTING:LOCALPARTY
ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
James J. Foster*
PARTY ORGANIZATION
typically has been described as
strong or weak based on an evaluation of such variables as number of
party branches and size of party membership and budget. The assumption has been that the more branches and the larger the membership and
financial resources a party could command, the greater its presumed
strength. But such analysis of party organization must confront the paradox in Japan that a theoretically weak Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
wins more than 40% of the vote in national elections, while an organizationally strong Japan Communist party (JCP) can barely poll 10%.
Leon Epstein' encountered a similar problem in his studies of American political parties, finding them with few exceptions-to have weak
and intermittent organizational structures. This led Epstein to argue that
political parties would not inevitably develop the massive apparatus that
Maurice Duverger2 and others thought were characteristic of modern political parties. Epstein went on to suggest that since the primary function
of political parties was to capture office, they normally could be expected
to build organizational structures consistent with the electoral task they
faced. He called the weakness of the U.S. parties a consequence of American federalism and the presidential election system.
Epstein's approach is useful for analyzing the local organizations of
Japanese parties. Japanese election law coupled with the competitive patterns encouraged by multi-member election districts, in which local and
national candidates stand for office, have led Japanese parties to develop
strong and exclusive ties with particular interest groups.3 As a result,
political parties in Japan have not had to represent all voters in a geographic area. Rather their local organizations have acted to control the
*Research on which this article is based was made possible by a dissertation research
grant from the Japan Foundation in 1978. Many thanks to George Tanber of Daniel
J. Edelman, Inc., for his editorial assistance. The opinions expressed here are my own
and not necessarily those of the U.S. Department of State.
843
? 1982
by The Regents
of the University
0004-4687/82/090843
of California
+ 15$00.50
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ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII, No. 9, September 1982
financial and other resources of interest groups most closely affiliated
with them, and to bring group members to the polls.
In this article, I will describe the organizations of the five major Japanese political parties in Hyogo prefecture and examine how the organizational structures developed by the parties are related to the electoral
challenges they have faced in the prefecture. Specifically, I will discuss
how the distinctive interest bases of the parties in Hyogo have shaped (1)
the organizational patterns of party sub-units; (2) the size and composition of party membership; and (3) the sources of party income and pattern of party expenditures.
Hyogo is a large prefecture (3.5 million registered voters) in the
Kansai region of Japan, fronting on both the still-rural Sea of Japan and
highly industrialized Pacific coasts. Its five election districts for the House
of Representatives range in size from Hyogo 5 (243,000 voters and three
seats) to Hyogo 2 (1.1 million voters and five seats). All five major political parties are active in the prefecture and have elected candidates to both
local and national office.
The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has enjoyed the support of a
wide range of commercial, farm, and professional associations in Hyogo,
especially the 67,000-member firms of the Hyogo Chamber of Commerce, the 198,000 members of the Hyogo Farm Cooperative Association,
and the more than 2,000 physicians who make up the Hyogo Medical
Association. The Japan Socialist Party (JSP) has based itself in the 235,000-member Hyogo SjhyJ labor federation, and the Democratic Socialist
Party (DSP) has been attached to the rival 135,000-member DJmei
federation. The Komeito (KOM) has relied on the organizational and
financial resources of the 350,000 members of the Sikagakkai, a militant
lay organization affiliated with the Nichiren Buddhist sect. The Japan
Communist Party (JCP), alone among the Hyogo parties, has not had
the regular support of a major independent interest group. It has succeeded by building a network of front groups staffed by party members.
The most important of these are the Democratic Students Association
(6,800 members), the New Japan Women's Association (4,700 members),
the Democratic Chamber of Commerce (26,000 members), and the Democratic Medical Care Association (17,000 members). The party can also
draw on the resources of the 129,000-strong Sunday readership of the
party newspaper, Akahata (Red Flag).
The LDP currently holds two of the prefecture's six House of Councillors (HC) seats, nine of the twenty House of Representatives (HR)
seats, and fifty-five of the ninety-one Prefectural Assembly (PA) seats. It
can muster in elections a minimum of 700,000 votes. The JSP has two
HC, six HR, and twelve PA seats. It normally polls close to 400,000 votes
in prefecture-wide elections. The DSP has no HC seats and only two HR
and seven PA positions. The party polls 300,000 votes in most elections.
