Did LDP Governors Promote Municipalities in Their Prefectures to Merger?

Abstract

　This paper empirically examines the political determinants of the attendance at conferences of municipal mergers from FY1999 to FY2005. We use multilevel logistic regression models to analyze the relationship between municipal mergers and the political power of prefectures. The main conclusions of the study are as follows: First, LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) Governors significantly have a positive effect on the attendance at conferences of municipal mergers. Second, the probability of the attendance at these conferences is unlikely to be higher, when the governor was once a bureaucrat of the MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). And third, LDP governors have more influence on the attendance at the conferences, rather than mayors.