Electoral “Government Failure”

From the Perspective of the Inequalities in the Subsidizing of Electoral Campaigns in Japan

Abstract

Japan’s Public Offices Election Act is based on the premise that all forms of election campaigning are prohibited, but legalized election campaigns are publicly subsidized under the name of “Senkyo Kōei.” Behind this systematic philosophy lies the pre-war ideology of ensuring fairness in elections by giving the state complete control over the election process. However, there is now a great deal of criticism and evidence that the regulatory framework has made Japan’s electoral process highly inefficient. Nevertheless, the incumbent Diet members have made no attempt to improve this situation, and this is similar to the “government failure” discussed in the field of public economics. Therefore, this study will first explain the characteristics of Japan’s election campaign regulations that lead to this “government failure.” Then, we will reveal the reality that the current distribution of public campaign subsidies is grossly unequal as a result of manipulation by incumbent Diet members.