The Strategies of Smaller Parties and Voting Behavior in the Era of Coaltion Governments in Japan

概要

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The electoral performance of those smaller parties that joined the coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the aftermath of the electoral reform have been unimpressive. In this study, I focus four factors that may have negative electoral impact on these parties, namely 1) policy change, 2) non-retrospective evaluation, 3) electoral competition, and 4) electoral cooperation, and analyzed their effects separately. The main findings can be summarized as follows: 1) The Socialist Party, for example, changed its policy orientation when it joined the coalition with the LDP (in 1994). Such a change cost the party some votes among the so-called "floating voters". 2) In the 1995 Upper House election, the Socialist party failed to take advantage of being in the government and of appealing its performance in the government to other voters. 3) By focusing on the Social Democratic Party in the 1996 general election, it can be shown that the parallel electoral system penalizes smaller parties. Lastly, by focusing on the LDP-Komei electoral cooperation in the 2000 general election, I found that the tendency among the LDP supporters to prefer non-coalition government and the low level of cohesiveness inhibit the strategic coordination among the voters.
日本選挙学会の論文