Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T15:11:41.408Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Issue Ownership and Electoral Rule: Empirical Evidence from Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 May 2018

Yong Jae Kim
Yong Jae Kim*
Affiliation:
Yong Jae Kim is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Global Leadership Program and Korean Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: kimyongja@missouri.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the effects of electoral systems on issue ownership. This study argues that electoral rules significantly affect issue ownership because they prompt candidates to adopt different types of electoral campaigns. Compared to the single non-transferable vote (SNTV) system, the mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system prods candidates to change the pattern of electoral campaigns from candidate-centred to issue-centred competition. In particular, partisan issue effects are more effective in gaining votes under the MMM. To support the argument, I find evidence from content analyses of party manifestos and multinomial logistic regression models of electoral surveys between the pre-reform and post-reform elections in Japan.

Keywords

issue ownershipelectoral systemelectoral campaignparty manifestoJapanese party politics
Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 147 - 162
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2018. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Cite this article: Kim Y.J. 2018. Issue Ownership and Electoral Rule: Empirical Evidence from Japan. Government and Opposition. doi: 10.1017/gov.2018.8

References

Abbe, OG, Goodliffe, J, Herrnson, PS Patterson, KD (2003) Agenda Setting in Congressional Elections: The Impact of Issues and Campaigns on Voting Behavior. Political Research Quarterly 56, 419–430.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, S. Iyengar, S (1994) Riding the Wave and Claiming Ownership over Issues: The Joint Effects of Advertising and News. Public Opinion Quarterly 58, 335–357.Google Scholar
Arase, D (2010) Japan in 2009: A Historic Election Year. Asian Survey 50, 40–55.Google Scholar
Beason, D Patterson, DP (2004) The Japan That Never Was: Explaining the Rise and Decline of a Misunderstood Country. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Bélanger, É Meguid, BM (2008) Issue Salience, Issue Ownership, and Issue-Based Vote Choice. Electoral Studies 27, 477–491.Google Scholar
Bellucci, P (2006) Tracing the Cognitive and Affective Roots of ‘Party Competence’: Italy and Britain, 2001. Electoral Studies 25, 548–569.Google Scholar
Blomqvist, P Green‐Pedersen, C (2004) Defeat at Home? Issue‐Ownership and Social Democratic Support in Scandinavia. Government and Opposition: An International Journal of Comparative Politics 39, 587–613.Google Scholar
Budge, I Farlie, D (1983) Explaining and Predicting Elections: Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-Three Democracies. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Campbell, JC (1977) Contemporary Japanese Budget Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Catalinac, A (2016) Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Christensen, L, Dahlberg, S Martinsson, J (2014) Changes and Fluctuations in Issue Ownership: The Case of Sweden, 1979–2010. Scandinavian Political Studies 38, 137–157.Google Scholar
Christensen, R (2006) An Analysis of the 2005 Japanese General Election: Will Koizumi’s Political Reforms Endure? Asian Survey 46, 497–516.Google Scholar
Christensen, RV (1996) The New Japanese Election System. Pacific Affairs 69, 49–70.Google Scholar
Cowhey, PF McCubbins, M (1995) Structure and Policy in Japan and the United States: An Institutionalist Approach. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cox, GW Thies, MF (1998) The Cost of Intraparty Competition: The Single, Nontransferable Vote and Money Politics in Japan. Comparative Political Studies 31, 267–291.Google Scholar
Cox, GW, Rosenbluth, FM Thies, MF (1998) Mobilization, Social Networks, and Turnout: Evidence from Japan. World Politics 50, 447–474.Google Scholar
Curtis, G (1988) The Japanese Way of Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Curtis, GL (1992) Japan. In Butler D and Ranney A (eds), Electioneering. Oxford: Clarendon Press: 222–243.Google Scholar
Curtis, GL (1999) The Logic of Japanese Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Damore, DF (2004) The Dynamics of Issue Ownership in Presidential Campaigns. Political Research Quarterly 57, 391–397.Google Scholar
Egan, PJ (2013) Partisan Priorities: How Issue Ownership Drives and Distorts American Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ehrhardt, G (2009) Rethinking the Komeito Voter. Japanese Journal of Political Science 10, 1–20.Google Scholar
Estevez-Abe, M (2006) Japan’s Shift toward a Westminster System. Asian Survey 46, 632–651.Google Scholar
