Japan's Backroom Politics

Factions in a Multiparty Age

af Watanabe Tsuneo

Written by the controversial owner of the Yomiuri Shimbun when he was Japan's leading political reporter, Japan's Backroom Politics is the translation of a classic study of the rough and tumble of Japanese politics and Liberal Democratic Party factions in the first two decades of postwar Japan. In addition to discussing the reasons for the resiliency of factions, he discusses in great detail the history of and personalities within the near-dozen factions of the LDP.