21. Japan's New Politics and the U.S.-Japan Alliance
- Author:
- Sheila A. Smith
- Publication Date:
- 07-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Abstract:
- Electoral reform in the early 1990s ended single-party dominance in Japan and promised an era of new politics in which political parties would alternate control of the government. In the two decades that followed, Japan's foreign and domestic policy priorities were subjected to greater scrutiny and debate as Japan, like so many other nations around the globe, sought to reorient itself in a new post-Cold War world. The U.S.-Japan alliance that anchored Japan's postwar foreign policy was not immune to these domestic political reforms. For half a century, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) prided itself on managing the relationship with Washington. But its ouster in 2009 by the reformist Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) led many to expect that even Japan's alliance with the United States would be subject to serious review.
- Topic:
- Government and Bilateral Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, Japan, and Asia