The Komeito has one HC, two HR, and six PA seats and can mobilize a
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
845
minimum of 350,000 votes. The JCP has one HC, one HR, and six PA
seats and can count on 250,000 Communist votes.4
The OrganizationalPatterns of Party Sub-units
The prefecture is the first organizational subdivision of Japanese political parties (see Table 1). Although the power exercised by party
prefectural units differs in some respects, the units implement national
party directives, coordinate activities of lower party units, formulate party
policies on problems specific to a prefecture, supervise the work of partyendorsed assemblymen, and recommend the endorsement of Diet candidates to the national parties.
TABLE 1: Organizational Patterns of Hyogo Political Parties
LDP
JSP
DSP
KOM
JCP
Prefectural
Office
Prefectural
Office
Prefectural
Office
Prefectural
Office
Prefectural
Office
/38So-s/hibu
51 City/Town
ShibU
10Uin
S/libu
5 Ku-rengokai
42Uin
Shibu
5 S-1hibn
63 Gakka
Shibu
11 Chiku-iinkai\
950Unio/Front
Group\
Shibu
Each of the five major national political parties maintains an office in
Kobe, the capital of Hyogo prefecture, with a full-time staff varying in
size from two for the DSP to some forty for the JCP. All parties, except
the LDP, have some intermediary organizational units between their
Hyogo prefectural offices and the lowest level of party organization. They
are labeled variously ku-rengokai (DSP), sJ-shibu (JSP and KOM), and
chiku-iinkai (JCP).
Both the socialist parties and the Communists have required these
intermediate units to maintain an office and a full-time staff. The Communists have had better success in realizing this goal than the JSP because they have no more chiku-iinkai than the size of their membership
could justify. The eleven Communist chiku-iinkai in Hyogo have separate offices and full-time staffs ranging from two to twenty-six employees.
In contrast, the Hyogo JSP has strived to place a s&-shibu in every city
and county. The party officially counted sJ-shibu in thirty-eight of forty-
846
ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII, No. 9, September 1982
nine Hyogo cities and counties in 1979. Yet, because of the low number of
members in some areas, only fourteen s5-shibu had offices and half of
these were without paid organizers. The DSP escaped the problems of its
left-wing cousin by setting the more realistic goal for a party of its size of
maintaining one ku-rengokai in each of the five Hyogo HR districts. The
party had an office and a one-man staff in every district in 1979, but this
was accomplished only by borrowing space and personnel from its political base in the D5mei federation.
The Komeito had nine formally designated s&-shibu in Hyogo before
1979, but they had neither a clear geographic nor functional definition.
The s&-shibu were located in cities where the party had a large local
assembly delegation. None had an office or staff, and liaison with the
prefectural office was handled through the personal staff of the s5-shibu
chairman, who was always a senior Komeito assemblymen. In February
1979, the party reduced the number of Komeito sJ-shibu to five, and their
areas of responsibility were set to correspond to the HR election districts.
Yet, as of July 1979, these new s5-shibu still had no office or staff.
The shibu is the lowest level of organization for the Hyogo parties.
The LDP, which has no intermediate organizational unit between the
prefectural office and the shibu, had eighty-one shibu in 1979 nearly
one for every city and town in Hyogo. With their geographic focus, these
shibu included some aspects of the JSP s5-shibu. The other Hyogo parties
had their shibu, for the most part, in either the workplace or within
groups belonging to their political base. In 1979, the one hundred JSP
shibu were located principally in member unions of the S5hy5 federation,
while the forty-one DSP shibu were settled in the Domei federation
unions. The 950 JCP shibu were found largely in Communist affiliated
unions and party front groups, such as the Democratic Chambers of
Commerce, and the sixty-three Komeito shibu were connected with the
S5kagakkai organization.
The different organizational patterns exhibited by the Hyogo parties
can be understood as a product of electoral challenges they faced in the
prefecture. Looking first at the socialist parties, their principal political
problem has been controlling the large Sohy5 and Ddmei union federations. The socialists accomplished this through the successful creation of a
network of shibu within the member unions of these federations in the
1950s. It was only in the late 1960s that the JSP and the DSP began to
contest seriously the control of non-union voters in a geographic area
through the organization of party sub-units, such as ku-rengokai and s&shibu. But efforts to establish these intermediate geographic units in
Hyogo, as measured by paid staff and number of offices, has met with
only limited success. The non-union residents of cities and counties,
where they were placed, have shown little interest in joining parties dominated by union activists. Thus, the nurturing of non-union support by
the socialists continues to be carried out largely on an ad hoc basis by the
campaign organizations of party candidates, who can capitalize on extraunion links, such as school, community club, and church ties.
