Localism and coordination under three different electoral systems: The national district of the Japanese House of Councillors

Nemoto, Kuniaki; Shugart, Matthew Søberg

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2012.11.005

Cited by 39 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…It may actually hurt the ability to build a personal vote by reducing the time available for activities in the district (Høyland, Hobolt, and Hix 2017). Local political experience or birthplace have been used as measures of credible candidate ties to their district (Nemoto and Shugart 2013; Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen 2005). While we do not have data on birthplace, additional analyses find no statistically significant effect of the reform on the selection of MPs with local political experience (Table S.3.5).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Reform and Trade-Offs in Representation

Becher

González

2019

Am Polit Sci Rev

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We examine the effect of electoral institutions on two important features of representation that are often studied separately: policy responsiveness and the quality of legislators. Theoretically, we show that while a proportional electoral system is better than a majoritarian one at representing popular preferences in some contexts, this advantage can come at the price of undermining the selection of good politicians. To empirically assess the relevance of this trade-off, we analyze an unusually controlled electoral reform in Switzerland early in the twentieth century. To account for endogeneity, we exploit variation in the intensive margin of the reform, which introduced proportional representation, based on administrative constraints and data on voter preferences. A difference-in-difference analysis finds that higher reform intensity increases the policy congruence between legislators and the electorate and reduces legislative effort. Contemporary evidence from the European Parliament supports this conclusion.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electoral Reform and Trade-Offs in Representation

Becher

González

2019

Am Polit Sci Rev

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“…A growing body of research indeed shows that candidates who are born locally or have locallevel political experience are not only electorally more successful (e.g. Tavits, 2010;Put and Maddens, 2015), but also considered valuable resources by party selectorates in personalized systems (Nemoto and Shugart, 2013). Other work discusses how and which voters look for local candidates (Jankowski, 2016;Blais and Daoust, 2017;Collignon and Sajuria, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting over friends and neighbors: The effect of inter-candidate geographic distance on intra-party competition

Put

Schoultz

Isotalo

2020

Political Geography

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Previous studies on intra-party competition have largely neglected the role played by geographic distance between co-partisan candidates. In this paper, we argue that candidates who live further away from intra-party competitors on the same party list benefit electorally from their remoteness. Moreover, we contend that the electoral effectiveness of exhibiting local personal vote attributesa theoretically and empirically well-established candidate strategy to cultivate personal votesalso depends on the geographical proximity of localized co-partisan candidates. Using a unique and untapped dataset of more than 6,000 Finnish election candidates' home address coordinates over four consecutive parliamentary elections, we run beta regression models to examine the effects of candidate remoteness and nearest candidates' local characteristics on intra-party vote shares. To measure the remoteness of a particular candidate, we develop a novel index based on the distribution of co-partisans over concentric circles around that candidate. The beta regression models and a battery of robustness tests confirm that geographic remoteness is associated with higher intra-party vote shares, and that nearby located localized candidates prove electorally harmful. Our findings have important implications for politicians' careers, party nomination strategies and future empirical research on intra-party competition.

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“…The important underlying assumption of this argument is that voters use candidates’ attributes as informational shortcuts in elections (i.e., voters expect that candidates with strong local ties are better able to represent and promote local interests than those without such attributes). Numerous studies have demonstrated how legislators approach voters and cultivate personalized support under electoral systems with multi-member districts (Ames, 1995; Crisp and Desposato, 2004; Hirano, 2006; Nemoto and Shugart, 2013; Wood and Young, 1997). However, it remains unclear whether legislators exhibit certain behaviors in parliament as is expected from their personal attributes (e.g., whether legislators with PVEA pursue local interests in parliament).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal Attributes of Legislators and Parliamentary Behavior: An Analysis of Parliamentary Activities among Japanese Legislators

Ono¹

2015

Japanese Journal of Political Science

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This study explores the individual-level activities of legislators in parliament, which have been largely ignored in the literature on parliamentary democracies. Individual legislators are extensively involved in parliamentary activities such as drafting private members' bills and posing questions, even though these activities have only been considered to play marginal roles in parliamentary democracies. Moreover, their engagement varies significantly. By using unique data from Japan, this study demonstrates that the personal attributes of legislators affect their choice of parliamentary activities. Under electoral systems with intra-party competition, legislators use parliamentary activities as an important means to inform their constituents about what they can do for them and how they differ from other legislators. In elections, candidates cultivate personal votes by exploiting the image drawn from their personal attributes and, once elected, they behave in accordance with their attributes in order to maintain their electoral ground. Thus, they devote themselves to different activities in parliament. The data analyzed here support this argument. The results of empirical analyses show that legislators with local-level political experience engage in particularistic pork-barrel activities that will benefit their local interests, while legislators with legal-work experience allocate their time and energy to general policy-making activities that will enhance their public image and visibility as legal experts.

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Localism and coordination under three different electoral systems: The national district of the Japanese House of Councillors

Cited by 39 publications

References 19 publications

Electoral Reform and Trade-Offs in Representation

Electoral Reform and Trade-Offs in Representation

Fighting over friends and neighbors: The effect of inter-candidate geographic distance on intra-party competition

Personal Attributes of Legislators and Parliamentary Behavior: An Analysis of Parliamentary Activities among Japanese Legislators

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