ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to analyse the 20-year period 1980-2000, and assess if and how the Japanese electorate changed its attitudes towards politics and voting during this period. The 1990s was a period of great flux within the Japanese political system with many parties being created and disbanded. The Japan Socialist Party (JSP), which had been the main ‘opposition’ party in Japan,1 gradually declined in the mid-1990s and in 1996 won so few seats in the election that it became a mere shell of its former self. Between 1955 and 1993, it was the second largest party in the Japanese party system and was the largest party on the left of centre on the political spectrum. This period has become known as the 1955 system. In 1996, the JSP did extremely badly in the House of Representatives election, gaining only 15 seats (although this got worse as it only managed to get 19 in the 2000 election, 12 in 2003 and seven in 2005). A new party of the ‘left’, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), was formed in 1996 and is still in existence and getting stronger.