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
847
The Komeito has been tied even more intimately to its political base
in the Sdkagakkai than the socialists to the unions. When the Komeito
first entered the prefectural political system in 1965, it worked through
the preexisting S5kagakkai organization. A prefectural office of the party
was only opened in 1970, when the national party formally broke with
the Sokagakkai in the wake of public criticism of its relationship with the
militant religious group. Moreover, despite the opening of an independent office, the Komeito s&-shibu and shibu have remained closely connected with the Sokagakkai. Campaigns are run by Sdkagakkai members,
who belong to personal support groups organized by Komeito candidates,
rather than by party members under the direction of the s5-shibui and
shibu.
The JCP, unlike the socialists and the Komeito, is a party without a
clear constituency. As a result, the party has used its shibu network to
establish control over neglected groups, such as non-union workers, small
shopkeepers, and welfare recipients. Coordination of party activities in a
geographic area during campaigns is the work of the chiku-iinkai. Communist party members participate actively in distribution of the daily
JCP paper and underwrite the cost of party staff and offices. Their dedication and loyalty has made the party the most organizationally strong in
Hyogo. But this organizational strength is to some extent the consequence
of the party's failure to undermine the socialists' hold over the unions.
Deprived of their natural constituency among labor, the Communist
leadership has had to build its own political base, a task demanding an
extensive organizational apparatus.
The LDP draws support from almost every group except the unions,
the Sokagakkai, and the Communist front groups. The diverse and fragmented character of its political base has led the LDP to develop a pattern of organization quite different from that of the other parties. The
LDP shibu function to coordinate party activities in a geographic area,
and the k5enkai (personal campaign organizations) of party assemblymen
are responsible for liaison with conservative constituencies.
The LDP did not have a formal network of shibu in Hyogo until
1967. Although the prefectural office had been opened in 1956, when the
national party was organized, conservative local assemblymen preferred
to run as independents or as members of a local non-partisan group,
known as the Kjseikai (The Fair Politics Club), rather than as candidates
endorsed by the party. In national elections, their separate constituencies
were linked to the national party through the koenkai of Diet candidates.
Only after the dissolution of the K5seikai in 1967, following a vote-buying scandal, was the national party leadership able to persuade conservative local assemblymen in Hyogo to incorporate official LDP shibu in
their districts. But these new shibu engaged in little formal activity because they were composed of local conservative assemblymen and their
immediate personal supporters. By creating shibu, the Hyogo LDP simply had formalized the loose relationship existing among conservative elements in the prefecture before the dissolution of the Koseikai.
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ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII, No. 9, September 1982
The LDP leadership has little incentive to bypass conservative assemblymen and directly organize branches in the groups that make up
their political base. The party represents such a diverse coalition of professional and commercial associations, farm cooperatives, and conservative religious and community service groups that mobilizing them for
elections is probably accomplished more effectively through the koenkai
of conservative assemblymen. Moreover, these kdenkai can serve as a useful buffer between the party and its constituency. The close personal ties
which develop between koenkai members and their assembly candidate
may help the LDP sustain a long-term level of support, especially in
cases where the party must favor one group over another in deciding a
policy
question.
Organizational patterns of Hyogo party sub-units have been importantly shaped by the groups toward which the parties have looked for
political support. The socialist parties have located their shibu in the
unions and left the nurturing of the non-union voter to informal efforts
exerted by assembly candidate koenkai. The Komeito, which is affiliated
with the tightly organized S5kagakkai, has yet to begin the task of building an independent organization in the prefecture. In contrast, the Communists can boast of the most efficient party apparatus in Hyogo, but this
reflects in part their lack of support among major prefectural interest
groups. The LDP, with its highly fragmented constituency, has established its shibu structure along geographic lines. Liaison with specific
constituencies is carried out through the koenkai of conservative assembly
candidates.
