Abstract
This Article aims at describing the policy space and the party alignment at the 2009 Japanese general election. Examining the contents of candidates' electoral pledges leads the following findings. (i)Japanese politicians most referred to welfare policies and structure reforms in 2009. (ii)the policy space of 2000's is composed of the two axes: “total”-“individual” and “reform”-“anti-reform”. (iii)the party alignment of the 2009 election has come back from the 2005's situation to the 2003's one. (iv)Policy positions of candidates were determined not only by their parties but also by the types of the constituencies in 2009. (v)Through this decade, while LDP has showed the big move and finally gave up Koizumi reform line, DPJ has kept the policy balance stably.
