abstract

The Liberal Democratic Party maintained its electoral dominance largely by means of its divide-and-conquer tactics over the local government. The LDP’s political control over the local government was so tight that anti-LDP political movements in the early 1990s were based on the idea of decentralization. The LDP took advantage of coalition partners to retain its government party status, but the policy concessions due to coalition bargaining resulted in the erosion of the party’s support base. In particular, the series of municipal mergers toward March 2006 resulted in magnified volatility of the LDP’s seat winning capacities and resulted in a decisive electoral defeats in the 2007 upper house and the 2009 lower house elections.