The Size and Composition of Party Membership
The membership of all Hyogo political parties, except the JCP, has
been small and relatively stable over time. JSP membership in the prefecture has remained around 1,300 members for more than twenty years.
The DSP has carried on its rolls some 800 members since its break with
the JSP in 1960, while the Komeito has claimed approximately 7,000
members from the opening of its prefectural headquarters in 1970. The
Hyogo LDP always reported about 10,000 members between 1967,
when the K5seikai was dissolved, and 1977. An intensive membership
drive in 1978 boosted this total to 44,000, but the gain seems temporary.
All Hyogo parties, again excluding the Communists, have drawn
their membership largely from influential members of large interest
groups in their political bases. The JSP membership has been made up
mostly of top officials in member unions of the S5hy5 federation. Similarly, the DSP has recruited its members from the D5mei federation.
Komeito membership in Hyogo is composed almost exclusively of
Sokagakkai believers, while the LDP has enrolled activists from conservative organizations. The parties have yet to attract the leadership of groups
outside their normal political base into their organizations.
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
849
Communist membership in Hyogo grew from less than 2,000 members in 1960 to some 13,000 by the early 1970s. The party's initial success at attracting members was based on its recruitment from among the
"outs" in the prefecture disgruntled members among large unions' rank
and file, non-union workers in marginal industry, small retailers in less
prosperous shopping centers, and welfare recipients. But since 1974,
when the party redirected its efforts to recruitment of leaders in interest
groups supportive of the other parties, Communist membership has
grown only marginally.
The overall stability in party membership and homogeneity in composition shows the influence of the Hyogo parties' distinctive political
bases. The parties' primary interest in recruiting new members has been
to strengthen their control of the organizational and financial resources of
key groups in their political base. Consequently, the absolute number of
members belonging to a party is not of the first importance. Although the
Hyogo parties may welcome new members attracted by a personal commitment to their program or the charisma of their leadership, these members will influence party decisions only as they control resources
otherwise unavailable to the parties. From this perspective, the membership drive mounted by the LDP in 1978 did little to improve the party's
power position in Hyogo. For among its 30,000 new members, none
could be counted as prominent members of rival political parties' support
groups. The LDP accomplished little more in its membership drive than
to enroll en masse the members of koenkai of conservative politicians,
who were already committed to the party.
The nature of each party's interest base also will influence the kind
of members found in a party and the obligations placed on them in other
ways. Membership in the two socialist parties is limited to upper echelon
union officials, who will join the parties on entering union office and often
leave them on completion of their term. For these officials, membership is
more an outgrowth of their responsibilities in the union movement than
any individual commitment to the socialist program. It allows union officials to pursue in the political arena the same economic gains they seek in
negotiations with management.
LDP and Komeito membership is more candidate oriented. People
join these parties because of personal or interest-based ties to particular
candidates and leave them when the candidates retire. Neither party puts
a high value on party membership. Dues are nominal and the major lines
of communication between the parties and their political bases extend
through their assemblymen. It is important to note, however, that the
LDP and Komeito exhibit similar patterns of membership for quite different reasons. With the LDP, the nature of the party's membership reflects the important role played by party assemblymen in tying together
its fragmented political base, while for the Komeito it is a result of the
monolithic character of the support it receives from the Sokagakkai. Despite the official break between the party and its religious parent group,
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ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII, No. 9, September 1982
the Komeito never has had much incentive to develop an organization
capable of structuring the massive vote it receives in elections. Instead, it
has relied on the informal activities of its assembly candidates, usually
former high Sikagakkai officials, to turn out Sokagakkai believers in elections.
Unfortunately for the JCP, new members usually bring the party
little more than a personal commitment to its programs. If they have organizational ties outside the party, they rarely occupy positions of influence in these groups. This has been a major reason for the failure of the
party in the 1970s to match the growth it enjoyed in the late 1960s.
Moreover, the JCP has had to make heavy demands on the personal resources of its members because of the party's limited organizational and
financial resources. The time and money volunteered by party members
far exceed that required by the other Hyogo parties.
The meaning of membership in the Hyogo parties has, therefore,
been dependent on the type of groups to which each of the parties has
looked for major political support. In the case of the union-based socialist
parties, membership has emerged out of an organizational commitment to
the union movement. With the LDP and the Komeito, membership is the
product of a personal commitment to a particular candidate. In the JCP,
membership results from an ideological commitment to the party's program and demands a great investment of individuals' time and money
because the party lacks the support of any major interest group in the
prefecture.
