What was the Actual Point of Controversy on the Merger Referendums?: Analyses of Cases held on the basis of the Special Mergers Law

Abstract

　There were two kinds of referendums concerning municipal mergers held between 2001 and 2011. One type was based on the particular municipality’s own referendum ordinance and the other was held on the basis of the national Special Mergers Law. In this paper, I focus on the latter type of referendum, mainly the 65 cases held before March 2005, in which voters were asked whether or not to set up a merger consultation committee. Both types of referendum are relevant to mergers in a broad sense, but the question asked in each type are different. Previous research has not paid sufficient attention to this important difference.

　Referendums based on the Special Mergers Law were typically held after a request by some part of electorate who supported a particular pattern of merger in defiance of an existing the merger consultation committee proposed another merger pattern. Such referendums confronted people with a choice between two merger patterns and tended to result in disapproval of the second committee’s proposed pattern. The situation affected both voter turnout and referendum results. Analyses revealed a deviation between the original intention of the law and the actual uses to which the law was put.