This paper analyzes the political process under the two periods of the Japanese version of divided government from 2007 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2012 to fulfill three objectives. The first purpose is to examine whether the prime minister sought to expand his supporting parties within the House of Councillors. The second is to analyze the influence of the House of Councillors on the policy-making process. The third is to explore how such influence further affected the fate of the administrations.

  The paper reveals the followings. As regard to the first objective, the prime minister tried to expand the number of supporting parties in the House of Councillors. For the second and third objectives, when the ruling parties secured more than two-thirds of the seats in the Lower House, it was possible to implement important policies, but the implementation was often interrupted. Interruptions caused a decline in cabinet approval rate, bringing the downfall of the cabinet in short period of time. On the other hand, when the ruling parties did not secure more than two-thirds of the seats, the prime ministers were often forced to revise the content of important policies or to abandon them all together. Furthermore, they had to sacrifice or bet the fate of their cabinets to pass some important bills.

  This paper examines the role of the House of Councillors in terms of women’s political representation and policy making processes advancing women’s rights and interests. The institutional effects of the Japan’s Upper House, with its strong powers, should also be affected by the transformation of the overall power structure of Japanese politics. This paper therefore also explores changes over time in the role of the Upper House by comparing two periods: the latter half of the 1955 regime, after the compartmentalized pluralism was established, and the post-2001 period, after the reforms to strengthen the power of the core executive took place. Analyses of the statements of female members in the Upper House and selected case studies have shown that, while more diverse interests have been represented in the Upper House and socially minority interests could set their own agendas there, it has not always worked to the advantage of the feminist camp. It has also provided an opportunity for the anti-feminist preferences to be represented, and more so after the dividing function of the strong Upper House was become evident after the core executive reforms in the 2000s.

  The activities of the Diet are limited to the duration of the annual session and the extra sessions. The Cabinet, in effect, decides to convene the Diet, but the latter determines the time and period during which it operates. Negotiations among the Cabinet and the Diet, the ruling and opposition parties regarding the opening, closing and extension of the Diet, are highly political issues.

  While the Diet is not in session, committee(s) by either house of the Diet may consider matters for conducting activities related to national policies. Such consideration may be used as an alternative to the activities of “the Diet” when the Cabinet does not decide to convene extra session even though one-fourth or more of the total members of either House make a demand to do so, according to Article 53 of the Constitution of Japan.

  This paper researches on the actual status of 300 cases of those considerations from 2003 to 2022. In particular, it clarifies that considerations have significant impacts on the interpretation and operation of the requirement to convene extra session and the fiscal democracy. Such consideration is an important issue in unexplored study on constitutional law and/or political science.

  “Weak” government and “strong” parliament are a hallmark of the Parliamentary government and the bicameralism in Italy. The government must have the confidence of the House of Deputies and the Senate. President of the Council of the Ministers, which is the official appellation of the prime minister, cannot dissolve both Houses. Governments were unstable and the cohesion of the governmental parties wasn’t high. On the other hand, the Communist Party excluded from the government was a crucial member of the law-making process in both Houses. After the transition to the Second Republic, bipolar competition in the national elections realized the governmental alternation. Instability of the governments and the low cohesion of governmental parties remained. The 2013 and 2018 national elections couldn’t make clear electoral winners and the formation of a new government, in which the role of the President of the Republic was very important, didn’t go smoothly. Many Italians including political class and citizens long for transition from consensus model to the Westminster model of government, but the realization is very hard under the unstable party system.

  This paper analyzes the academic value of the concept “semi-parliamentarism”. Steffen Ganghof introduced this concept to refer to one type of executive system. According to him, semi-parliamentarism has three features: 1] the chief executive is not chosen by popular election, 2] legislature is divided into two parts which are directly elected, 3] only one part can dismiss the chief executive in a no-confidence vote. He classified Australia and Japan into semi-parliamentarism. Moreover, he insisted that semi-parliamentarism can balance competing vision of democracy i.e. “Majoritarian” and “Proportional” vision.

  However, the case of Australian bicameralism showed that the reality of semi-parliamentarism is different from theoretical assumption. Based on the fluctuation of two-party system in Senate, law centred majoritarian formation took hold at 1990s at last. Nevertheless, the possibility of single majority in both chambers has not disappeared. These show the importance of the conditions that make semi-parliamentarism possible. Especially, the rise of Independent and small party in Senate, and the share of political belief which opposition in Senate should not collapse government are important.

  The parliamentary government and bicameral system are fundamental institutions in the British polity and are incrementally evolved. The raison d’être of the House of Lords is under debate in majoritarian democracy, which has a concentration of executive power in single-party majority cabinets based on the confidence of the House of Commons. The contemporary House of Lords mainly comprises appointed life peers because nearly all hereditary peers are excluded. The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act is enforced prior to the first reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill, which would introduce elected members into the House of Lords, although the Act is repealed after the Bill was abandoned. Therefore, the discretionary dissolution power of the Prime Minister is revived. The impact of the House of Lords is typically noted in Government defeats relevant to civil liberty and constitutionality. The raison d’être of the House of Lords is frequently expressed as checks and balances, complement and deliberation. It is recognized that the House of Lords is highly specialist and less political chamber compared with the House of Commons. The contemporary House of Lords possesses “input legitimacy,” “procedural legitimacy,” and “output legitimacy”. Lastly, the House also holds “expertise legitimacy” instead of democratic legitimacy.