Estevez-Abe, M, Takako, H Toshio, N (2008) Japan’s New Executive Leadership: How Electoral Rules Make Japanese Security Policy’. In Kohno M and Rosenbluth F (eds), Japan and the World. New Haven: CEAS, Yale University: 251–288.Google Scholar
Flanagan, SC (1991) Value Cleavages, Contextual Influences, and the Vote’. In Flanagan SC, Kohei S, Miyake I and Richardson BM (eds), The Japanese Voter. New Haven: Yale University Press: 84–142.Google Scholar
Fukuyama, F (1992) The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Gallagher, M (2015) Election Indices Dataset, www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/staff/michael_gallagher/ElSystems/index.php.Google Scholar
Green, J Hobolt, SB (2008) Owning the Issue Agenda: Party Strategies and Vote Choices in British Elections. Electoral Studies 27, 460–476.Google Scholar
Holian, DB (2004) He’s Stealing My Issues! Clinton’s Crime Rhetoric and the Dynamics of Issue Ownership. Political Behavior 26, 95–124.Google Scholar
Hrebenar, RJ (1986) The Japanese Party System: From One-Party Rule to Coalition Government. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ishikawa, M (2006) Ilbon Junwho Jungchisa (Japanese Political History in the Post-World War II Era). Seoul: Humanitas.Google Scholar
Kabashima, I Steel, G (2010) Changing Politics in Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, KM (2004) Disaggregating and Reexamining Issue Ownership and Voter Choice. Polity 36, 283–299.Google Scholar
Kitschelt, HP (1988) Left-Libertarian Parties: Explaining Innovation in Competitive Party Systems. World Politics 40, 194–234.Google Scholar
Kohei, S, Miyake, I. Watanuki, J (1991) Issues and Voting Behavior. In Flanagan SC, Kohei S, Miyake I and Richardson BM (eds), The Japanese Voter. New Haven: Yale University Press: 267–296.Google Scholar
Kohno, M (1997) Japan’s Postwar Party Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Krauss, ES Pekkanen, RJ (2011) The Rise and Fall of Japan’s LDP: Political Party Organizations as Historical Institutions. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Laakso, M Taagepera, R (1979) Effective Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe. Comparative Political Studies 12, 3–27.Google Scholar
Lee, J (1970) Komeito: Sokagakkai-ism in Japanese Politics. Asian Survey 10, 501–518.Google Scholar
Lipscy, PY Scheiner, E (2012) Japan under the DPJ: The Paradox of Political Change without Policy Change. Journal of East Asian Studies 12, 311–322.Google Scholar
McCubbins, MD Rosenbluth, F (1995) Party Provision for Personal Politics: Dividing the Vote in Japan. In Cowhey PF and McCubbins M (eds), Structure and Policy in Japan and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 35–55.Google Scholar
Pempel, TJ (1982) Policy and Politics in Japan. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Petrocik, JR (1996) Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study. American Journal of Political Science 40, 825–850.Google Scholar
Petrocik, JR, Benoit, WL Hansen, GJ (2003) Issue Ownership and Presidential Campaigning, 1952–2000. Political Science Quarterly 118, 599–626.Google Scholar
Proksch, S.-O, Slapin, JB Thies, MF (2011) Party System Dynamics in Post-War Japan: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Electoral Pledges. Electoral Studies 30, 114–124.Google Scholar
Ramseyer, JM Rosenbluth, FM (2009) Japan’s Political Marketplace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Reed, S Thies, MF (2001) The Consequences of Electoral Reform in Japan. In Shugart M and Wattenberg M (eds), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? New York: Oxford University Press: 380–403.Google Scholar
Reed, SR (1991) Japan’s 1990 General Election: Explaining the Historic Socialist Victory. Electoral Studies 10, 244–255.Google Scholar
Reed, SR (1997) Providing Clear Cues: Voter Response to the Reform Issue in the 1993 Japanese General Election. Party Politics 3, 265–277.Google Scholar
Reed, SR (2007) Duverger’s Law is Working in Japan. Japanese Journal of Electoral Studies 22, 96–106.Google Scholar
Reed, SR, Scheiner, E Thies, MF (2012) The End of LDP Dominance and the Rise of Party-Oriented Politics in Japan. Journal of Japanese Studies 38, 353–376.Google Scholar
Rosenbluth, FM Thies, MF (2010) Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thayer, NB (1969) How the Conservatives Rule Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Thies, MF (1998) When Will Pork Leave the Farm? Institutional Bias in Japan and the United States. Legislative Studies Quarterly 23, 467–492.Google Scholar
Thies, MF (2002) The General Election in Japan, June 2000. Electoral Studies 21, 147–154.Google Scholar
Van der Brug, W (2004) Issue Ownership and Party Choice. Electoral Studies 23, 209–233.Google Scholar
Watanuki, J (1967) Patterns of Politics in Present Day Japan. In Lipset SM and Rokkan S (eds), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Crossnational Perspectives. New York: Free Press: 447–466.Google Scholar