Abstract
Elections, whether national or regional, influence decisions on both content and priorities in public policy, and that the relationship is mutually regulatory and reciprocal — that such decisions in turn affect elections — should come as no surprise. In other words, the declared policy of parties and factions is transformed by electoral strategy and tactics, and the result of the election too can effect major change in both government policy thereafter and the responses of party and faction to it.
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Notes
For other research, putting the onus on elections as the primary restriction on elected politicians’ legislative behaviour, and analysing the relationship between elections and politicians, see David Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (Yale University Press, 1974). For analysis of the relationship between Japanese Diet lawmaking behaviour and election results, see Iwai Tomoaki, ‘Senkyo to Seitō no Rippō Kōdō’ [Elections and party legislative behaviour], Ningen Kagaku [Human Sciences] Vol. 3 No. 1 (1984).
Edward R. Tufte, Political Control of the Economy (Princeton University Press, 1978).
Japanese translation by Nakamura Takahide, Senkyo to Keizai Seisaku (Aritsune Shoin, 1980 ) pp. 7–13.
See Sasako Katsuya, Seiji Shikin no Kōzō [The Structure of Political Funding] (Gōdō Shuppan, 1976);
Kobayashi Shunji, Kigyō no Seiji Kenkin: ‘Mō hItotsu no Tōshi’ no Ronri [Corporate political donations: the logic of ‘Just one more investment’] (Nihon Keizai Shinbunsha, 1976).
Hirose Michisada, Hojokin to Seikentō [Subsidies and the ruling party] op. cit., pp. 64–74. Kent E. Calder, Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Political Stability in Japan (Princeton University Press, 1989).
Classification by constituency based on Okino Yasuharu, ‘Senkyo Kekka no Senkyoku Ruikei Bunseki’ [An analysis of election results classified by constituency] in Soma Masao, ed., Nihon no Sōsenkyo [General elections in Japan] (Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1969 ).
Nihon Jōhō Kyōiku Kenkyūkai, eds., Shōwa 55 nen Nihon no Hakusho [Japanese White Papers of 1980] (Seibunsha, 1980) pp. 550–1.
Home Finance Corporation (Jūtaku Kinyū Kōko), Shiryō de miru Nihon no Jūtaku Mondai [Japan’s housing problems as seen in the records] (Jūtaku Kinyū Fukyū Kyōkai, 1980) pp. 188–91.
Tomita Nobuo, Gikai Seiji e no Shiza [A view of Diet politics] (Hokuju Shuppan, 1978) pp. 17–18.
In elections between the Lockheed revelations in 1976 and July 1986, for instance, around 70 per cent of candidates convicted or at least implicated in the scandals of that era lost their seats (Asahi Shinōun 10 July 1986). A superlative work analysing the mutual relationships between issues, party support and shifting voting share in quantitative terms is Kabashima Ikuo, ‘Sōten, Seitō, Tōhyō’ in Watanuki Jōji, Miyake Ichirō, Inoguchi Takashi and Kabashima Ikuo, Nihonjin no Senkyo Kōdō [The electoral behaviour of the Japanese] (Tokyo University Press, 1986).
John C. Campōell, Contemporary Japanese Budget Politics, op. cit. Japanese translation by Kojima Akira, Yosan Bundori: Nihongata Yosan Seiji no Kenkja (Symul Shuppansha, 1984 ) pp. 22–28.
This Dētā comes mostly from the Upper House Budget Committee Research Office’s Shōwa 63 nendō Zaisei Kankei Shiryōshū [Collected FY 1988 Administrative and Financial Documents].
For more information on the history of the JSP, see Iizuka Shigetarō, Uji Toshihiko and Habara Kiyomasa, Kettō 40 nen: Nihon Shakaitō [Forty years since foundation: the Japan Socialist Party] (Gyōsei Mondai Kenkyūkai, 1985 ).
On the policy-making process during the Nakasone era and the characteristics of his political leadership, see Igarashi HItoshi, Sengo Hoshu Seiji no Tenkan: ‘1986 Taisei’ to wa [Changes in postwar Japanese conservatism: Is there a 1986 regime?], (Yupiterusha, 1987);Tanaka Zenichirō, ‘Nakasone Seiken to Tenkanki no Kokkai: Dai 97 kai Kokkai — Dai 109 kai Kokkai’ [The Nakasone administration and the Diet in an era of change: the 97th to 109th Diets], Nihon Gikai Shiroku [Japanese Diet historical records], Vol. 6, 1990.
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© 1997 Minoru Nakano
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Nakano, M. (1997). Elections and Policy-Making. In: The Policy-Making Process in Contemporary Japan. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375512_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375512_4
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