Writings on post-war Japanese politics have tended to take for granted the dominance of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as inevitable, without questioning how this came about. This book analyses the nature of Japanese party politics over the first four decades following the Second World War, assessing how the chief contenders - the conservative LDP and the socialists JSP (Japan Socialist Party) - competed in terms of their strengths and weaknesses relative to the other. Throughout, it addresses the questions: How effectively were the parties' strengths harnessed? How did they alter over...