Generally, people tend to consider only the results provided by an electoral system. However, in this paper, we compare the ideas behind several systems, including both Japanese and foreign data. In our conclusion, we propose a plan for a proportional representation system that is suitable for Japan.

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It seems appropriate to interpret that the Lower House electoral reform aimed at getting out of the long-lasting “sub-equilibrium.” Another historical path was found that the prime minister's leadership has been strengthened through a principle that the governmental power is decided by elections, together with the administrative reform and other political reforms. The introduction of “manifesto-based” election campaigns has increased tendency that voters choose the package of the government, its policies and its prime ministerial candidate, rather than individual candidates themselves. The electoral reform has affected the whole political system, for instance, it has made visible the problem of the dual decision-making system by the ruling party and the Cabinet. In addition, “retrospective voting” tends to be normal when voters' choice based on what the government has achieved at the general elections. The change of rules alone does not guarantee good games. They are dependent on the activities of players including voters.

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The establishment of the House of Councilors was permitted on the condition that it be composed of elected members. The members elected made up another electoral system in the House of Representatives; it was expected to hold in check the excess the party politics and policy change. It was expected that in the nationwide constituency, national intellectuals would be elected and in the local, the local ones would be elected. But the nationwide members were criticized on the ground that there were too many media stars and plutocrats. The local members were criticized because of disproportional numbers. This criticism leads reform of the electoral system, namely Proportional Representation with Open List System in 1982, and Open List System in 2000. But these electoral reforms were deprived of real substance by the party in power. The reform of electoral system is success that its constitutional position has been clarified and political reform has been achieved.

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Until now, the voting system in Japan has basically used the voter's handwritten vote. However, in 2001, the “Law on Special Cases for Adopting Electro-Magnetic Record Voting in Local Elections” passed, permitting local governments to have electronic voting for the elections of governors, mayors and council members when the concerned local government enacted such an ordinance; this opened a new door for the voting system in Japan. Between June 2002 and February 2004, electronic voting was used in eleven elections in nine municipalities. In those elections, the time needed to count the votes was shortened tremendously. The candidates' information was given to the voter by speech (sound), so that visually impaired people had a good impression and the system was well received by the citizens in general as well. However, there were challenges such as lawsuits being filed. For the expansion of electronic voting, looking to have the system at national elections eventually, it is important to employ more electronic voting at local elections and to ensure citizens of its reliability.

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The revision of the Lower House election laws that introduced the single-seat constituency system more than doubled the number of constituencies and also greatly increased the amount of work involved in performing election-related opinion polls. The various news media entered a period of trial and error to establish new structures for polls that would suit the changed situation. The past decade or so has witnessed a rapid increase in the use of telephone surveys in place of face-to-face interviews that were typically used previously. The methods of telephone surveys have also been changing, from the selection of qualified subjects from electoral lists and searching for their telephone numbers in the telephone directory to the RDD method in which telephone numbers are made at random. This paper traces changes in the methodology of election-related opinion polls that resulted from the revision of the Lower House election laws. It also considers how the introduction of the RDD method may influence election-related opinion polls in the future.

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The major characteristics of the 16^th Presidential election of Korea can be summarized as the three points. One is the weakening of regional voting, thus opening up the possibility of changes in Korean regionalism. Another characteristic is the widening gap between generations in terms of their voting behavior and political values. The third is the change in the mode of election campaigning, as internet emerged as an important instrument for campaigning.
The three points are closely related to one another. The weakening of regionalism is partly a reflection of young voters' changing values and voting pattern. The change in the mode of election campaigning is also related to young voters' changing values, and their willingness to participate actively in the electoral process. In this sense, one can argue that young voters' changing values are the cornerstone of all the major changes that occurred in the last Presidential election.

