Reconstruction Policy Evaluation and Voting Behavior in the 2016 House of Councilors General Election in Fukushima.
2019 Volume 35 Issue 1 Pages 35-43
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2019 Volume 35 Issue 1 Pages 35-43
In the 2016 House of Councilors Election, Teruhiko Mashiko who is an opposition candidate won, and Mitsuhide Iwaki, the Minister of Justice, was defeated in Fukushima electoral district. The incumbent ministers have been missed since the 2010 House of Councilors election. Since the inauguration of the Cabinet, the Abe Cabinet has emphasized its stance of staying close to Fukushima, the disaster area of the nuclear disaster. Therefore, the defeat of Iwaki was shocking news for the Abe Cabinet. The purpose of this paper is to confirm that evaluation of the LDP's reconstruction policy affects voting behavior using a unique survey data from Fukushima. The data show that those who evaluate LDP’s recovery policies tend to vote for Iwaki. Why did he lose the election? The data suggest that some LDP supporters voted for Mashiko and that the independents' recovery policy evaluation was not good.
