Abstract
Focusing on the contamination effects that may arise across the single-seat district (SSD) and proportional representation (PR) tiers of mixed-member electoral systems like Japan’s, this chapter mainly asks what explains the surge in the effective number of candidates and the declining level of two-party competition at the district level. Parties might oversupply candidates as long as they believe the benefits from the contamination effects overweigh the costs. Such contamination effects include: the “list contamination effect,” or the effect of a party running a local candidate in a district to raise voter awareness and mobilize more list votes; and the “incumbency contamination effect,” or the effect of stationing dually nominated list winners (DNLWs) in districts. Anecdotal evidence and analyses of a comprehensive data set on SSDs in the 2017 election provide general confirmation of the hypotheses.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Some call them “zombies” (Pekkanen et al. 2006) but this chapter uses DNLWs.
- 3.
Parties, especially the major parties, now tend to give the same ranks to most of the dual candidates, so that they maximize their performance on the nominal component (Nemoto and Tsai 2016). As explained later, candidates also have the incentive to defeat their rivals in their districts with large margins so that the district will have no DNLW.
- 4.
In 2009, the JCP nominated nominal candidates in 152 out of the 300 districts, perhaps for two reasons: first, given that the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ ) was very likely to win the election, the JCP positioned itself as a “constructive opposition party” (kensetsuteki yatō) that might selectively cooperate with the DPJ administration (Asahi July 27, 2009, p. 3; Nikkei July 17, 2009, p. 2); and second, most of the JCP candidates lost their deposits, costing the party ¥600 million every election (Asahi August 13, 2009, p. 9, evening edition).
- 5.
Some might argue that, given that the JCP ran candidates in all districts when the single non-transferable voting system was in place before 1993, the party just continues to do so under the new system, without caring about list votes. However, its nomination strategies have varied over time, and at least anecdotal evidence suggests the JCP does care about losing list votes by nominating fewer candidates, as in 2017.
- 6.
See Yomiuri October 9, p. 31, Wakayama edition, and Mainichi October 5, 2017, p. 22, Wakayama edition, on the Japan Innovation Party; Yomiuri August 3, 2017, p. 27, Kumamoto edition, and Mainichi October 8, 2017, p. 27, Chiba edition, on SDP; Mainichi October 16, 2017, p. 10 on CDP; Mainichi October 18, 2017, p. 2 on Hope.
- 7.
One potential criticism is that parties run candidates where they expect higher support, so the presence of a candidate and list votes should be only spuriously correlated (Maeda 2008). The empirical analysis section later addresses this problem by employing a panel design.
- 8.
- 9.
More precisely, the four types are: (1) those who had won the same districts on the nominal component in the previous rounds of elections; (2) those who had run in the same districts but won seats through the list component in the previous rounds of elections; (3) those who had won seats through the list component without running on the nominal component in the previous rounds of elections; and (4) those who had not won seats in the previous elections.
- 10.
List vote share: a party’s list vote share in a given district on the nominal component.
Presence: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning a party nominated a candidate on the nominal component.
Nominal vote share: a party’s nominal vote share. It is coded 0 where a party nominated no candidate.
Seniority: the number of terms served by a candidate. It is coded 0 where a party nominated no candidate.
Previous district winner: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning a party nominated a district incumbent (not a DNLW). It is coded 0 where a party nominated no candidate.
DNLW: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning a party nominated a DNLW. It is coded 0 where a party nominated no candidate.
Dual: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning a party nominated a dually nominated candidate. It is coded 0 where a party nominated no candidate.
- 11.
Although not shown here, the results are much the same when Gaines and Taagepera’s (2013) two measures for two-partyness (T and D2) are used.
- 12.
See Scheiner et al. (this volume, p. 29) for the urban–rural divide and the fragmentation of parties in urban areas.
- 13.
ENC: Laakso and Taagepera (1979) index. See footnote 1.
No DLNW: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning there was no DNLW running in a district.
Two DLNWs: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning there were two DNLWs running in a district.
Urbanization: the ratio of “densely inhabited districts” (DIDs) within a given district. DIDs are the Japanese government’s official measure of urban areas. See for instance the Statistics Bureau website (http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/chiri/did/1-1.htm).
Open seat: a dichotomous dummy, with 1 meaning there was no district incumbent (not a DNLW) running in a district.
- 14.
In the 122 districts that had no DNLW running, the average margin between the winner and the best loser was 25.6%.
- 15.
In the 72 districts that had one DNLW running, the average margin was 9.0%.
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Nemoto, K. (2018). Party Competition and the Electoral Rules. In: Pekkanen, R., Reed, S., Scheiner, E., Smith, D. (eds) Japan Decides 2017. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76475-7_10
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