Ethan Scheiner

Mixed electoral systems and electoral system effects: controlled comparison and cross-national analysis

Utilizing data from 15 countries that employ mixed electoral systems, we provide a crossnational analysis of the defining elements and potentially constraining effects of such systems. Using district level election results, we examine the effects of the proportional representation (PR) and single-member district (SMD) tiers of mixed systems separately and in combination. We also test the effects on electoral outcomes of different components of mixed systems such as linked tiers, ratio of SMD to PR seats, and majority versus plurality rules in the SMD tier. Our findings suggest that, despite claims of a ‘‘contamination effect’’ between the two tiers, in countries with developed party systems, PR and SMD electoral arrangements tend to approximate their expected effects even when used in combination in mixed systems. We also find that particular institutional characteristics within mixed systems have a substantial constraining effect on the number of significant political parties. However, the nature of the party system itself, in particular the extent to which its parties are institutionalized, also plays a very important role in shaping the degree to which constraining effects are truly felt. # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Japan's new electoral system:: la plus ça change . . .

Abstract We examine the impact on parties and candidates of Japans new electoral rules, first used in the 1996 House of Representatives election. We argue that the Japanese rules, which not only permit dual candidacy but also allow votes cast in the single member district (SMD) portion of the race to allocate proportional representation (PR) seats to dual candidates, effectively defeat the purposes of electoral reform. The new arrangement transforms PR representatives into locally-based politicians who will rely on personalistic rather than party-based or programmatic campaigning, effectively converts single-member districts back into the multi-member districts of the past, enhances incumbency advantage, and will push the ratio of candidates to seats down as low or even lower than before.

The End of LDP Dominance and the Rise of Party-Oriented Politics in Japan

The loss of power by the Liberal Democratic Party after more than half a century of dominance was the most obvious outcome of Japan’s 2009 election, but together the 2005 and 2009 elections demonstrate significant shifts in both the foundations of party support and the importance of national swings in support for one party or another. Since 2005, urban-rural differences in the foundations of the leading parties have changed dramatically, and Japan has moved from a system dominated by locally based, individual candidacies toward a two-party system in which both party popularity and personal characteristics influence electoral success or failure.

Pipelines of Pork Japanese Politics and a Model of Local Opposition Party Failure

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has dominated Japanese politics since 1955, and the party’s even greater dominance of subnational level elections is much of the reason why. This article seeks to explain local electoral outcomes in Japan by focusing on two key features of the Japanese political system: the heavy centralization of governmental finances and an emphasis on clientelistic exchange. Because Japan’s political system focuses so heavily on the clientelist distribution of goods, local politicians and voters casting ballots in local elections have an incentive to align with parties that have access to the state budget. Because Japan’s public funds are primarily controlled by the central government, parties that control the national budget will be the most likely to benefit. In short, Japan’s fiscally centralized and clientelist system helps generate for the LDP a near monopoly on local power across most of Japan.

Adaptive parties: party strategic capacity under Japanese SNTV

A method and apparatus for large scale production of a product of in vivo medicine carriers which are medicine coated crosslinked protein microspheres for medicine administration. The reagents are prepared in solution and contained in respective bags. A series pumps and mixing chambers are connected to the reagent bags. The pumps are set at pre-determined rates and activated in a predetermined sequence within respective pre-determined delay periods, to achieve instantaneous component mixing and controlled sequential mixing characteristics.

The 2017 Election Results: An Earthquake, a Typhoon, and Another Landslide

The 2017 general election played out in very similar ways to 2014. Turnout remained low, and the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Kōmeitō retained its two-thirds majority. The big story of the election was a schism within the opposition and the formation of two new parties, the Party of Hope and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), divided primarily on the issue of constitutional revision. We examine how these new parties fared in terms of votes and seats, and across districts of varying population density. Our analysis suggests that even perfect opposition coordination would not have defeated the governing coalition, which dominated across all regions. The best showing on the opposition side was by the CDP, but whether it can pose a credible threat to the LDP going forward is still uncertain.

The 2012 Election Results: The LDP Wins Big by Default

On 16 December 2012, Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had been swept from power in August 2009 after more than half a century of dominance, roared back with a landslide of its own. Entering the election with only 118 of 480 seats in the House of Representatives (HR), the lower house of the National Diet, the LDP emerged with a stomping majority of 294. Moreover, the LDP and its long-time coalition partner, Komeito, jointly surpassed the two-thirds threshold needed to override vetoes from the upper house, the House of Councillors (HC), where the coalition lacks a majority—at least until the 2013 HC election. The incumbent Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which had taken power with an even more impressive 308 seats in 2009, retained only 57 seats this time, just barely managing second place after three difficult years in government.

Urban outfitters: city-based strategies and success in post-war Japanese politics

Abstract Scholars have long held that the urban–rural cleavage has been a critical line of division in Japan. In contrast, recent applications of rational choice to Japan have emphasized political structures over sociological factors. Kohno (1997) utilizes electoral data to indicate the importance of institutional factors, and largely rejects the centrality of the urban–rural distinction in shaping party strategy and success. The article presented here offers evidence that demonstrates not only that Kohnos model is misspecified, but also that an approach founded on the urban–rural split tends to offer greater explanatory power than the purely institutional model.

Social Diversity Affects the Number of Parties Even Under First Past the Post Rules

Nearly all systematic empirical work on the relationship between social diversity and the number of parties asserts the “interactive hypothesis”—Social heterogeneity leads to party fragmentation under permissive electoral rules, but not under single-member district, first-past-the-post (FPTP) rules. In this article, we argue that previous work has been hindered by a reliance on national-level measures of variables and a linear model of the relationship between diversity and party fragmentation. This article provides the first analysis to test the interactive hypothesis appropriately by using district-level measures of both ethnic diversity and the effective number of parties in legislative FPTP elections and considering a curvilinear relationship between the variables. We find that there is a strong relationship between social diversity and the number of parties even under FPTP electoral rules, thus suggesting that restrictive rules are not as powerful a constraint on electoral behavior and outcomes as is usually supposed.

Electoral Reform in Italy and Japan: Unanticipated Outcomes?

During the 1980s and into the 1990s, citizens in Italy and Japan grew fed up with the politics of their country. The elite politician class of both countries faced problems of accountability and corruption. Finally, news of scandals in both countries in the early 1990s provided the impetus for substantial institutional change. By 1994, both Italy and Japan reformed the rules they used to elect politicians, with both countries instituting mixed-member electoral systems that provided simultaneously for a candidate-based single member district (SMD) tier and a larger seat magnitude proportional representation (PR) tier.