Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies

Political Institutions and Inter-municipal Relations

Institutional Collective Action Approach

Yosuke SUNAHARA

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 9-24
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_9

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This article focuses on inter-municipal relations as a type of intergovernmental relationship. With relying on previous literature on inter-local governmental collaboration developed in Europe and the United States, the author explains why local governments cooperate through the institutional collective action (ICA) framework. Next, the author points out three aspects of political institutions that shape the relationship among local governments in Japan: intra-local conflicts, inter-local competitions, and national-local relations. Given Japan’s political institutions, the ICA framework suggests that local governments would compete intensely with each other and that the national government would call for local government mergers as the level of public services enhanced. Then the author demonstrates that this expectation is consistent with the results of the empirical analysis conducted in Japan. Finally, the author argues that since decentralization reform changes the relationship between the national and local governments, the key issues for the institutional debate are the competition for urban centers and the recent expression of the popular will through referendum votes.

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A Consideration of the Problem of Shortage of Candidates for Local Councilors

Kazunori KAWAMURA

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 25-38
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_25

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In recent years, the shortage of candidates for local councilors has become more acute. The 2019 nationwide local elections have proved to be extremely serious. This article discusses this issue, based on the results of a study group set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and an exhaustive survey of local councilors conducted by NHK. There are many factors that could give rise to this problem. The most important of these, in my opinion, are the poor treatment of local councilors and Japan’s electoral environment, which is dependent on individual electoral resources. An effective way to overcome these problems is to reform the electoral system. However, there are many local councilors who are wary of this. As a result, the solution to this problem is not straightforward.

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Elites and Regional Disparities in Japan

Yoshiaki KUBO

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 53-67
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_53

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This article analyses the perception of regional disparities, the attitudes toward reducing such disparities, and the network among elites in Japan. First, many elites recognize regional disparities, though the recognition of disparities among heads of local governments and conservative politicians is relatively weak. Second, compared with central bureaucrats, politicians in both national and local are more approval for reducing disparities. However, there is a partisan conflict over opportunity and a multi-level conflict over outcome. Thirdly, the network among elites is classified into three types: the ruling party network, which is less approval for reducing the disparities as a whole; the opposition party network, which is approval for reducing the disparities in opportunity; and the local network, which is approval for reducing the disparities in outcome. Fourth, the perception of regional disparities effects on the attitudes toward reducing such disparities, and the effect is conditioned by fiscal discipline.

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What Issues Do City Council Members Talk About?

Quantitative Text Analysis of Committee Debate

Keisuke ASHITANI

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 68-79
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_68

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What issues are city council members talking about in contemporary Japan? Many studies focus on local politics after the decentralization reform. However, few of these studies analyze legislative behaviors or policy orientation of city council members because it is hard to get microlevel data of them. This article implements quantitative text analysis of committee debate and employs a structural topic model, which enables us to reveal which issue each member is likely to take up in the legislative arena. We find that, except for issues which is extraordinary salient among voters and politicians, the proportion of each policy issue to the whole committee debate is correlated to voters’ interest. It also examines whether partisanship of politicians or their personal traits, such as gender or age, influence their policy orientation expressed as committee speech. We find that there are four patterns of relationship between personal traits and partisanship across policy issues.

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Predominance of the Prime Minister and Discretionary Dissolution

Elections Under the Abe Administration and Constitutional Law

Masahito TADANO

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 80-91
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_80

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The Prime Minister’s predominance under the Abe administration was the result of a series of institutional reforms since the 1990s and political conditions created by elections. In this paper, I discuss the utility of the mechanism of restraint/equilibrium against the Prime Minister’s predominance. The Constitution of Japan contains relatively simple provisions regarding governing bodies with a wide margin for interpretation of the text. To regulate discretionary power such as the dissolution of the House of Representatives, rules formed by mutual understanding between political actors (conventions or “political law”) are an important link between the text of the Constitution and its application. From this perspective, I examine the possibility of restrictions on the discretionary dissolution by Cabinet (substantially by the Prime Minister). In addition, I discuss the necessity of restriction by law and rational practices in relation to the issue of the Cabinet not responding to the demands of opposition groups for the convening of an extraordinary session.

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Analysis of Voting in the 2017 General Election in Japan

Hiroki MORI, Takanari MASUDA

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 92-107
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_92

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This paper summarizes an analysis of voting in the general election for members of the House of Representatives held in October 2017 in Japan. Through systematically organizing the basic indicators of voter turnout, percentages of invalid votes, numbers of candidates, numbers of winners, absolute percentages of votes won, and margins of defeat, it elucidates (i) the degree of admixture of stable voting patterns in common with past elections and distinctive voting patterns unique to the 2017 general election, and (ii) the nature of multilayered competition between and within political parties. Since it is conceivable that the process from the dissolution of the House of Representatives until voting had a major impact on the results of this election, this paper also discusses the kinds of thinking on which the leaders of individual political parties based their election strategies. In addition, this paper considers the political context of differentiation of individual constituencies by small and medium-sized parties, which increasingly is coming to be regarded highly in recent years as an election tactic under the electoral system combining the single-seat constituency system with proportional representation.

