Abstract
Interest groups tended to send their representatives to a nation-wide constituency to contest elections. While some groups retreated from this constituency, the elected representatives of the Izokukai continued to retain their seats despite a decrease in the number of bereaved families every year. This paper discusses why the Izokukai was able to survive under such tough conditions. It concludes by identifying the following two reasons. The more important reason is that the Izokukai raised the expectations of war windows on war pensions by the outstanding performance. In particular, from the 1960's windows actively collected votes on behalf of the Izokukai because they were responsible for bringing up their children after their husbands died, and once their children had grown up, they found themselves aging and commodity prices rising. The second reason is that the Izokukai involved the siblings of the war dead in their activities. Though the siblings were ineligible to receive a war pension, mourning events and other relevant ‘interests’ linked their attentions to the Izokukai.
