Japan's political arena changed dramatically around the General Election of the House of Representatives on July 18, 1993 following the split of Shinsei Party and Sakigake Party out of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the long-time ruling party in post-war Japan. This general election was also clearly characterized by the successful campaign of Nihon New Party (NNP; Nihon Shinto).
This article aims to provide an interpretation of the role of those three new parties at the 1993 General Election, based on the first series of analyses of our national panel survey. Particularly, this article focuses on three questions: (1) where did those supporters of the three new parties come from? (2) who voted for those three parties? (3) how stable are the supporters of those new parties, in terms of their partisanship as well as their social attributes?
The article first briefly compared new parties in the past with those in 1993. Then, the sources of three new party supporters were examined. While the voters of Shinsei and Sakigake mainly came from former LDP voters (60%) and very few from Japan Socialist Party (JSP), 45% of the NNP voters came from LDP and 20% of NNP came from JSP.
In other dimensions, the supporters of three new parties were somewhat different each other, while they were clearly different from the LDP and JSP supporters respectively. The NNP supporters were the best educated, least rural, most urban and the fewest in agriculture, while the LDP partisans were the least educated, most rural, and the fewest in white-collar jobs. The Shinsei supporters were similar to the LDP partisans only in term of the strong rural orientation but were very different on other dimensions. The Sakigake supporters were in the middle between the NNP and the Shinsei supporters. Finally, the new party supporters were not stable throughout the panel study.

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The political culture in Japan has been changing drastically through the “Big Change” in the 1993 general election. Japanese “One-party Dominance by LDP” continued more than 35 years finished, three new parties appeared, and the political culture and the election campaigning styles are now beginning to cahnge.
These big changes are not caused by serious changes in political polisy issues, not by appearance of big figures, but caused by more vague “expectations for changes” by general electorates nationwide.
Through the analysis of National Survey conducted by CNEP (Cross National Election Project) Japan team, on July 15-17, just before the Election Day, July 18, the author had analyzed the present states of party realignment, changes in political culture, and changes of election campaigning in Japan.
CNEP is a big project on four country comparative studies on electoral behavior, which started in 1987 to study the function of intermediaries (social networks, organization, and media) for voting decision.
CNEP German team conducted their study in 1990, US and UK team conducted them in 1992, and CNEP Japan team conducted our study in 1993 for our general election. We four teams use almost identical questionnaires in each study in order to compare the processes and mechanisms of electoral decision among four nations.
As for election campaigning style, there are big contrasts between US and Japan, that is, Japan has a long tradition of “organizational” election campaigning, and the United States often uses “media” for election campaigning.
In the 1993 general election, old parties depend much their campaigning on several types of organizations, and new parties used media more often than old parties.
“Soial-networks” performed very important functions for both old parties and new parties.

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Under the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)'s governments, Factionism prevailed into the LDP too much. Takesita Faction, the largest faction, cherished the greatest power over the LDP. In the Takesita Faction, Takesita, Shin Kanemaru and Ichiro Ozawa had the strong power, but recently Ozawa and Kanemaru used their appointive power in favor of their comrades rather than Takesita. When Kanemaru involved the money scandal of Sagawa Kyubin and stepped down from the Vice-President of the LDP and the president of Takesita Faction, the faction got into power struggle. Ozawa was accused for his despotic manner by its senior members backed by Takesita, but its junior members supported Ozawa. In the end the largest faction broke away. It was the first scene of the drama of Japanese political realighnment.
In June of 1993 the political reform bills brought about a split in the LDP, as well as in the Opposition Parties. The divion was mixed with the feeling of pro-Ozawa and anti-Ozawa. When the Opposition Parties proposed a vote of nonconfidence in the Miyazawa Cabinet, the promoters of the political reform and pro-Ozawa members of the LDP cast “yes” votes. They also quitted the LDP and formed new two parties, the Shinseito (Renewal Party) and the Shinto-Sakigake (Harbinger Party). It was the greatest division of the LDP since its establishment in 1955 and also the second scene of the drama.
Prime Minister Miyazawa resolved the Diet, but the results of the general election brought gain of seats for the new three parties including Nihon-Shinto (New Japan Party) and loss for the LDP. Ozawa persuaded to organize the “Political Reform Government” including Shakaito (the Social Democratic Party), Komeito (Clean Party) and new three conservative parties, and all heads of those parties, who became the Cabinet Ministers, shared power and responsibility. Prime Minister was chosen on the reason of the least critics from the parties forming the coalition government and it was Morihiro Hosokawa.
The next coming step of the political realighnment after the pass of the political reform bills, may follow two lines. One is an antagonism of the revisionists of the Constitution and the protectionists of the current Constitution. Another is an antagonism of the advocates of two-party system and those of the several parties system.

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Since the end of September in 1992 Amagasaki city council had been severely criticized by citizen groups due to the council members' mismanagement on their official observation trips to other cities in the past. At that time the council members denied their wrong doings and attempted to hide their official records on the trips despite citizen's strong request. Citizen groups accused them and required them to make all the records public. A neutral, independent and special investigation committee was organized in the end of January, 1993. This committee intensively investigated the records and interviewed individual council members in the spring. Finally the committee concluded most of their reports on the trips were false and inappropriate. Then, the committee suggested council members should return the money and resign from the council.
At first, the council members resisted resignation, but were forced to dissolve before overwhelming criticism on May 25. New council members were elected on June 27. In this election almost half of the former members were forced to retire from the council. Then, two-thirds of the city council were new members. The number of women doubled. The members from new party and citizen movements increased. Thus Amagasaki city council drastically changed after the election. The new city council organized subcommittee for reform and began to make reform plans. Now, traditional style of politics or the so-called boss control disappeared. New democratic politics has jnst started in Amagasaki city council.
The process and activities in Amagasaki were similar to the tide of national politics in recent Japan. In other words, Amagasaki city council election in 1993 was a harbinger of the drastic change of Japanese politics in the summer of 1993. More important is that this structural change was brought by citizens' participation.