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Does the Economy Influence Election Results?

An Analysis of the Lower House Election Results of Abe Cabinet and the Economic Situation of Japanese Prefectures

Naoki SHIMIZU

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 108-125
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_108

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This article aims to examine the effect of the economy on election results; analyze data on economic conditions; and review the 2012, 2014, and 2017 lower house election results in Japanese prefectures. Most previous studies have used survey data, and few have used aggregate data. The reason is that studies using time-series data make it challenging to remove the effects of political situations and economic conditions in different elections, and studies using cross-session data at the local level make it difficult to remove the effects of local and candidate characteristics. This article uses data of the lower house elections held by the Abe Cabinet, and removes the effects such as the political situation and candidate characteristics using data of the difference in the vote share of the same candidate running in that election. I analyze the data and conclude that the economy has an insignificant effect on the election results.

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Diversity of News About the Abe Administration in Japanese National Newspapers

Ryo CHIBA

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 126-138
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_126

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Under the Abe administration, the government has shown a stronger confrontation with the mass media. On the mass media side, the number of audiences is decreasing. Based on these situations, there is concern that mass media reports will become more partisan and lose the forum function of providing opportunities for access to diverse opinions and information. From this perspective, this paper analyzed the political coverages of Japanese national newspapers and discussed what issues were raised under the Abe administration and what kind of tone these reports had. As a result, it became clear that various policy issues were discussed during the period of the second Abe administration, and that the difference between the positive and negative tones among the newspapers increased during the same period. From these results, it was shown that how to provide a place to access various information is a future issue.

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Who Gets Close to Government Policies, and Who Steps Away?

Sohei SHIGEMURA, Jaehyun SONG, Yuki YANAI

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 139-150
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_139

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We investigate how political elites shape public opinion. The literature of opinion leadership has paid considerable attention to how politicians influence their constituents’ policy preferences. Some show that elites can shift their supporters’ positions by merely announcing the elites’ positions. Others assert that politicians’ position - taking does not change voters’ positions, but that they can persuade voters to believe that the proposed policies are beneficial. By analyzing an original data set from a survey experiment in Japan, we reveal when the government succeeds in shaping public opinion and when it fails. Combining randomized framing and a conjoint experiment, we find that persuasion works when the prime minister provides ideologically well - aligned justification. Moreover, the persuasion effect is attenuated when the persuader takes an ideologically contradictory position. Our study highlights the influence of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and contributes to a better understanding of political communication between elites and voters.

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Explaining “Twisted” Preferences Toward Monetary Easing in Japan

Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Information Environment on the Relationship Between Ideology and Policy Preferences

Gento KATO, Susumu ANNAKA

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 151-167
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_151

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On specific policies, voters and political parties representing “left” and “right” in Japan are known to hold “twisted” policy preferences that conflict with left and right in western countries. Especially on monetary easing, in west, left tends to be more supportive of its expansion than right; In Japan, left is consistently opposing to this policy. Scholars provide various explanations for this pattern, but none has been assessed empirically. In the current study, we conduct a survey experiment with Japanese voters to explore the effect of information environment on the relationship between ideology and monetary easing preferences. The result shows that “left” voters support monetary easing the same or more than “right” voters if and only if both the “poverty reduction” framing and endorsement from western economic experts are provided. The finding implies that information environment plays a critical role in explaining “twisted” Japanese policy preferences.

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The Meaning of Important Electoral Issues

Taka-aki ASANO

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 168-181
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_168

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In every election, numerous surveys have asked Japanese voters the “important issue” question. However, since each survey worded its questions differently, they are unlikely to share a uniform understanding of important issues. In this article, I present a survey experiment designed to compare the results obtained by three differently worded questions. I find that respondents do not express strong opinions when generally asked about personal or national important issues. However, when I asked clearly or directly about important issue for voting, those who reported foreign policy as an important issue hold strong opinion on diplomatic issues. Additionally, respondents who considered economic or welfare policy to be important did not have a strong opinion, even when asked about important electoral issues. These results indicate that the meaning of important issues changes depending on the type of issue and how questions about them are worded.

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[title in Japanese]

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 182-200
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_182

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[title in Japanese]

Tsuyoshi MIFUNE

2020 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 201-206
Published: 2020
Released on J-STAGE: November 16, 2023

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.14854/jaes.36.2_201

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