Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies

A Constitutional Study on the 2011 Supreme Court Judgmen

Nobuhiro OKADA

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 5-14
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_5

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This paper examines about the 2011 Supreme Court judgment from the constitutional point of view. This judgment is the first one that the Supreme Court recognized the unconstitutionality state of the “Hitori-Betuwaku-rule” under the existing election system of the House of Representatives. This paper studies about some constitutional problems of this case, comparing it with the 2007 Supreme Court judgment. In addition, because the problem of electoral district is concerning that of “the balance of democracy and judicial review”, it takes the point into account this factor.

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How Malapportionment Produces Dysfunctional Democracy

Distorting Citizen Mandates, Diet Debate, and the Policymaking Process

Yoshiaki KOBAYASHI

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 15-25
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_15

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The distortions and malfunctioning brought about by malapportionment in representative democracies was made clear. First, we showed that increases in spending on the areas of transportation, communications, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, administration, and local autonomy occurred frequently, whereas those for social welfare, the protection of livelihoods, education and labor were less common, as were promises to address the declining birthrate and revise the ailing pension system. Second, when we examined the post-election activities of politicians in the Diet we found that references to national security, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and land and the environment were increasing. Third, when we analyzed possible distortions in government spending that were brought about by malapportionment, we found a relationship between malapportionment and special budgetary allocations in the areas of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries, and construction. Finally, mindful of what we discovered, we proposed a solution to the problem of malapportionment.

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Apportionment and Districting

From the Viewpoint of Economics

Junichiro WADA

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 26-39
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_26

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The current agenda of reapportionment (summer 2012), in which the less populous prefecture (Osaka) has more representatives than the more populous one (Kanagawa), is unfair. Under an unequal representation, the welfare of people with more representatives is worse than it is under a fair representation. Therefore, this agenda is not only inequitable but also inefficient. Using the Nash Social Welfare Function, we create a decomposable index to evaluate the unfairness of representation in electoral districts. We then provide some apportionments, which can be obtained by the divisor methods, by minimizing the objective function made from the Atkinson Social Welfare Function, which includes the Rawlsian, Nash, and Benthamian Social Welfare Functions. We also indicate the problem of man-made districting. We conclude the essay with an indication of the problems of proportional representation and geographic districting.

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Can Adaptively Rational Voters Control Public Policies?

Computational Extension of Outcome - Oriented Voting

Etsuhiro NAKAMURA, Yusuke CHAMOTO, Tadahiko MURATA, Ryota NATORI

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 40-50
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_40

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According to the Downsian Median Voter Theorem, voters can control two competing parties in order to achieve an optimal policy outcome. However, compared with real party politics, there are several restrictive conditions in the classical Downsian spatial model. In this paper, we investigate whether voters can control public policies when the outcomes are weighted sum of positions of two parties. In addition, voters are adaptively rational in the sense that they mainly determine their vote just by observing policy outcomes. Our experiments reveal that voters can control public policies if they can abstain and show the frustration toward both parties.

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Numerical Analysis on reform bills to reduce in population disparity between single-member election districts in Japan

Toshio NEMOTO

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 51-61
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_51

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The vote-value disparity becomes the one of essential indices to reform or evaluate the election system. For example, the disparity ratio in the value of one vote in the House of Representatives in Japan is 2.524 in 2010 and has considered an illegal state. Several reform bills are proposed to rectify the disparity. In this paper, I would like to consider the bills from the point of view of the limit of reduction in the disparity ratio. At first, I show the limit of reduction in the disparity ratio is decreased to 2.098 in 2011 from 2.153 in 2006. Furthermore, even if seat allocation formula designed to give disproportionately preferential treatment is reformed, it is 1.898. Another weighty bill to cut a single-seat constituency from five prefectures without increasing seats in other prefectures is not effective because the ratio is 1.931. It is important to numerically recognize disparity risk.

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Electoral Management Bodies and Electoral Governance

Yutaka ONISHI

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 62-77
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_62

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This paper analyzes the relationship between substantive voting rights (SVRs) and electoral management bodies (EMBs). Since the Third Wave of democratization, electoral management has become a salient issueboth in developing and developed countries. We now witness many attempts, regardless of the level of development of a country, to improve electoral management. Two major directions are identifiable in this regard. The first approach involves making EMBs more independent from the executive branch. The secondapproach involves ensuring voting rights more substantively. These trends stem from a deep-rooted problem of worsening electoral performance evident in lower turnouts and eroding electoral credibility. This is an issue that, in extreme cases, can uproot the very foundation of democracy. However, despite widespread awareness of these problems, up to now there has been virtually no debate on the relations between SVRs and EMBs in political science. This paper utilizes the dataset in Massicotte et al.’s studyand provides a preliminary analysis of the relationship between EMBs and SVRs.

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Presidentialism and Political Parties in Indonesia

Why Are Not All Parties Presidentialized?

Koichi KAWAMURA

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 78-93
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_78

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This paper analyzes whether “presidentialization of political parties” is observed in newly-democratizing Indonesia as Samuels and Shugart (2010) argue political parties are presidentialized under the separation of powers system. In Indonesia, not all parties are presidentialized. Parties are presidentialized when they have a solid organizational structure and they have potentials to win the presidential elections. First, parties established by a presidential candidate to run the elections need not face incentive incompatibility between their executive and legislative branches, since a party leader is not an agent but a principal. Second, middle- and small-sized parties, which have little prospects to win the presidential elections, are not actively involved in the election process so that party organizations are not necessarily presidentialized. As local governors have been directly elected by the people since 2005, we can observe presidentialization of political parties at local levels of Indonesia.

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Female Candidacy and Representationin Municipal Assemblies

Tetsuya MATSUBAYASHI, Michiko UEDA

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 94-109
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_94

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This paper examines how the population size of municipalities affects the number of female candidates in municipal elections. In less populous municipalities, elections tend to be candidate-oriented and personal networks are often crucial to win a seat, which discourages women from running for office. In more populous municipalities, by contrast, elections are party-centered as candidates rely on a party for its brand name and organizational resources, because a more extensive mobilization effort is required. In party-centered elections, parties can encourage women to run and help them win by providing organizational support. Building on these arguments, we hypothesize that as the population size of municipalities expands, and therefore the number of votes required for winning a seat increases, more women decide to run for office and win a seat. To test the hypothesis, we exploit a change in the size of municipalities before and after massive municipal mergers in the 2000s.

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[title in Japanese]

Tsuyoshi MIFUNE

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 124-130
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_124

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[title in Japanese]

2012 Volume 28 Issue 2 Pages 131-145
Published: 2012
Released on J-STAGE: September 29, 2017

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.28.2_131

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