You are kindly invited to join us for the following guest lecture by Daniel Koss, PhD from Harvard University. The lecture will be conducted in a hybrid format. Please find information on how to attend physically or virtually at the end of this post.
AREA Occasional Lecture Series
Daniel Koss: Legacies of Imperial Democracy (1912–1940) and the Electoral Resilience of Japan’s Conservative Party LDP
Date: 23 June 2025
Time: 4.15–5.45 pm
Abstract:
Since its creation in 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated Japanese politics, defying international trends of declining support for long-established parties. Arguably, meticulously organized linkages to citizens throughout the country, based on material interests as well as personal loyalty, are an essential ingredient of a recipe, which the LDP inherited from its conservative predecessors in the era of Imperial Democracy. At the time, electoral rules incentivized parties to micro-manage electoral campaigns, money politics worked only with intense citizen consultation, and citizen networks could be run with the help of sprawling associations. Since universal male suffrage arrived only in 1925, conservative parties had a first-mover advantage. We find not only striking continuities in the electioneering repertoire of Japan’s conservative parties over time. Newly assembled time series data also demonstrate how the uneven effect of electoral rules from 1902 persisted with significant after-effects well into the postwar era. Not Japanese culture, but precisely identifiable institutions of the prewar era are the key to explain the puzzling longevity of the LDP as a governing party.
Short CV:
Daniel Koss holds a PhD in political science from Harvard University, worked as an Assistant Research Fellow at Academia Sinica (Taipei), and is now an Associate Senior Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His research on political parties in East Asia approaches contemporary outcomes from a long historical perspective, based on years of doing research in Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan. His book, Where the Party Rules: The Rank and File of China’s Communist State, was published in 2018 with Cambridge University Press, and his second book manuscript studies East Asia’s other super-resilient ruling party, namely the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. Starting in June 2025, he will be visiting the University of Duisburg-Essen on a Humboldt Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers.
The talk is organized as hybrid event. For the location at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Campus Duisburg) and the Zoom log-in information see below.
Physical participation:
AREA Ruhr
Universität Duisburg-Essen
Geibelstr. 41
Room SG 183
map: https://www.uni-due.de/imperia/md/content/abz/lageplan_sg055_campus_duisburg.pdf
Virtual participation (via Zoom):
You need to register in advance for this meeting:
https://uni-due.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/yHs1dwp-T7WrnabrMr8euA
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
