Study on local factors in Japanese national elections

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The purpose of this study is to analyze local factors in voting behavior and candidate-centered politics in Japanese election. The study shows that the factors strengthened LDP dominance in Lower House elections under SNTV and impeded M+1 rule in Upper House elections. Since a party run only one candidate under single member district, it seems that the local factors disappear from voting in Lower House elections after electoral reform 1994. In this study, I examine events of each constituency on the hypothesis that the local factors survive in endorsing process of a party.