The Political Economy of the Institutionalization in Japanese Civil Society: The LDP's profit-inducing politics and the formation of Citizen's Movements

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the formation of civil society in post-war Japan from a political and economic perspective. In particular, under the 1955 system of the Liberal Democratic Party, political interest is being promoted, and the process of forming institutionalized interest groups and citizens’ movements is being explored. This paper focuses on the relationship between political parties and social groups as to why, while interest groups have developed, the formation and institutionalization of civil movements such as new social movements have been delayed and the scope of institutionalization has become limited., discussed from the political and economic aspects. In terms of political space, the 1955 regime was a time when the relationship between political parties and social groups was formed through public policies, administrative mobilization systems, and electoral systems biased toward individual interests. As social capacity, economic resources during the period of rapid growth promoted the development of interest groups. While interest groups developed under the LDP's long-term reign, the Socialist Party’s labor union-dependent constitution, citizen movements that emerged to respond to socioeconomic changes were institutionalized within a limited scope due to the lack of available political and economic resources in the political and economic conditions of the 1970s.