.Sources of Party Income and Patterns of Party Expenditures
The Hyogo political parties draw financial support from four principal sources: member dues, assessment of party assemblymen, contributions from party support groups and individuals, and funds transferred from the national parties. The nature of the parties' political base
does much to determine which of these sources is most important.
All Hyogo parties require membership dues (see Table 2). However,
these dues amount to a significant source of income only for the JCP. The
LDP and Komeito have a comparatively large membership, but their annual dues are set at a nominal 1,000 yen ($5.00) and 2,000 yen ($10.00),
respectively.5 In contrast, the socialist parties demand considerably more.
The DSP collects 1,000 yen monthly and the JSP requires one percent of
member income. Yet the smaller membership of the socialists means total
revenue from dues falls far short of the JCP.
The Communists, like the JSP, collect one percent of member income as dues. This results in average dues payments of between 18,000
not a small sum for the
yen ($90.00) and 24,000 yen ($120) annually
party's generally poorly paid members. Additionally, the JCP is able to
command contributions from wealthier party members and members of
party front organizations. Contributions to the party in 1979 totalled 270
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
851
million yen ($1.3 million). Together, party dues and contributions represented 69% of JCP income.
TABLE 2: Hyogo Political Party 1979 Income and Expenditures
Party
Japan Communist Party
Liberal Democratic Party
Democratic Socialist Party
Japan Socialist Party
Komeito
Income Dues
595a
238
109
93
28
141
103
8
21
7
Expenditures Personnel Political Activities
574
262
222
27
108
86
61
1ob
257
190
77
41
0
51
18
SOURCE: Hyogo Prefectural Elections Commission
ain millions of yen.
bestimate from interviews with party officials.
Such heavy dependence on member dues and individual contributions is not surprising. Since the Communists have lacked an organized
political base, they have developed as a party of individual rather than
organizationally based membership. Regular and significant financial
support from the membership has been essential to continued JCP success. This has not been true for the other parties. The farm cooperatives,
the commercial associations, the unions, and the Sikagakkai have an organizational existence apart from the parties they support, ensuring their
role as a political force in Hyogo. Members are important to the nonCommunist parties only to the extent that they provide them access to the
financial resources of these organizations.
Lacking sufficient income from member dues, the socialist parties
have depended heavily on the assessment of party-endorsed assemblymen
for their day-to-day expenses, collecting between 3 and 10% of legislators'
salaries from town assemblies through the Diet. These assessments provided 32 million yen ($150,000) to the JSP and 36 million yen ($180,000) to the DSP in 1979. Union contributions also have been a key source
of funds for the prefectural socialists. Although the union leadership expects the socialist parties to use party dues, assemblymen assessments,
and individual contributions to maintain an office and a skeleton staff,
they provide substantial assistance in elections. The unions formally endorse socialist candidates and assess obligatory campaign contributions
upon union members. They also will pressure management, when possible, into extending financial support. The DSP has been very successful
in this effort by using management's fears of the Communists.
The LDP presents a different picture. The party assesses the salaries of its assemblymen, but the size of the assessment and the amount
collected as a percentage of total party income is small by socialist standards. The LDP can afford to make less stringent demands on its assemblymen and members because it can depend on the financial support
of major corporate interests in Hyogo. Their contributions, through the
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ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII, No. 9, September 1982
national party and the prefectural party's own fund-raising events, have
been an important source of income for the federation. Corporate contributions in 1979 came to 90 million yen ($450,000) and represented
nearly 40% of the party's budget.
The Komeito organization in Hyogo lacks an independent financial
base. Its dues scarcely return enough to cover the expense of maintaining
a roster of membership. The money assessed against assemblymen is
gathered directly by the national headquarters. The prefectural party
does receive contributions, but these are not made on a regular basis and
usually come from party assemblymen who reimburse the prefectural office for expenses incurred during elections. With the Hyogo Komeito's
1979 income a mere 28 million yen ($140,000), the party's eight-member
prefectural office could function only because salaries were paid directly
by the national party.
