The Concept of Party Support in Japan

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I have shed light on the notion of "party support," a concept that is central to Japanese political science, using a three-pronged approach. This covered 1) the historical process of the concept's formation, 2) a comparison with American party identification, and 3) a review of the characteristics of the concept of Japanese party support and its alternatives.Public opinion survey data analysis reveals that what is meant by "party support" varies across voters and also depends on the party supported. Moreover, different measurement techniques obtain significantly different distributions of party support.In the future the concept of party support, which has traditionally been treated as a "wild card," must be broken down into clearly-defined sub-concepts such as base attitude (unmoved mover) and voting behavior.