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In this paper, we demonstrate social bases of major parties in Taiwan, examine how DPP attract more supporters in 2004 presidential election, and discuss party alignment in Taiwan. We argue that the capacity of the KMT and the PFP to attract supporters declined dramatically in 2004 presidential election because they failed to respond the rising of Taiwanese identity. The similarities and differences of social bases among major political parties are also provided. Based on the party's social bases, we also discuss the likelihood that cooperation and competition among major political parties in the 2004 legislative elections. The rising of Taiwanese identity and cooperation and competition between and within Pan-Green and Pan-Blue camps might make national election more competitive. In particular, previous experiences have shown that the Pan-Blue camps will face more difficulties than the Pan-Green Camps in the legislative elections.

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One of the noteworthy developments in recent Taiwan politics has been the increase and emergence of a mainstream Taiwanese identity. Meanwhile, the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has struggled with a perception of poor economic performance while preparing for an uphill battle with the opposition KMT (Kuomingtang)-PFP (People First Party) alliance which promised a swift economic recovery in this year's presidential election. Under these circumstances, the DPP chose to develop the referendum issue as its main campaign theme, as a means of promoting Taiwanese identity and the value of direct democracy. Our observations would suggest that the referendum issue largely influenced voting pattern while an alternative negative campaign strategy had very little impact. Using surveys administered by the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, we were able to examine the variable of respondent support levels to discover that the DPP had successfully attracted people who were also supportive of the two referendums. This finding confirms that the DPP's campaign strategy had an effect on the outcome of this presidential election.

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Since 1994 the House of Representatives election in Japan has had 300 single-member districts. The maximum population disparity ratio between districts remains 1 to 2.064 in spite of redistricting in 2002. In this paper, we numerically explore the cause of this large population disparity, and show by using a mathematical optimization technique, the disparity ratio can be reduced to only 1 to 1.750 under the present election law. Furthermore, even if the principle of population proportion apportionment is sacrificed, the ratio is reduced only to 1 to 1.722. These results mean that the difference in the weight of one vote in Japan cannot be improved significantly, even if both the apportionment method and the redistricting guidelines are modified.

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This article examines the patterns of voting behavior in the European Parliamentary Election through the European Election Study surveys. It has been widely argued that the voting behavior in the “Euro Elections” is merely a reflection of national politics. However, the analyses based on the Belgian case in this article revealed that voting orientations in the 1994 European Parliamentary Election were composed of voting orientations towards ‘regionalist parties’, ‘anti-immigrant and anti-EU parties’, and ‘left parties’. Furthermore, it became clear that the voting orientation for regionalist parties had a ‘pro-European’ affinity, while the voting orientation for anti-immigrant parties is closely linked with an ‘anti-European’ message. These findings suggest that the voting behavior in the European Parliamentary Elections needs to be analyzed not only in the ‘national’ level, but also in the ‘regional’ and ‘European’ level.

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Social network analysis, which has prospered since the achievements of Huckfeldt and Sprague in the 1980's, investigates the influence of personal communication on political attitudes and participation. That study has influenced some Japanese scholars, including Ikeda, who has set about that analysis. These days some public opinion polls on politics in Japan include questionnaires about social network, including JEDS2000, the data utilized for this paper. This paper identifies the factors that relate to the coincidences in partisanship between the panelists and those whom they contact. It considers not only supporters of the Liberal Democratic Party or the Democratic Party but nonpartisans as well, and mainly considers spouses and close friends as the persons whom the panelists contact. In this analysis, the main independent variables are the panelists' impressions of their spouses and close friends, and the dependent variables are the panelists' partisanship.

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From 1996 to 2003, the directly elected Israeli prime minister had to consider how to preserve his coalition government as the number of political parties greatly increased in the Knesset. Previous research explained that split-ticket voting gave seats to many political parties, but the relation between electoral system change and voting behavior was not clear. This paper examines this puzzle statistically under the hypothesis that Israeli citizens voted sincerely, not strategicaly, in both the direct election of the prime minister and the Knesset election. This hypothesis can be proved using the conditional logit model. I conclude that strategic voters appeared only in Knesset elections because they prefered selection of a coalition government to selection of the most favored parties. However, Israeli voters voted sincerely under the direct electoral system for prime minister because of their chance to select their prefered coalition government. Therefore, we see a multifaceted party system with a directly elected prime minister in Israel.

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