I have the following three aims in this thesis. They are (1) to approach the political consciousness of youth from the view point of taking the large scale non-voting of youth as a typical phenomenan ; (2) to make clear the relationship between the non-voting and the political consciousness ; and (3) to reexamine the situation of the political consciousness of youth suggested by the large scale non-voting by expanding the object from elections to political systems in general.
The cause of the large scale non-voting is first of all the migration of the youth population toward urban areas which is resulted from the high-rate economic growth. Secondly we can find it in their attitude to the present condition of party politics, such as the phenomenon of indifference to political parties. This attitude contains the criticism for the present situation of politics, and therefore it is dangerous to take it simply as political apathy. To explain this analytically, interest in politics is distinguished from political consciousness, and we can say that those who abstain from voting have little interest in elections but we cannot always say that they have little interest in politics. Actually in such societies as Japan where conformity is very strong, various social regulations on voting urge those who are indifferent to politics to vote. But we cannot neglect the tendency that not only in cities but in countries the criticism to conformity in voting is becoming strong among youth and that this criticism is expressed as non-voting.
The difficulty of measuring the level of political consciousness from interest in politics is also known from the fact that elections are only one element of political system. As political consciousness is the total of psychological orientation to each element and the whole of political system, it is necessary to reexamine the political distrust and criticism of youth, which can be found in the large scale non-voting, in relation with the total of this consciousness. By this reexamination we can make clear the problem of continuity or discontinuity between youth and other generations on the level of political consciousness.

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The two remarkable tendencies have been observed in Japan's recent elections: the continuous rise in the abstention rate at successive elections and the increase of mutohaso (voters who have no particular partisanship). Although many previous studies have devoted attention to voting behavior, the rising abstention rate has been investigated only partially. Additionally, research focused on voting turnout rate have to date tended to slight underlying factors except those affecting the nation as a whole.
Nowadays, however, the electorate's distrust of the political system rather than particular parties and statesmen is increasing, and the abstention rate, regardless of whether it is a national or local election, is also rising steadily. This reflects distrust of the political system itself at the local level as well as at the national level. Thus, this rise of abstention rate should be investigated from a more comprehensive framework rather than maintain a bias towards the national level. Therefore, this research note examines the relationship between local elections and the 1996 general election of the House of the Representatives in the southern Kanto region of Japan (Saitama, Chiba, Tokyo and Kanagawa), using the path analysis associated with J. Agnew's concept of context.
The abstention rate of both the local and national elections are influenced by the socio-economic characteristics of municipalities located in the region under analysis. However, the high correlation observed between the general election and the two local elections (on municipal and the other prefectural) immediately before it cannot be explained by socio-economic characteristics dlone. This is because the abstention rate at these local elections affected the national election. It is very likely that apathy toward local elections, which had been shared by electors in the context of increasing distrust toward politics in general, caused the result of the higher abstention of the general election through his/her‘path’and‘sense of place’in the terminology of Agnew.
Hence, keeping in mind that factors at both the scale of municipalities and prefectures had been an important‘context’for the high abstention of the national election, I applied a causal model which incorporated the impact of the local elections on the national election immediately after them. The results, show a significant causality. It can thus be concluded that Agnew's perspective which enables us to integrate factors working at a few different spatial levels within a single framework is effective for considering phenomena concerned with recent distrust of politics.

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本稿は,昭和3(1928)年に実施された第1回普選の投票率に注目しながら,普選導入により新たに選挙権を獲得した人々の選挙に対する基本的な意識,すなわち彼らが新たに獲得した選挙権をどのように自覚し,投票を通じた政治参加にどの程度の意義を見出していたかについて考察を加えた。
その結果,新有権者の選挙に対する関心や意識が必ずしも高くなかったことを,前年に実施された普選による府県議選の低投票率や,選挙買収を当然視する考え等から明らかにした。政府は,かかる違反防止のための選挙啓蒙活動を積極的に行うが,その活動は,有権者に選挙違反への脅威を抱かせ,彼らを選挙から遠ざけ,を助長する恐れを生じさせた。こうした状況を受け,選挙後半戦より政府が,違反防止から防止に力点を置く選挙啓蒙活動を展開するようになったことを,実際に用いられたポスターやビラ等を紹介しながら明らかにした。
第1回普選の投票率は,当初懸念されたほど下がることはなかったものの,その背景において,本稿において詳述したような選挙啓蒙活動が必要にせまられ積極的に行われていた事実を示すことにより,新有権者の選挙に対する関心や意識は必ずしも高くはなかったことを検証した。

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1998年参議院選挙は先行研究により「業績評価選挙」と呼ばれている。本稿は,有権者の「業績評価」は自民党の敗北をもたらしただけでなく,投票率の上昇にも貢献したことを,明るい選挙推進協会による1998年参議院選挙調査データにより,実証する。すなわち,「業績評価」は前回1995年選挙で自民党に投票した人たちを,自民党以外の政党に向ける主要な要因となったと同時に,前回選挙ではした人たちを投票へと誘う主要な要因となったのである。
なお,明推協調査の特徴は継続性にあるから,この選挙を超えた広い視点で国政選挙を眺めることができる。「亥年選挙」と「参議院選挙における党派的変動の大きさ」の2論点についてのみではあるが,1970年代以来蓄積されたデータに基づく分析結果を追加する。

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