＜概要/Course Content Summary＞
[This class is conducted by Professor Yoshitaka Nishizawa, mainly for the DDP students. It is, therefore, taught in English. It is also open to some other interested students, including advanced undergraduate students (学部・大学院共通科目).]
Among the established democracies in the world, Japan presents a unique case in that the conservative party, LDP (or coalitions of parties with LDP) had dominated the power in the Diet most of its history after 1955. In 1994, Japan introduced a new electoral system, 1) aiming at realizing elections centered around political issues that are important at the national level rather than those of local and clientelistic concerns and 2) hoping to introduce a periodic alternation of power in the Diet. While we had a short period of non-LDP government 15 years after the introduction of the system, the LDP and Komei coalition government enjoys a stable power again since 2012. In recent years, we also have witnessed some sets of legislation that may not have been popular among the voters.
In this course, we will survey primary literature on the introduction of and its consequences of the current electoral law, particularly from the standpoint of public opinion and political participation in Japan.
＜到達目標/Goals,Aims＞
To acquire basic understanding of arguments in the literature on political participation and voting in Japan
＜授業計画/Schedule＞
1-1 Introduction
2-4 Electoral System and its Reform
2 Consequences of Electoral Laws
3 Comparison of Electoral Systems in the World
4 Japan’s Electoral Reform
5-7 Political Participation
5 Who Participate
6 Why Participate
7 Japanese Participation, Comparative
8-11 Elections and Voting
8 Ideology
9 Partisanship
10 Issue Voting
11 Economic Voting
12-13 Voting and Policy Consequences
12 Gender and Immigrants
13 Environmental Issues
14 Presentation of Research Proposal
15 Conclusion
<Assignments>
Participants are expected to come to class each week with reading assignments completed and being prepared to ask questions on them.
＜成績評価基準/Evaluation Criteria＞
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Active participation in the weekly discussion
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70%
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Research proposal （A4, 2 pages）
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30%
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＜テキスト/Textbook＞
・Catalinac, Amy. 2016. Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan: From Pork to Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
・Curtis, Gerald L. 1971. Election Campaigning Japanese Style. New York: Columbia University Press.
・Curtis, Gerald L. 1999. The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions and the Limits of Change. New York: Columbia University Press.
・Ethan Scheiner. 2006. Democracy Without Competition in Japan: Opposition Failure in a One-Party Dominant State, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
・Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Michael F. Thies. 2010. Japan Transformed: Political Change and Economic Restructuring, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
・Hayes, Louis D. 2015. Introduction to Japanese Politics, 5th edition. New York, NY: East Gate Books, Taylor and Francis, Routledge.
・Horiuchi, Yusaku. 2005. Institutions, Incentives and Electoral Participation in Japan: Cross-level and cross-national perspectives. RoutledgeCurzon.
・Jou, Willy and Masahisa Endo. 2016. Generational Gap in Japanese Politics: A Longitudinal Study of Political Attitudes and Behaviour . New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
・Kabashima, Ikuo and Gill Steel. 2010. Changing Politics in Japan. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
・Maclachlan, Patricia L. 2002. Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Participation. New York: Columbia University Press.
・Martin, Sherry L. 2011. Popular Democracy in Japan: How Gender and Community Are Changing Modern Electoral Politics. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
・McKean, Margaret. 1981. Environmental Protest and Citizen Politics in Japan. University of California Press.
・Norris, Pippa. ed. 1999. Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
・Reed, Steven R., Kenneth Mori McElwain, and Kay Shimizu. 2009. Political Change in Japan: Electoral Behavior, Party Realignment, and the Koizumi Reforms. Stanford: The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
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