Dynamic approaches to government formation and the generic instability of decisive structures in Japan
Dynamic approaches to government formation and the generic instability of decisive structures in Japan
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DOI：
10.1016/s0261-3794(00)00047-0
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发表时间：
2001-12-01
影响因子：
2.3
通讯作者：
Kato, J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Laver, M;Kato, J
本文放松了“政党作为单一行为者”的假设，这是许多关于政党竞争和政府组建的理论工作的特征。它首先概述了假设立法者可以自由地脱离他们所属的政党，并加入其他可能愿意接受他们的政党的理论含义。这导致了一种动态的立法政党制度，与大多数模式所假设的政党制度类型截然不同，后者在选举之间基本上保持不变。从日本看来似乎很合理的关于立法者动机的“谋求公职”假设出发，它表明，这样一个动态的政党制度可能是不稳定的，因为存在着政党的一般裂变和融合。然后，本文继续探讨在这些方面从日本案例中获得的收益。日本的政党制度是不言而喻的动态的，其特点是高度的流动性，立法政党经常在选举之间分裂和融合。证据表明，超过一定规模门槛的大政党可以成为动态系统中的吸引者，既可以向其他政党的叛逃者提供好处，也可以从他们那里获得好处。通过这种方式，一个“接近多数”的政党可以在两次选举之间通过多数门槛，就像日本自民党一样。(C)2001爱思唯尔科技有限公司版权所有。
This paper relaxes the "party as unitary actor" assumption that characterises much theoretical work on party competition and government formation. It first sketches some of the theoretical implications of assuming that legislators are free to defect from parties of which they are members, and to join other parties that might be willing to accept them. This leads to a dynamic legislative party system that is quite distinct from the type of party system assumed by most models, which remains essentially static between elections. Working from "office-seeking" assumptions about the motivations of legislators that seem very plausible in the Japanese case, it shows that such a dynamic party system is likely to be unstable, since there are generic fission and fusion of parties. The paper then moves on to explore gains to be derived from the the Japanese case in these terms. The Japanese party system is self-evidently dynamic and characterised by a high degree of flux, with legislative parties regularly splitting and fusing between elections. The evidence suggests that large parties that pass a certain size threshold can be attractors in the dynamic system, both offering benefits to and receiving them from defectors from other parties. In this way, a "near-majority" party can pass the majority threshold between elections, as happened with the Japanese LDP. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.