Dissolutions of the House of Representatives in Post-War Japan

Contexts in source publication

Context 1

... the post-war Japan all but one Houses of Representatives were dissolved� Only Prime Minister Miki Takeo failed to call early election in 1976 due to the fact that majority of factions in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) openly challenged his authority and he lacked sufficient power base in the party to resort to this drastic move� As shown in Table 1, there have been different direct reasons for dissolving the Diet in Japan� In 1948 and 1955, it was a way of amending the state of minority government, in 1953, 1980, and 1993 -a choice of prime ministers who refused to resign after passage of no-confidence motions, in 1952, 1979, or 2005 -a method for changing balance of power in favor of the mainstream faction in the ruling party , and in 1990, 2000, or 2009 -simply a necessity due to upcoming end of term of the House of Representatives� As the head of government who does not dissolve the lower house can be perceived as weak, even Prime Minister Asō Tarō, who was very unpopular, called early election in July 2009, despite the fact that it was only two months before the end of the House of Representatives' term� The ruling party managed to improve its position in the Diet to the greatest extent due to dissolutions in 1955 (thanks to Prime Minister Hatoyama's popularity after ousting Yoshida Shigeru's Liberal Party from power), 1980 (as a result of "votes of compassion" after Prime Minister Ōhira's sudden death during the electoral campaign), 1986 (owing to Prime Minister Nakasone's popularity and high voter turnout during double elections to both houses), and 2005 (as a result of Koizumi's successful appeal to unaffiliated voters regarding privatization of Japan Post)� Without counting the dissolution of Diet forced upon Prime Minister Ōhira Masayoshi by no-confidence motion in 1980, the terms of lower houses in 2003-2005 and 2012-2014 were the shortest since establishment of the LDP in 1955� Both in 2005 and 2014, the dissolutions were intentionally decided by surprise to maximize the performance of the LDP in elections� They were also strategically applied by Prime Ministers Koizumi and Abe to strengthen their positions in the ruling party and thus enable pushing forward their policy agendas� For these reasons, the abovementioned two dissolutions can be used as case studies to examine to what extent electoral and administrative reforms facilitated prime ministers to take advantage of their right to call early elections in order to discipline veto players� ...

Context 2

... the post-war Japan all but one Houses of Representatives were dissolved� Only Prime Minister Miki Takeo failed to call early election in 1976 due to the fact that majority of factions in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) openly challenged his authority and he lacked sufficient power base in the party to resort to this drastic move� As shown in Table 1, there have been different direct reasons for dissolving the Diet in Japan� In 1948 and 1955, it was a way of amending the state of minority government, in 1953, 1980, and 1993 -a choice of prime ministers who refused to resign after passage of no-confidence motions, in 1952, 1979, or 2005 -a method for changing balance of power in favor of the mainstream faction in the ruling party , and in 1990, 2000, or 2009 -simply a necessity due to upcoming end of term of the House of Representatives� As the head of government who does not dissolve the lower house can be perceived as weak, even Prime Minister Asō Tarō, who was very unpopular, called early election in July 2009, despite the fact that it was only two months before the end of the House of Representatives' term� The ruling party managed to improve its position in the Diet to the greatest extent due to dissolutions in 1955 (thanks to Prime Minister Hatoyama's popularity after ousting Yoshida Shigeru's Liberal Party from power), 1980 (as a result of "votes of compassion" after Prime Minister Ōhira's sudden death during the electoral campaign), 1986 (owing to Prime Minister Nakasone's popularity and high voter turnout during double elections to both houses), and 2005 (as a result of Koizumi's successful appeal to unaffiliated voters regarding privatization of Japan Post)� Without counting the dissolution of Diet forced upon Prime Minister Ōhira Masayoshi by no-confidence motion in 1980, the terms of lower houses in 2003-2005 and 2012-2014 were the shortest since establishment of the LDP in 1955� Both in 2005 and 2014, the dissolutions were intentionally decided by surprise to maximize the performance of the LDP in elections� They were also strategically applied by Prime Ministers Koizumi and Abe to strengthen their positions in the ruling party and thus enable pushing forward their policy agendas� For these reasons, the abovementioned two dissolutions can be used as case studies to examine to what extent electoral and administrative reforms facilitated prime ministers to take advantage of their right to call early elections in order to discipline veto players� ...