The Hyogo parties' largest expenditures are for personnel and political activities. Personnel expenditures refer to the salaries paid to permanent staff by the parties. Political activities include a wide range of
activities directed toward developing support for party candidates and
programs even the hiring of temporary campaign workers. The patterns of party expenditures in these two areas are quite different and
again reflect the parties' special ties to particular interest groups.
Staff salaries for the ten employees of the Hyogo LDP amounted to
only 12% of the money spent by the party in the prefecture in 1979, while
money spent on political activities totaled 85% of the party's 222 million
yen ($1.1 million) budget. The low LDP staff budget underscores the
party's reliance on conservative assemblymen koenkai to mediate the
party's relationship with its varied and fragmented constituencies. The
formal LDP organization has functioned mainly to coordinate the activities of these assemblymen in prefecture-wide and national elections.
Indeed, a substantial portion of the money spent on political activities
(27% in 1979) has been given to the assemblymen to gain support of the
groups they represent for the party's national candidates.
The JSP's expenditures present a different pattern from the Hyogo
LDP. Party expenditures for a nineteen-member staff came to 47% of its
93 million yen ($465,000) budget in 1979. Political activities at 21% of
budget were less than half this amount. The higher JSP expenses for
personnel were due to its complex relationship with SohyJ. Within the
union federation, the vocal opposition of a militant Communist minority
faction has prevented the party from publicly using union facilities or
staff in its political activities. At the same time, the size and stability of
federation support for the party has limited electoral incentives to cultivate aggressively non-union constituencies through propaganda and other
political activities. This has been delegated largely to individual JSP candidate koenkai.
In sharp contrast, DSP staff expenditures were only 9% of the
party's 1979 budget, while political activities total 71%. This reversal ap-
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
853
pears to be rooted in differences between the D5mei and Sohy5 federations. First, the DSP does not have to contend with the presence of a
Communist minority within D5mei. The staff and offices of the federation are at the party's disposal in Hyogo. This has greatly reduced the
DSP's need to maintain a separate organization of its own. Second,
D5mei is smaller than SohyJ and its support, particularly in recent years,
has not been sufficient to elect DSP candidates. As a result, the party has
developed ties with corporations interested in a moderate alternative to
the LDP. In order to attract new support, the DSP has used corporate
money to run several slick election efforts and to sponsor campaigns for
popular conservative causes, such as the return of the Northern Territories.6
The JCP spends more in Hyogo than all the other parties combined.
In 1979, personnel expenditures for the Communists came to 262 million
yen ($1.3 million), while political activities totalled 257 million yen ($1.3
million). The Komeito lies at the other extreme. Prefectural staff salaries
are paid directly by the national headquarters and expenditures for political activities in 1979 were a modest 51 million yen ($225,000), the
smallest of any party. The very different expenditure patterns of the two
parties reflect the striking dissimilarity of their support bases. The JCP
cannot depend on the support of a well-organized political base. It has
had to spend enormous sums on personnel and political activities in order
to weld the "outs" of the prefecture into a coherent political force. The
Komeito, on the other hand, has had in the Sokagakkai a well-disciplined
political ally and has been content to leave the mobilization of this base to
the informal support groups surrounding its assembly candidates. The
monolithic character of the party's Sokagakkai base has reduced its incentive to build an independent organizational structure and the financial
base necessary to support it.
The sources of income and the patterns of expenditures for the
Hyogo political parties have, thus, been connected closely with the major
interest groups to which they have looked for support. Only the JCP,
which lacks a well-defined political base in the prefecture, is secure
enough financially to maintain a large staff of party workers and pursue
a vigorous program of political activities. The other prefectural parties,
depending on the nature of their interest group base, exhibit varying degrees of financial independence and different levels of expenditures for
personnel and political activities.
The Komeito manifests the least degree of independence and the
overall lowest levels of expenditures. The party has yet to emerge fully
from its parent organization, the Sokagakkai. For the socialist parties,
member dues and the assessment of party-endorsed assemblymen are
important sources of party income. For the LDP, these are less important
because it can turn to corporate interests to provide funding for its political activities. The JSP, secure in its union political base, has yet to mount
a significant effort aimed at voters outside the union movement. In con-
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ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII, No. 9, September 1982
trast, the DSP spends a much greater share of its budget to attract the
non-union voter because of the smaller size of its Dimei base.
