Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies

The image of prime ministers in people's minds

Analyzing answers to open-ended questions from the JES - IV survey

Yukio MAEDA, Hiroshi HIRANO

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 5-18
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_5

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

Electoral and administrative reforms in the 1990s enabled prime ministers to exercise stronger leadership than previously possible. Many people believe that the inclusion of single-member districts increased electoral competition so that people can effectively choose prime ministerial candidates based on their policies. However, even though the influence of prime ministers has risen dramatically, little is known about how voters perceive prime ministers and how their perceptions affect political performance evaluations. This paper analyzes people's perceptions of prime ministers using answers to open-ended questions on likes and dislikes from the Japan Election Study IV (JES-IV). By using those answers in combination with other survey data, we demonstrate that people's perceptions influence prime ministerial approval. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the impact of positive perceptions on approval is stronger than that of negative perceptions, presumably because high political awareness is necessary to take negative perceptions into account in evaluating prime ministers.

View full abstract

Download PDF (400K)
The Transformation of the Japanese Prime Ministerial Power

A Comprehensive Analysis of the Prime Minister's Meeting Records

Satoshi MACHIDORI

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 19-31
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_19

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

How does the contemporary Japanese prime minister lead other actors autonomously in policy processes? It is often pointed out that one of the current features is the leadership of the prime ministerial office or the “strong” premiership. The author depends on the original dataset of the prime minister's meeting records to analyze the transformation of the Japanese premiership in the last thirty-seven years since the Ohira Administration. A major finding of the analysis is that the prime minister has depended more on the narrow network of the core executives and less on other actors when involving policy processes. It implies the tendency towards autonomous and leading roles of the prime minister more in the contemporary Japanese politics than in the past, based on significant institutional changes including the electoral and administrative reforms. It is also noticed that this tendency is fundamentally maintained despite of political turnovers.

View full abstract

Download PDF (629K)
The Logic of Party Governance and Ministerial Selection

Electoral System, Cabinet Appointments, and Dissent in Japan

Shinsuke HAMAMOTO

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 32-47
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_32

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

This article promotes a characterization of intra-party governance that explains how prime minister controls rank- and-file party members. The Cabinet is dependent on support from a ruling party (or ruling parties) holding majority of seats in the Diet. The prime minister needs support from ruling party legislators in order to maintain his or her government and pass bills. If the legislators wish to climb the parliamentary career ladder, they must toe the party line. I conducted an empirical test of the relationship between Liberal Democratic Party cabinet appointments and dissents in 1980-2014. It was found from the result that prime minister enhanced the freedom of cabinet selection, the frequency of dissent increased and the relationship between intra-party governance and dissent was changed.

View full abstract

Download PDF (578K)
Electoral Reform in Southeast Asia

A Comparative Perspective

Yuko KASUYA

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 48-61
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_48

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

The aim of this paper is to enhance the understanding of the nature of the electoral reform occurring in Southeast Asia since the 1990s. After providing an overview of the current electoral systems in seven Southeast Asian nations, the paper focuses on electoral reform efforts in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. Common characteristics of these nations' reform efforts include that (1) the reforms took place in the context of democratic regime change and (2) the desired effects of reform have not materialized in most cases. In addition, although a major study found the electoral reform in Southeast Asia is a shift towards “majoritarian” democracy, this study argues that the new electoral rules are a mixture of “majoritarian” and “consensus” types.

View full abstract

Download PDF (359K)
Electoral System Reforms in Central Asia

The Choice of Electoral Systems and Its Consequences under Electoral Authoritarianism

Masaaki HIGASHIJIMA

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 62-76
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_62

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

This paper explores the conditions under which authoritarian leaders change electoral systems by focusing on three cases of electoral authoritarianism in Central Asia - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In electoral authoritarian regimes where opposition are very weak, single member district (SMD) systems bring seat bias favorable to ruling parties while empowering local ruling elites vis-à-vis the autocrat, which may lead to damaging stable authoritarian rule. Under this dilemma of electoral system choice, autocrats with high mobilization power prefer proportional representation (PR) systems, which demand autocrats to gather a larger number of votes to win elections overwhelmingly but also enable autocrats to effectively contain the emergence of powerful local ruling elites. Case studies of the three Central Asian republics suggest that autocrats shift to PR systems when they are able to mobilize a large number of votes. When they are weak in garnering votes, then they rely more on SMD systems.

