Political Leadership and Public Support for the Osaka City-Prefecture Integration

Abstract

　This paper examines the effect of Osaka citizens’ preference for the integration of Osaka city and prefecture government on their support for Hirofumi Yoshimura, a governor of Osaka prefecture. Many scholars point out that TV media have a strong influence on citizen attitudes, and Yoshimura’s high approval ratings are caused by the media effect. However, this paper argues that Osaka citizens’ preference for the integration of Osaka city and prefecture governments directly and indirectly result in Yoshimura’s consistent popularity. First, this preference indirectly affects the approval of Yoshimura via partisanship in local politics. Second, this preference also directly affects the approval for Yoshimura, because of the strategy of Osaka-Ishin-no-Kai, which aims to solve the problem of dual administration in Osaka. The results of the empirical analyses show that Yoshimura’s high approval ratings stem not only from perceptions of his political leadership abilities, but also from public support for the integration of Osaka city and prefecture governments.