ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the changing context of local power in post-war Japan. It investigates changes in levels of formal local autonomy as established constitutionally and through laws regulating the local government system. The chapter discusses the changes in the partisan channels of local influence on national matters. The centralization of the Japanese state, suppressed local democratic process, stifled local policy innovation, weakened local economic development, and generated administrative inefficiencies, among other problems. Local politics shaped national policy in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) dominant period because the ruling party organization was responsive, and beholden, to bottom-up demands. Since the 1990s, four trends can be identified in local partisan composition of local legislatures and executive posts: multiparty-backed and non-partisan governors and mayors; weakness of opposition parties in capturing both local legislative and executive offices; the emergence of regional parties; and legislative incongruence during the LDP's period in national opposition.
