> What is nominally divided into two parties in the US (the Republican
> and Democratic Parties), the UK (the Conservative and Labour
> Parties), and Israel (the Likud and Labor Parties), etc. is bundled
> into one party in Japan: the Liberal Democratic Party. If anything,
> the LDP has been much less neoliberal than the Democratic Party in
> the USA, Labour in the UK, the Socialist Party in Spain, the African
> National Congress in South Africa, the SDP and the Greens in Germany,
> etc.
I suspect that if someone were to (somehow) map on one page the ideologies of every major political party in the developed world, there would be few exact matches across countries, whatever the ideology.
It's an oversimplification to say that true liberal parties (e.g. the US Democrats) are equivalent to labor parties or social democrats anywhere. Laborists usually have a formalised relationship with unions. This is also a major difference between laborists and social democratic parties, which tend to be broad-based, "mass parties" without the formal union connection.
Also, in most countries (or states/regions/provinces for that matter) you will find that one party or another has been more successful than others, and there are other instances of dominance by a single party in other democracies: e.g. Congress (essentially a liberal party) in India. Their existence does not mean that they are "one size fits all", or that an absolute majority of the population supports them.
And personally I find neoliberalism infinitely preferable to a (IMO) fairly standard conservative party like the LDP (which, as the cliche goes, is neither very liberal nor very democratic).
regards,
Grant.