A Study of Political Geography on the Reformation of Regional Political Structure Caused by the Change of Electoral System

本研究有三个目的：1.分析选举制度变迁引起的地区政治结构重组；2.考察新制度下原有制度的问题如何变化；3.追溯明治时代选举制度的变化，厘清政治区域的含义(见报告第一章)。研究结果如下。1.对1996年第41届大选的投票结果进行了按地域划分的7类选区的研究(报告第4章)。选举制度改变后，地方政治制度和地方社区几乎没有发生变化(报告第5章)。2.审议了单一成员选区和前正式成员选区之间的关系(报告第三章)。我跟踪了日本众议院选举制度的变化，然后分析了选区之间人口平衡的时间变化。其结果是，在1963年首次提起诉讼之前，虽然选区之间的人口平衡是不平衡的，但人口在县之间的分配是严格的。原因是，市辖区从来没有划分过，包括岛屿在内的选区是独立的。这意味着市辖区被认为是重要的，而不是人口平衡。

This research has three purposes: 1. the analysis of the reorganization of regional political structure caused by the change of electoral system; 2. examining how problems in the former system changed in the new system; 3. clarifying the meaning of political regions by tracing back the changes of electoral systems to Meiji era(in Chapter 1 in the Report). The research results are shown as follows. 1. Voting returns of the 41st general election in 1996 was studied geographically in relation to seven types of constituencies(Chapter 4 in the Report). And local political systems and local communities experienced few changes after the electoral system changed(Chapter 5 in the Report). 2. The relations between single member constituencies and the former prulal member constituencies were considered(Chapter 3 in the Report).3. I followed the changes of electoral systems in the House of Representatives in Japan, then analyzed temporal changes of population balances among constituencies. The result was that before the malapportionment was went to a suit for the first time in 1963, population were apportioned strictly among prefectures although population balances among constituencies were malapportioned. The reason was that municipal districts were never divided and constituencies which included island were independent ones. That means municipal districts were considered important rather than population balances.