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

我的研究主要集中在1994年日本选举制度改革对政党竞争的影响。我以Excel格式制作了过去两次大选的地区统计数据数据库。然后对数据进行分析，看党际竞争格局、区际偏差、改革引入的双重参选效果等。以下是我的发现的总结。关于选举制度对政党政治影响的最著名的理论之一是杜弗格定律。法律规定，得票率最高的制度产生两党制，这已经成为一种传统智慧。我的分析确实证实了这一法律，但仅限于地区层面。也就是说，在大多数选区，选举往往只由排名前两位的候选人参加，将其他实力较弱的候选人排除在真正的竞争之外。2000年的大选比1996年的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，…然而，我的分析称，自民党的连续胜利并不意味着日本主导政党制度的卷土重来。首先，必须注意到该党未能在国家一级增加对该党的投票。在比例代表制中，自民党仍然是一个中间党派。第二，在许多地区，前两名候选人的竞争非常激烈。这意味着，这些地区的任何获胜者都不能自信地预测他/她在下一次选举中的胜利。1994年的改革在全国范围内重新分配席位，加速了这种竞争力。与有利于自民党的旧选举制度相比，新的选举制度为城市和大都市地区分配了更多的席位。这种新的席位分配使自民党的统治地位变得不稳定。第三，考虑到公关制度对政党制度的影响，任何公关制度都必然会产生多党制。在日本，一些小政党比一个简单的得票最多的国家更容易通过连任选举。因此，我的结论是，日本赢得了至少在不久的将来保持温和但不稳定的多党制。较少

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