Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies

The Inﬂuence of Combining Constituencies on Voter Turnout

The Case of Tottori and Shimane Prefectures in the 2016 Upper House Election

Kenichi SHIOZAWA

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 5-20
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_5

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The merged constituencies which combined Tottori and Shimane prefectural constituencies and Tokushima and Kochi prefectural constituencies, has been applied for the first time since the 2016 upper house election, and negative eﬀects on electoral process and voter turnout in those districts has been seen in that election. In this paper, I focused on turnout change from previous elections in the Tottori and Shimane prefectural constituency. I analyzed the data aggregated in each municipalities which also includes Okayama and Yamaguchi electoral districts, where the single-member district as well as the Tottori and Shimane constituency in the same Chugoku region but the combination of constituency was not applied. I found that turnout in municipalities in Tottori and Shimane had still been in a higher level, but the application of merging constituencies brought about the negative eﬀect, which was remarkable in Tottori district, on turnout change since last upper house election.

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Eﬀects of the Media Surroundings with the Partisanship on the People’ s Political Thinking in the Campaign

Comparison between the Internet and the Mass Media Eﬀects

Mamoru SHIRASAKI

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 21-40
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_21

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This study is based on the panel survey on the Upper House election in 2016. 　 The survey was conducted right before the official announcement of the campaign season and right after the election day. First, this study compares the changes on the political thinking before and after the campaign between those who were surrounded by the internet media with the partisanship of the LDP and those who were not. Next, this study conducts a similar analysis on the mass media. The analysis exploits the framework of the propensity score analysis and the Difference-in-Differences. Regarding the people who were surrounded by the internet media with that partisanship, they increased the desire for the LDP’ s own course. Regarding the people who were surrounded by the mass media with that partisanship, they changed their feelings toward the third person who had a different viewpoint on the securityrelated laws from their own.

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White Working Class Backlash and the 2016 U.S

Presidential Election

Keiko ONO

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 41-57
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_41

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This paper first demonstrates that Donald Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election in significant part by appealing successfully to non-Hispanic white voters without college degree. As the relative advantage of non-Hispanic whites in the U.S. society continues to decline and the blue collar jobs traditionally filled by less educated white men and women disappear, white “backlash” has gained momentum in recent years. The economic and cultural “threat” felt by those less educated white voters helps explain their resistance to diversity and enthusiasm for Trump.

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Early Voting and Voter Turnout

Tetusuya MATSUBAYASHI

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 58-72
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_58

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How did the adoption of early voting aﬀect voter turnout? If it increased the opportunity to vote for those who usually abstain, the rate of turnout should have increased. Alternatively, if early voting only aﬀected the behavior of those who usually vote, the rate should not have changed much. This study uses the panel data of municipalities in the Lower House elections between 2005 and 2014 to oﬀer some evidence that the number of places for early voting within municipalities is positively associated with the rate of turnout. This finding implies that early voting encouraged those who usually abstain to vote. My analysis also shows strong evidence that the number of polling places on election day has a positive relationship with voter turnout. Combining these ﬁndings, I compare the eﬀect of the numbers of polling places for early voting and on election day.

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Tabloidization of News Programs and Political Efficacy

Focusing on Contact with Strategic Frame News

Shoko OMORI, Hiroshi HIRANO

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 73-87
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_73

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Recently, researches on the influence of tabloid-style news on political consciousness and voting behavior have been advanced due to diversiﬁcation of mass media coverage. In this paper, we examine the relationship between contact with strategic frame news and voter’ s political eﬃcacy, considering the interaction with the level of political knowledge. As a result of analysis using the Japanese Election StudyⅢ (JESⅢ) 2003 data, we found that voters with high level political knowledge showed negative correlations between contact with strategic frame news and political efficacy (both external and internal). However, for voters with low level political knowledge, contact with strategic frame news showed no correlation with external efficacy, while positive correlation with internal eﬃcacy. We discussed psychological mechanism that produces these results and its implication for the democratic political process.

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[title in Japanese]

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 89-118
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_89

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[title in Japanese]

Tsuyoshi MIFUNE

2017 Volume 33 Issue 2 Pages 119-124
Published: 2017
Released on J-STAGE: March 01, 2020

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.33.2_119

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