ABSTRACT
Japan is characterized as having a unique political culture due to its long period of single-party dominance. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated the Japanese political scene as a single party or as part of a ruling coalition for most of the postwar period. This chapter investigates dynamic relationship between political development and political advertising in Japan, focusing on the role of the LDP in the process. The changing media and electoral environment also brought about the transformation of political advertising in Japan. The political system of Japan is a parliamentary representative democracy having an emperor as the symbolic head of state and a prime minister as the head of government who is elected by Designation Election of the Prime Minister in the National Diet. Japanese voters tend to rely on traditional media such as television and newspapers rather than the Internet for political and electoral information, according to a survey by the Association for Promoting a Fair Election.