  This paper reexamines the importance of Friedrich Hayek’s theory of parliamentary reform and the separation of powers. Hayek’s theory of parliamentary reform has been underappreciated, and the meaning of the separation of powers has rarely been the subject of research. By using the methodology of the history of political thought, we focus on Hayek’s contemporary writings and his arguments between The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty. This analysis reveals that the change in his arguments results from his attention to the ancient Greek special legislative committee the Nomothetai and an inclination toward the theory of natural aristocracy. This recognition leads us to understand the consistency and importance of Hayek’s concept of parliamentary reform and the originality of the concept of separation of powers. This paper concludes that the theory of parliamentary reform is at the core of Hayek’s thought and in no way contradicts other Hayekian political thought such as the theory of spontaneous order. This suggests that previous scholarship has failed to understand the significance of Hayek’s theory of the separation of powers.

  The present article analyzes how the drafters of the Meiji Constitution examined various aspects of the British constitutional monarchy, and the possibility of their introduction into the monarchy in Japan. Its main focus is on the counsel received from Sir Francis Taylor Piggott (1852–1925), a British jurist appointed in 1887 as a legal adviser to the Japanese prime minister. Through scrutiny of legal reports submitted by Piggott as well as German advisers, in addition to a semi-official commentary on the Constitution among other sources, the article draws attention to the fact that while some British constitutional principles (e.g. the principle that ministers shall give their advice to the sovereign) were adopted in the Meiji Constitution, the parliamentary aspects of British monarchy (e.g. the parliamentary cabinet system or passage of Acts of Indemnity), in addition to the doctrine that the King/Queen “reigns but does not govern,” were rejected in the drafting process. This was the conclusion drawn by the Constitution’s drafters from what it seemed to be an irreconcilable difference between Japan and Britain as constitutional monarchies founded on starkly different principles: imperial sovereignty in Japan as opposed to parliamentary sovereignty in the British constitutional system.

  Under what conditions do interest groups succeed at lobbying? Through a large number of policy issues related to regulatory reform, this research shows that lobbying success is associated with issue-level factors. We created a data set based on policy issues, using documents the Cabinet Office had released. The material included interest groups’ policy proposals on regulatory reform issues, and the replies from administrative agencies. Using this data set, we analyzed the relationship between the characteristics of coalitions of interest groups lobbying with the same policy goal and the administrative agencies’ responses. The results showed that policy proposals from interest group coalitions which contain principal economic organizations (e.g., business groups and industry associations) tend to be considered by policy-makers, and ones from coalitions with diverse interests are then reflected in the actual policy. It is therefore suggested that coalitions among groups with the same goal in regulatory reform are likely to succeed when they include major economic lobbying groups in the agenda-setting stage, and then include diverse interests in the policy-making stage.

  This study argues that the electoral reform in the 1990s accounts for declining differences in voter turnout between rural and urban districts. Drawing on that voter turnout was higher in rural districts with the greater number of seats per capita, I hypothesize that the smaller number of seats per seat as a result of the electoral reform reduced voter turnout in rural areas, which ultimately shrank the difference in voter turnout between rural and urban districts. This hypothesis is tested using data of the changes in the number of seats per capita at the district level and voter turnout at the municipality-level before and after the reform.

  This study examined the causal effects of conveniently located early voting stations on voter turnout. Although previous studies have examined the relationship between the number of early voting stations and voter turnout, the location of early voting stations has not been fully considered in Japan. This study thus focused on the temporary early voting stations that were set up for a local referendum in Osaka City in November 2020. This study uses the generalized synthetic control method to estimate the causal effect of the stations located in convenient places on voter turnout. The results of this study indicate that the temporary early voting stations in the Osaka City referendum significantly increase voter turnout in the ward, even when the stations are set up for only a day. This study provides new insights into the causal relationship between early voting stations and voter turnout, and suggests important practical implications.

  This article explores how an authority granted to the chief executives to act unilaterally works in local governments in Japan. Critics have advocated that the executive prerogative can be abused to act first and alone, that is, circumvent hostile assemblies aiming to achieve legislative goals.

  Contrary to this distrust in the executive power, the author hypothesizes that executing day-to-day managerial affairs through the non-statutory means benefits assembly members and public opinion effectively constrains executive unilateralism. Drawing upon an original dataset of unilateral action by Japanese governors since the 1990s, this article reveals that larger pre-electoral coalitions of governors are associated with more routine (especially lawsuits and damages) directives. This result highlights an underappreciated nature of the executive authority. Governors rarely resort to their first-mover advantage that undermines the legislative process. Instead, they act unilaterally as administrators by facilitating government operations to coordinate inter-branch relations.

  The local government system in Japan, established through the enactment of the “Three New Laws” (Sanshinpō) in 1878, was the first democratic system embodied in national and local governments for the country. Democratic local assemblies were institutionalized to deliberate on taxes and budgets, and government-appointed governors were held accountable to residents in their jurisdiction through assembly deliberations. The purpose of this study is to elucidate how the national government decided to introduce such a system which potentially constrains its authority. This study analyzes the enactment process using a theoretical framework based on insights from historical institutionalism (Hall 2010), and finds that: (1) the national political elite were not homogeneous in preferences over local government, as assumed by the conventional theory, leading to a conflict between proponents with instrumental beliefs about the value of local autonomy based on their prior experience managing feudal domains (han) and opponents who lacked such beliefs, and; (2) crises including the Ise Riots, a large-scale peasant uprising in 1876, and the Seinan War, a large-scale samurai uprising in 1877, caused shifts in power dynamics, enabling proponents of autonomy to expand their support and institutionalize the system of local government by overcoming opposition.