Japan's Backroom Politics

Robert D. Eldridge is a former tenured associate professor of Japanese political and diplomatic history at the School of International Public Policy, Osaka University, and the author, editor, or translator of nearly 20 books, including Secret Talks between Tokyo and Washington: The Memoirs of Miyazawa Kiichi, 1949-1954, also from Lexington Books. A 23-year resident of Japan, Eldridge is currently working on a book about the postwar prime ministers of Japan while serving as the political adviser to the United States Marine Corps in Okinawa.

• Translator’s PrefaceIntroduction: The Defeated One: The Decline of Party PoliticiansChapter 1: The Backroom: Testimonies of Party Leadership ElectionsChapter 2: Popularity: Leadership and the PeopleChapter 3: Money: The Basis for PoliticsChapter 4: Factions, Part 1: Steps to an AdministrationChapter 5: Factions, Part 2: Background of LeadersChapter 6: Multiparty Age: Undercurrents of the 1967 ElectionsChapter 7: The Myth of a Two-Party System: Recommendations for a Multiparty SystemChapter 8: The End of Backroom Politics: Administrations in a Multiparty AgeAfterword

Robert Eldridge's translation of Tsuneo's 1967 book on political factions in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s is an invaluable reference for serious students of the formative years of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Eldridge prefaces Tsuneo's work with an examination of Tsuneo's years as a political reporter and his access to key faction leaders. The preface provides important insights into the professional and personal relationships among politicians and reporters in Japan. Tsuneo's work is composed of an introduction, eight chapters, and an afterword. The first chapter discusses the Machiavellian nature of backroom deals forged to secure key positions in the LDP and cabinet. The next two chapters examine the role of public support (popularity) and political fund-raising in the quest for and exercise of political power. Chapters 4 and 5 set forth the why and how of faction formation and dissolution. The final three chapters set forth Tsuneo's contention that a multiparty, not a two-party, system is emerging in Japan. Along with this multiparty system will come a decline in backroom politics and a rise in the need for politicians to appeal to the public to achieve political prominence. This work is recommended for graduate collections on Japan. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate and research collections.