Abstract
The study of mass-elite policy congruence has been limited by the lack of comprehensive data on the preferences and priorities of individual legislators. The University of Tokyo-Asahi Survey fills this lacuna through elite surveys whose response rates exceed ninety per cent. This article applies this data to comparing mass-elite policy preferences on constitutional revision, a core ideological dimension in post-war Japan. It shows that legislators generally follow the party line on policy position but veer closer to swing voters on policy prioritisation. This trend is stronger for electorally insecure legislators, who depend on independent voters to secure victory.
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Notes
https://www.masaki.j.u-tokyo.ac.jp/utas/utasindex.html [website, codebook, and data are available only in Japanese]. Candidate data are available for 2003–2017 and is conducted before the election. Voter data are available for 2003–2014 and are conducted after the election. Both surveys are conducted by mail.
The DPJ was the primary centre-left party between 1998–2017, but it split into two separate parties before the 2017 lower house election. A central dispute was over forming electoral coalitions with smaller left-wing parties that opposed constitutional revision. The largest opposition party as of 2019 is the Constitutional Democratic Party, which is comprised of more left-wing factions of the DPJ and largely opposes the amendment priorities of the LDP (McElwain 2018).
Support versus opposition to amendment was asked on a five-point Likert scale, but for this paper is dichotomised into 1 = support; 0 = not support (oppose or neutral). On prioritisation, respondents were asked to select their top three policy priorities from a list of fifteen or sixteen options; these were also dichotomised into 1 = included in the top three; 0 = excluded.
The greater number of candidates on the left-wing of the ideological spectrum reflects the failure of electoral coordination among progressive parties during this period, compared to the consolidation of conservatives under the LDP.
Regression-based estimations (OLS) of the relationship between candidate type and amendment sentiment do not produce substantively different results and so were omitted to conserve space. These models include interaction terms between party affiliation and incumbency, controls for candidates’ gender and age, and fixed effects for year. Results are available from the author upon request.
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McElwain, K.M. When candidates are more polarised than voters: constitutional revision in Japan. Eur Polit Sci 19, 528–539 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-020-00270-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-020-00270-1