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

我的研究重点是1994年日本选举制度改革对政党竞争的影响。我把过去两次大选的地区统计数据用Excel格式做了一个数据库。然后对数据进行分析，分析政党之间的竞争格局、选区之间的偏差、改革引入的双重候选人的影响等。以下是我对调查结果的总结。关于选举制度对政党政治的影响，最著名的理论之一是杜维格定律。法律规定，简单多数制产生两党制，这一直是一种传统智慧。我的分析确实证实了这一规律，但仅限于地区层面。也就是说，在大多数地区，选举往往只在前两名候选人之间进行，而其他实力较弱的候选人则被排除在真正的竞争之外。2000年的大选比1996年的大选更明显地体现了这一趋势。不用说，自由民主党（LDP）赢得了两次选举，并且……更成功地与其矿业合作伙伴保持了权力。然而，我的分析认为，自民党的连续胜利并不意味着日本执政党制度的回归。首先，必须注意的是，该党未能在全国范围内增加投票给它。在比例代表制中，自民党一直是一个中间政党。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，在这些地区获胜的任何一方都无法自信地预测自己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。新的选举制度将更多的席位分配给城市和大都市地区，而不是以前的制度，使自民党占优势。这种新的席位分配使得自民党的统治地位不稳定。第三，我们必须考虑公关制对政党制度的影响。公关制必然会产生多党制。在日本，一些小政党比简单的简单多数制国家更容易在连续选举中幸存下来。因此，我的结论是，至少在不久的将来，日本将维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