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This article explores the relationship of Japan's ruling party vis- à-vis other actors in the political system, such as the bureaucracy and the business community—which have been the main pillars of conservative rule in that country for 38 years—as well as other interest groups. It also specifies in what way the democratic processes within the ruling party itself, and in the political system in general, have allowed, notwithstand ing the prevailing ideological conservatism, Japanese society to show one of the highest indexes of equality of income distribution in the world.

"This work collects decades of the best published scholarship in English on the unequivocally most successful political party in Japanese history: the Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP). Governing Japan for almost the entirety of the post-war period, the LDP also has a claim to be the most successful political party in any post-war democracy. Seminal articles in this collection explore the key aspects of the LDP: the party's evolution since its founding in 1955; key facets of the LDP's internal organization including factions and koenkai; the LDP in policy-making, including its relationship with the bureaucracy and interest groups, as well as its policy-making committee apparatus; and, party leadership, including the premierships of Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe"--Back cover