The aim of this paper is to explore problems for the effective functioning of democracy in Japan through an analysis of voters' political attitudes and electoral behavior in recent elections. The paper examines candidates' pledges at the 2004 Upper House election and measures the distance between voters' ideal points and party policy lines. To determine the extent to which people's vote choice is determined by their attitudes towards policy issues, the paper then analyzes voting patterns at the 2001, 2003 and 2004 elections in terms of both vote participation and the direction of votes. The results of the analysis demonstrate that the influence of election pledges on voting patterns remain minimal even with the advent of the widely hailed ‘Manifesto Election’. Not only is there little differentiation between the policy platforms of the two major parties, but these similar policy options put forward by the candidates hardly reflect voters' issue attitudes. This means that the electorate does not have effective choice in selecting candidates with policy goals closest to their ideal points, presenting grave implications for the democratic process in Japan.

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The era of the independent voters in which we observed the spearheading “Aoshima and Nokku phenomenon” at 1995's local election is finally coming to an end. In the past twelve to thirteen years of the coalition government commencing with 1993's political shuffle, voters' value of the party identification has been changing in the side of the electorate. That is, the new type of party identification has come to the fore, as the conventional one becomes less influential. In other words, we are now beginning to see a new era of party identification where voters, without identifying themselves with any favorable political party, may favor and pick out a different party every time an election is held. We may say that there is a shift in party identification from the wonted attitude. Therefore, it no longer makes sense to distinguish between independent voters and party allegiants. The era when political parties were rejected, as symbolized in “the rebellion of independent voters, ” has come to an end and we now live in an era when each party's manifesto is compared closely with others at an equal level. Perhaps it is also time to cease using the term “independent voters”.

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Using primarily the 2004 American National Election Study data, this article clarifies how independent leaners differ from pure independents and weak partisans. In turnout and presidential election choice, leaners differ greatly from pure independents but approximate weak partisans. Pure independents are more likely than leaners to be Catholic. Effects of other social backgrounds are not symmetrical around pure independents. In regard to political attitudes, affective attachments to political parties exerted the most consistent effect on partisanship and independence. Leaners are more affectively attached than pure independents to their favored parties, and pure independents are more likely than leaners to have equally negative feelings toward the two parties. Weak partisans are more affectively attached than leaners to their favored parties. Other political attitudes have asymmetrical effects.

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The rise of nonpartisan voters in the past decades are reported in the various studies on voting behavior in the developed democratic countries such as the US and Japan. Against this backdrop, it is the prime concern of this paper to make inquiries that whether or not the parallel partisans/nonpartisans, particularly the rise of nonpartisans, is discernable in the recently democratized (or democracy restored) Southeast Asian countries: the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. If it appears so, how it is explained and what the voting determinants are. Prior to proceeding to voting behaviors, the paper takes up the issues of democratic transition, the broader inclusive concept of the nonpartisans, the political and electoral institutional reforms, the behavior of political parties and party systems conducted in the three respective countries. The problems encountered are that, first, whether or not the concept of partisans vs. nonpartisan derived from the experiences in the developed countries can be adequately applied to the electorates whose political regime environment, the behaviors of political party and candidates, and electoral governance are different. and those who are basically identified with candidates or party leaders in the fluid multiparty system. Secondly the lack of solid and clear-cut evidence obtained from the outcome of surveys asking the electorates of the specific party identification or non-identification compelled to rely on the various different literatures and the election outcome. The conclusion remains to be the preliminary stage and it is desired that the studies on the candidate and party behavior along with the voting behavior in the post-democratized countries are extensively conducted.

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This paper examines the turnout of the gubernatorial elections from 1957 to 2005, with a focus on the influence of unified local elections, a coalition between political parties, and a split in the LDP. The findings are as follows; (1) The turnout of gubernatorial election is likely to be higher, when an assembly election is held simultaneously, (2) If there are many election districts by “no contest” in an assembly election, the turnout of the gubernatorial election tends to be lower, (3) The turnout of the gubernatorial election has a tendency to be higher when it is held on the same day of either the House of Representatives election or the House of Councilors election. However, even if a byelection of the House of Councilors is held on the same day, it does not effect the turnout of the gubernatorial election. (4) The turnout of the gubernatorial election is to be higher when it is held in the unified local election. However, the voter turnout of the gubernatorial election does not necessarily become higher in correspondence to the number of other gubernatorial elections, (5) The turnout is to be lower, when LDP and other political parties support same candidate, (6) Especially, the turnout will be lower when the LDP and the second party support the same candidate, (7) When the LDP is divided, the turnout of the gubernatorial election will be higher.

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The introduction of universal suffrage for the 1928 general election in Japan increased the size of the electorate for the Lower house elections from 3 to 12 millions.
This article analyzes voters' political attitudes towards the 1928 election, with a special focus on newly eligible voters. Because of the low turnout at local elections held nationwide by the universal suffrage in the previous year, Japanese government was concerned with the apparent apathy of the new voters, which led to the development of educational campaigns designed to improve their political awareness. The various devices adopted by both the central and local governments to prevent abstentions and election offenses such as vote buying included posters, leaflets, pamphlets, matchbox, movie trailers.
This article looks at these materials and examines the voter apathy that became the target of these government-led political campaigns.

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This paper focuses on two arguments: one is looking for the factors to influence on local government's policy performances with analyzing the innovation policies of recent local governments. Then also, searching for how much citizens accept the local government's policy performances.
I analyzed administrative services, policies, and institutions of 672 cities in Japan. I found that policy execution norm, organization' management norm, and public participation norm influence on the local government's policy performances. The local governments' policy performances, however, did not feed back the local citizen's consciousness. Meanwhile, the interest thing was that more citizens hoped to improve their lives' level, as citizens' participation policies were worked.

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Since 1994 the House of Representatives election in Japan has included 300 single-member districts. In view of the principle of “one man, one vote” it is ideal that the population disparity ratio between districts be as close to 1 to 1 as possible, and it is desirable that the ratio be less than 1 to 2. However, the current ratio remains 1 to 2.064 in spite of redistricting in 2002. Nemoto and Hotta (2005a) made a numerical study of the cause of this large population disparity, and showed the main factor is not apportionment method or redistricting. In this paper, we explore another factor by using the mathematical optimization technique. If we change the number of single-member districts to between 280 and 320, the limit of reduction in the disparity ratio is 1 to 1.977. Furthermore, even if the apportionment method is revised, it is 1 to 1.747. These results mean that the difference in the weight of one vote in Japan cannot be improved significantly, even if the apportionment method and number of single-member districts are modified simultaneously.

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