Factions and the Redistributive Effects of Reform in Japan

Campaign finance and other political reforms often have redistributive consequences when they improve the position of one group over another. When potentially redistributive reforms are debated or passed, groups may resist or support such reforms depending on their belief about whether the reforms will be advantageous or not to their own position. In dominant party systems such as Japan, we expect that major reforms will have heterogeneous effects for different factions within Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). In 1975 and 1994, reformers in Japan introduced major changes that they hoped would reduce corruption and strengthen political parties over factions. In this article, we empirically investigate the asymmetrical impact of the reforms on the total amount of revenue and contributions disclosed by factions in the LDP. We find that the 1975 reform had significant redistributive effects, including a relatively adverse impact on the faction linked to Tanaka Kakuei in terms of total revenue. The 1994 reforms, in contrast, reveal that the Tanaka faction did the best among the factions in collecting revenues and consolidating its power.