Conclusion
A former Minister of Education in Japan is said to have remarked,
"Japanese parties are like, ghosts, they have heads but no feet."7 In the
Minister's eminently quotable observation, "heads" refer to the caucuses
of assemblymen in the national Diet and "feet" to the local organizations
of the political parties.
Is an analysis of local party organization then the equivalent of chasing ghosts? I respectfully submit to the Minister that it is not. Japanese
parties are not "ghosts." Their organizational structures at the local level
have developed in a manner consistent with the electoral challenges they
have faced.
The LDP in Hyogo has been backed by a myriad of commercial,
agricultural, and professional groups. It has tied together this fragmented
political base by placing its shibu in every city and county, recruiting its
members from the top ranks of conservative interest groups in each area,
and funneling corporate money to local assemblymen k5enkai to guarantee their help in mobilizing the conservative vote in national elections.
The socialist parties have been tied closely to the labor federations.
They have sustained this relationship by placing their own shibu in member unions of the federation and by recruiting their own membership
from union executive committees. The unions have been a major source of
funding for the parties' electoral activities.
The Komeito has the weakest organization of any Hyogo party. Its
shibu exist in name only and its members are exclusively S5kagakkai believers. The party has only limited financial resources and depends on the
S5kagakkai organization to structure its massive vote in elections.
The JCP has an extensive network of shibu in the prefecture and a
committed membership to which it looks for major financial support. Yet,
politically it has remained the weakest Hyogo party because it has been
unable to attract the support of any major interest group. To survive in
Hyogo, the JCP has had to create an organization powerful enough to
bring to the polls the "outs" of the prefecture.
The strong and exclusive ties that have developed between certain
large interest groups and the political parties in Japan have elicited much
criticism from Japanese and foreign scholars alike.8 They have argued
that truly modern political parties should be more than just vehicles for
the articulation of the interests of particular commercial, farm, union, or
religious groups. Parties had to build nationwide networks of neighborhood-based party shibu, recruit members broadly from all groups in the
electorate, and develop financial bases composed of dues-paying members
and still larger groups of individual contributors. To this end, these schol-
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
855
ars encouraged the New Liberal Club in its efforts to establish neighborhood shibu open to all residents.9 Many helped push through the 1975
Political Funds Reform law (Seiji Shikin Kisei Ho), limiting contributions from groups and associations to political parties.
The model of party organization put forward as ideal by these
would-be party reformers is similar to that embraced by Duverger. And it
ignores Epstein's caution that parties will only build organizations consistent with the electoral challenges they face. Party reformers in Japan, as
elsewhere, believe political parties should serve goals beyond winning office for their candidates. Some call on them to act as sources of new policy
ideas and urge them to have a professional staff trained in the social sciences. Others demand they provide significant participatory experiences
for individual citizens and criticize harshly the limited role assigned ordinary party members.
Building a party to serve these multiple purposes in Japan is not an
impossible task. But this will not come through piecemeal reform. A
wholesale restructuring of the electoral incentives presented parties is
necessary. As constituted at present, the political parties are encouraged
under the law governing electoral practices and the multi-member districting system to develop close ties with particular interest groups at the
expense of their reaching out to persuade individual voters in the electorate as a whole.
The election law prohibits the canvassing of voters, restricts access
by the parties and their candidates to the media, and limits public campaign activity to a few weeks prior to elections.10 The effect of these restrictions is to hinder broader appeals by the parties to individual voters
and to encourage them to rely heavily on major interest groups to provide
information about their programs and candidates to the rank and file.
Multi-member districting acts to reinforce the incentives to mount a
campaign effort through particular interest groups. Among democratic
nations, only Japan chooses its national legislators in medium-size election districts, where candidates compete at-large for three to five seats."1
Since these seats are awarded based on individual candidates, not party,
performance, the parties must assess carefully whether supporting additional candidates will win more seats or so divide their vote that the
chances of all their candidates are weakened. This system works against
attempts by the smaller opposition parties to expand their support beyond
what is required to elect a single candidate. For the large LDP and JSP,
it means a more conservative election strategy, which keeps them from
increasing the size of their representation lest they cause the defeat of all
their present incumbents.