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The Tokyo Assembly election was officially announced on july 18th, the same day House of Representatives was dissolved. During its campaign period, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) split into three parties; two new parties and the existing LDP. And the Tokyo Assembly election resulted in the landslide victory of the Japan New Party, one of the new-born parties, and the complete defeat of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) at the lowest turnout in the history.
The victory of Japan New Party in Tokyo Assembly election created a bandwagon effect among the public and the press as they rushed to support the Japan New party, and this changed the political balance in Japan. In the following election for the House of Representatives, the LDP could not win a majority, and went into opposition after 38 years in power, and the Hosokawa Administration, the eight-party coalition government took over.
This paper focuses on the results and implications of the Tokyo Assembly election, especially on its record-low turnout, the landslide victory of the Japan New Party, and the coverage of newspaper on the Japan New Party.

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The election of a Constituent Assembly for Cambodia, which was organised and conducted by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), has been enforced on 23rd to 28th of May, 1993. Many Cambodian people votes for the peace.
Japanese Government has sent 41 members of the International Polling Station Officers (IPSO) during such election. This paper shows the election system in the Peace Keeping Operation by the United Nations due to United Nations Electoral Law For Cambodia, Polling Offical' Manual and other materials issued by UNTAC.
The election was held throughout Cambodia, excluding Democratic Kampuchea dominant areas, on a provincial basis in accordance with a system of proportional representation on the basis of candidates put forward by political parties.
Twenty parties were organised and registered to stand for election. But Democratic Kampuchea Party (DKP), which accepted AGREEMENTS ON A COMPREHENSIVE POLITICAL SETTLEMENT OF THE CAMBODIA CONFLICT, rejected to participate the election for reason of uncomplete withdrawal of Vietnamese army.
About ninty percent registered voters voted for their parties. FUNCINPEC party won and got fifty-eight seats contrary to on the winning expectation of Cambodian People's party.

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The French General Election of March 1993 replaced the Socialists-led minority by a large majority of the Center-Right coalition in the National Assembly and opened a new period of Cohabitation.
An analysis of the results shows plainly the victory of the Center-Right coalition owed much more to the collapse of electoral support for the Socialists Party and the distorive nature of the electoral system than any massive increase in the popularity of the Center-Right coalition.
The election of march 1993 also saw the realinement in French Politics. There are four noticed tendencies.
(1) The voting patterns are less certain than are. The voter's attachment to their patterns are less definitely.
(2) The simple model of a bipolar quadrille in French party systems no longer works since the explosion of the Front National and the Ecologists.
(3) The Left is at a historic low. The Lefts' electors have moved to abstention, the Ecologists, the Right and to the FN.
(4) It is clear that the era of the Mitterrand is the end. Mitterrand's strategy has failed particurally at the Regional Election of March 1992 and at the Referendum of September 1992.

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This article explores the effects of economic attitudes of Japanese electorate on their political attitudes and behavior. On the basis of the survey data collected during the 1992 House of Councillors election, three dependent variables-LDP support, cabinet support, and LDP vote-are explained by the economic attitudes toward national and personal economic conditions, and LDP goverment's economic performance and policy. These independent variables include both retrospective and prospective evaluations.
The results of multiple regression analysis show that electorate use different “schema” for evaluating each of three objects. The LDP support is strongly affected by the trust in the LDP government's future economic performance. In other words, it has prospective nature. The cabinet support is short term evaluation, and only this is affected by the expectation of LDP government's future economic policy. LDP vote, on the other hand, is on the basis of the “reward and punishment” type retrospective evaluation.
The reletionship between these results and the aggregate-level findings is also discussed.

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The Japanese political distrust is characterized by the output-oriented political dissatisfaction. The Japanese type of the output-oriented dissatisfaction is one of the eight types of the political distrust, which are based on the input-output model of the political system. The Japanese output-oriented type can be described as the following expression: “The politics cannot be trusted because we are dissatisfied with the governmental policy and action not because we are not enough participating in politics.” This Japanese characteristics is clarified by analyzing the data from the omnibus survey conducted in Japan and the United States.
The eight types are derived from the patterns of the correlation between four variables of political dissatisfaction and the twelve attitudes of political participation. The four dissatisfaction variables are the strength of political dissatisfaction in general, the direction of political dissatisfaction, the degree of political dissatisfaction with the input of the political system and the degree of political dissatisfaction with the output of the political system. The twelve attitudes of participation cover the following areas; the self-image of participation, the function of an election, the feeling when voting, political involvement and the importance of participation in value priority. The Japanese type of political distrust is quite different from the American type; the Japanese attitudes correlate to the degree of political dissatisfaction especially with the output, and the American attitudes correlate to the strength of political dissatisfaction in general.
The typical Japanese of this type is expressed as ‘depending on others’ people. The more dissatisfied with political output they are, the more social reformations they think are necessary. However, on the input process they are satisfied only with voting. This contradiction between the input and the output satisfaction comes from the attitudes which attach greater importance to the output rather than the input. Thus, they don't think the dissatisfaction with the governmental policy and action should be solved by increasing their own influence on politics. This ‘depending on others’ type people can be found mainly among highly educated Japanese men, who are said to have high capacity of political participation. This is a quite significant characteristics of political distrust in Japan.

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