ABSTRACT
The Japanese party system has undergone fundamental changes in the post-war era. It has evolved from what was essentially a two-party system in 1955 to one characterized by fragmentation with seven parties on the national level. This new situation has been called the tatolea era by the Japanese. The first two elections for the House of Representatives in the 1980s left unclear whether the Liberal Democratic party would be forced to share power with other parties or would be able to return to the patterns of the 1960s and early 1970s. In 1985 the Japan Socialist party (JSP), under the leadership of party Chairman Ishibashi, tried to reform itself in a way as to make itself more attractive to the Japanese electorate. It began by attempting to reduce the influence of the Socialist Association, the group of Marxists within the JSP who demanded that the party keep faith with traditional Marxist ideology.
