THEORIES OF GOVERNMENT FORMATION AND THE 1996 GENERAL-ELECTION IN JAPAN

This paper takes a number of theories that have been used to analyse g overnment formation in West European parliamentary democracies and app lies them to the government formation process in Japan after the 1996 general election. These models underline the continuing importance of the LDP in the government formation process, despite the loss of its o verall majority. The application of government formation models to the Japanese case also highlights the weakness of the typical assumption that sees parties as unitary actors. The paper thus concludes with som e speculations as to how this assumption might usefully be relaxed to incorporate party factions, splits and fusions and thereby generate mo re dynamic models of the making and breaking of governments.