As a result, the principal problem for the Japanese parties during
elections has not been how to appeal to the greatest number of voters, but
how to maximize the turnout of voters in their own special interest constituency. This has made the organizational structures developed by the
parties unusually dependent on the structure of these groups. To reform
856
ASIAN SURVEY, Vol. XXII,No. 9, September 1982
the organization of the Japanese parties the provisions of the election law
might be changed to permit longer campaigns and more direct party contact with voters. Additionally, the present multi-member districting system could be replaced by a single-member, plurality system that would
encourage the parties to form more heterogeneous coalitions of the type
seen in gubernatorial and mayoral races.
Fundamental changes of this sort cannot be expected soon. But this
does not mean that the present structure of the Japanese parties at the
local level will remain unchanged. The local parties are by no means
"ghosts." They have developed organizations best understood in terms of
the mobilization requirements of their distinctive interest bases. As a result, a key to future changes in their organizational structures lies with
the stability of these bases. Should the groups behind any of the parties
shift their allegiance, or should the hold of the interest group leaderships
over their membership be weakened, compensatory changes in the local
organizations of the political parties will likely follow.
James J. Foster is a Foreign Service Officer assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul,
Korea.
NOTES
1. Leon Epstein, Political Parties in Western Democracies (New York: Frederick Praeger, 1967), pp. 98-129.
2. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (New York: John Wiley, 1954), pp. 460. See also William Wright's discussion of the Party Democracy model in "Comparative Party Models: Rational-Efficient and Party Democracy," in William Wright, ed.,
A Co177paative Study of Party Organization (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill,
1971), pp. 17-54.
3. See the discussion of party-interest group ties in the following basic works:
Alan B. Cole et al., Socialist Parties in Postwar Japan (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1966); Haruhiro Fukui, Party in Power (Berkeley: University of California,
1970); Paul Langer, C'ommunism in Japan (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution
Press, 1972); and Arvin Palmer, Buddhist Politics: Japan's Clean Government Party
(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971); and Roger Benjamin and Ori Kan, Tradition
and Change in P'ost-Industrial Japan: The Role of Political Parties (New York:
Praeger, 1981).
4. These data are drawn from internal documents of the five Hyogo parties,
financial status reports filed with the Hyogo Prefectural Elections Commission, and
extensive interviews with party leaders, staff, and candidates and the leaders of major
prefectural interest groups in 1978 and 1979. See James Foster, "Interest Groups and
Political Party Organization: The Japanese Parties in the Constituencies" (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Washington [Seattle], 1980).
5. Yen-dollar equivalents based on the exchange rate of 200 yen to US$1.00
prevailing at time of study.
6. The Northern Territories refer to a group of islands north of Hokkaido,
which were occupied by the Soviet Union at the close of World War II. The demand
LOCAL PARTY ORGANIZATIONIN JAPAN
857
for their return has been a continuing source of friction between the two governments
and a focal point for nationalist sentiment.
7. Quoted in Allan B. Cole et al., Socialist Parties in Postwar Japan (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1966), p. 263. Nathaniel Thayer cites the same quote
but attributes it to a party worker in Hiroshima. See Hrow the Conservatives Rule
Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 85.
8. See, for example, Shinohara Hajime, "The Opposition Party System,"
Japan Quarterly, XXIV:2 (April-June 1977), pp. 175-180; Matsushita Keiichi, "A
New Liberalism in Prospect," Japan Quarterly XXVII:1 (January-March 1980), pp.
20-28; Gary Allinson, "Japan's Independent Voter: Dilemma or Opportunity?"
Japan Interpt1reter, Spring 1976, pp. 36-55; and Taketsugu Tsurutani, Political
Change in Japan (New York: David MacKay, 1977), passim.
9. The New Liberal Club (NLC) was formed in 1976 to take advantage of the
growing independent voter and the increasing number of defections from the LDP to
the other parties. Kono Yohei, the party's first chairman, pledged to revitalize conservatism in Japan by building a policy-oriented party of individual membership. See R.
J. Hrenbenar, "Kono Yohei and the Future of the Shin Jiyu Club," Japan Interpreter,
12, Spring 1978, pp. 223-233.
10. See a detailed discussion in Jichi-sh5 Senkyo-bu, Shtlgiin Senkyo no Tebiki
Sh6wa 51-nen (Tokyo: Gyosei, 1976).
11. See Gerald Curtis, Election Campaigning Japanese Style (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 1-32.