View full abstract

Download PDF (374K)
Electoral system reform debates in democratized South Korea

Kenichiro YASHIMA, Kwanpyo BAE

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 77-96
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_77

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

This article analyzed the debates over legislative and executive electoral reforms in South Korea. An Examination of Korean politicians' political backgrounds revealed that they suffer from insecure career prospects, which may facilitate repeated reform debates. Regarding the longitudinal trend, we find that the focal point has shifted from SNTV to PR in the legislative arena, while the focus in executive debate has shifted from parliamentarism to deconcentration of power and the change in term limits. Also, over time, legislators have come to play a more significant role in both arenas. Furthermore, the actor-by-actor comparison revealed, first, that presidents’ behavior is “unpredictable” in both areas; second, the legislative debate tends to be more partisan than the executive; third, the Constitutional Court and the National Election Commission play a significant role only in the legislative debate; and fourth, civil society groups are more active in the legislative than in executive debate.

View full abstract

Download PDF (458K)
Electoral Reform in India

Recent developments and Future Prospects

Hiroki MIWA

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 97-108
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_97

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

Arguments about electoral reform in India, unlike those in Japan, mostly focus on the topics such as how to secure the fairness and the transparency in elections, how to eliminate political corruption, and so on. Since 1970s, in India, a number of government agencies and government-appointed committees have presented a variety of proposals for electoral reform. However, because most of the arguments about electoral reform have been influenced by the necessity of social policies and the reality of party politics, such proposals rarely have been reflected in actual policy decisions. On the other hand, as a result of the increasing awareness of the matter of “governance,” there has been new trend in the arguments about electoral reform, i.e. election monitoring activities by civic groups. These activities by civic groups will be more and more important for electoral reform in India.

View full abstract

Download PDF (360K)
The Established Parties Strike Back

Reforming the Senate electoral system in Australia

Hiroya SUGITA

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 109-122
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_109

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

Australia's upper house, the Senate, has almost identical legislative power with the House of Representatives. The Senate has the blocking power even against the appropriation bills. Therefore, the electoral systems for the Senate have played crucial role for the functioning of the government formed by a party/coalition of parties that commands majority in the House of Representatives. This paper traces changes to the Senate electoral systems. The current system, operated since 1984, has produced the 2013 half Senate election result in which several Senators were successful no other reason but by an accident, a good luck, some kind of lottery or, worse, manipulation. Such a result has prompted a call for reform and multiparty Joint Standing committee produced unanimous report for the reform in May 2014. Despite this, no legislative action has yet to be taken. This paper analyses the reform proposal and seeks the reasons behind the proposal and delay/inaction.

View full abstract

Download PDF (395K)
Optimization for the apportionment problem with straddling some prefectures and changing the number of the members

Keisuke HOTTA

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 123-141
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_123

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Show abstractHide abstract

The objective function of the optimization model for the apportionment problem is to minimize the maximum gap in the value of vote. The limit of the disparity ratio can be obtained by the optimal solution of the model. The limit of the maximum vote-value disparity is 1.598 to 1 by allocating 295 seats to 47 prefectures and 4.311 to 1 by 73 to 47. The main cause of the gap for the apportionment problem is to distribute the seats to each prefecture and just the number of the members of each House of the Diet. One way to improve the maximum difference of one vote is to straddling two or more prefectures, and the other is to change the number of the members. The purpose of the study is to clarify the effect of them by analyzing the solution of the optimization model.

View full abstract

Download PDF (877K)
[title in Japanese]

Tsuyoshi MIFUNE

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 145-151
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_145

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Download PDF (132K)
[title in Japanese]

2015 Volume 31 Issue 2 Pages 152-166
Published: 2015
Released on J-STAGE: April 06, 2018

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.31.2_152

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS

Download PDF (411K)

Register with J-STAGE for free!