The Impact of Election-System Reform upon the Japanese Party Ssytem

笔者的研究重点是1994年日本选举制度改革对政党竞争的影响。我以Excel格式制作了一个关于最近两次大选的地区统计数据库。然后，对数据进行分析，考察各政党之间的竞争格局、各地区之间的偏差、改革带来的双重候选人效应等。以下是对调查结果的总结。关于选举制度对政党政治的影响，最著名的理论之一是杜弗热定律（Duverger's Law）。法律规定，得票最多者当选的制度产生了两党制，这是一种传统的智慧。我的分析确实证实了这一规律，但只是在地区一级。也就是说，在大多数地区，选举往往只由前两名候选人竞争，将其他弱势候选人排除在真实的竞争之外。2000年大选比1996年大选更清楚地看到了这一趋势。不用说，自民党赢得了两次选举， 关于我们 然而，我的分析认为，自民党的连续胜利并不意味着日本主导性政党制度的回归。首先，必须注意的是，该党未能在全国一级增加对它的投票。在比例代表制中，自民党一直处于中间地位。其次，在许多地区，前两名候选人之间的竞争非常激烈。这意味着这些地区的任何赢家都不能有信心地预测他/她在下次选举中的胜利。1994年改革在全国范围内重新分配席位，加速了这种竞争。新的选举制度分配给城市和大都市地区的席位比自民党占优势的旧制度更多。这种新的席位分配使自民党的统治地位不稳定。第三，我们必须考虑到公关制度对政党制度的影响。在日本，一些小党比简单的简单多数制国家更容易在连续的选举中生存下来。因此，我的结论是，至少在不久的将来，日本将保持一个温和但不稳定的多党制。少

My research focused on the impact on the party competition of the election-system reform of 1994 in Japan. I made a database on district-level statistics of the last two general elections in an Excel format. Then I analyzed the data to see the competition pattern among parties, deviancy among districts, the effect of dual candidacy introduced by the reform, and so on. The following is the summary of my findings.One of the most famous theories about the effect of election system on party politics is Duverger's Law. The law says that a first-past-the-post system produces a two-party system, and it has been a conventional wisdom. My analysis does confirm this law, but only on the district level. That is, in most districts, elections tend to be fought only by the top two candidates, keeping other weak candidates out of the real competition. The 2000 general election saw this tendency more clearly than the 1996 one. Needless to say, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won both elections, and … More succeeded in keeping power with its miner partners.Continuous victories of the LDP, however, do not mean the comeback of a dominant party system in Japan, my analysis says. Firstly, attention must be paid to the fact that the party failed to increase votes cast to it on the national level. In the proportional representation system, the LDP has remained as a middling party.Secondly, there were many districts where competition between the top two candidates was very close. This means that any winner in such districts cannot predict his/her victory in the next election with confidence. Such competitiveness has been accelerated by the nation-wide reallocation of seats by the 1994 reform. The new election system allocates more seats to urban and metropolitan areas than the previous system that gave advantage to the LDP. This new seat-allocation makes the LDP dominance unstable.Thirdly, we have to take the effect of PR system on a party system into account It is certain that any PR system tends to produce a multi-parly system. In Japan, some small parties can survived successive elections more easily than in a country with a simple first-past-the-post system.My conclusion is, therefore, Japan win maintain a moderate but unstable multi-party system at least in the near future. Less