Policy and Party Competition in Japan after the Election of 2000

2003 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUNKO KATO ◽  
MICHAEL LAVER
Keyword(s):  
Party Competition ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Party Policy Positions ◽  
Expert Surveys

This paper reports the results of the latest in a series of expert surveys of party policy positions in Japan and considers some of the implications of these results for our understanding of party competition and government formation in recent Japanese politics.

Nonpolicy Factors in Party Competition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti
Keyword(s):  
Party Competition ◽  
Policy Position ◽  
Policy Space ◽  
Political Candidates ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Lower Valence ◽  
Ideal Points ◽  
Party Policy Positions

Moving beyond the assumption that voters care about only the party policy positions on offer, this chapter models the possibility that they also care about perceived “nonpolicy” attributes of political candidates, such as competence, charisma, honesty. These characterize what have become known as “valence” models of party competition. Voters balance utility derived from each candidate's nonpolicy valence against utility derived from the candidate's policy position. The contribution of valence models has been to explain why all parties do not all converge on regions of the policy space with the highest densities of voter ideal points. Higher valence parties tend to go to regions of the policy space with higher voter densities, while lower valence parties are forced to steer well clear of these parties and pick policy positions in regions with lower voter densities.

The Informational Role of Party Leader Changes on Voter Perceptions of Party Positions

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 977-996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Fernandez-Vazquez ◽  
Zeynep Somer-Topcu
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Models ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
European Parties ◽  
Citizen Perceptions ◽  
Party Policy Positions

According to spatial models of elections, citizen perceptions of party policy positions are a key determinant of voting choices. Yet recent scholarship from Europe suggests that voters do not adjust their perceptions according to what parties advocate in their campaigns. This article argues that voters develop a more accurate understanding of parties’ ideological positions following a leadership change because a new leader increases the credibility of party policy offerings. Focusing on Western European parties in the 1979–2012 period, it shows that having a new leader is a necessary condition for voters to more accurately perceive the left–right placements of opposition parties. Voters do not use party platforms to form perceptions of incumbent parties’ positions, regardless of whether the leader is new or veteran. These results have important implications for models of party competition and democratic representation.

Estimating Party Policy Positions: Japan in Comparative Context

2005 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL LAVER ◽  
KENNETH BENOIT
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Content Validity ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Expert Survey ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Content ◽  
Party Policy Positions ◽  
Expert Surveys

This paper first reviews a number of epistemological and methodological issues relating to the estimation of party policy positions, particularly in a comparative context, with special reference to the methodology of ‘expert surveys’. It is argued that expert surveys, as systematic summaries of the views of country specialists, have a particular role in assessing the content validity of other types of estimates of party policy positions. The paper moves on to analyze the positions of Japanese political parties in a comparative context, using results from a new 47-country expert survey. Attention is paid both to the substantive policy content of the left–right dimension in Japan, and to the locations of Japanese parties in policy spaces, relative to the locations of comparable parties in other political systems.

A Baseline ABM of Party Competition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Laver ◽  
Ernest Sergenti
Keyword(s):  
Decision Rules ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Baseline Model ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Personal Ideal ◽  
Ideal Policy ◽  
Party Policy Positions ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter specifies the “baseline” agent-based model of dynamic multiparty competition, which derives from an article published by (Laver 2005). This assumes that each voter has in mind some personal ideal “package” of policy positions and supports the political party that offers the policy package closest to this. The dynamic system at the heart of the model is as follows: voters support their “closest” party in this sense; party leaders adapt the policy packages they offer in light of the revealed pattern of voter support; voters reconsider which party they support in light of the revealed pattern of party policy packages; and this process continues forever. This recursive model describes policy-based party competition as a complex system, and the baseline model specifies three decision rules that party leaders may deploy when they choose party policy positions in such a setting. These rules are Sticker (always keep the same position), Aggregator (move policy to the centroid of the ideal policy positions of your current supporters), and Hunter (if your last policy move increased your support, make another move in the same direction; or else change heading and move in a different direction).

scholarly journals Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in Young Democracies

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172199363
Author(s):  
Raimondas Ibenskas ◽  
Jonathan Polk
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
The Public ◽  
National Surveys ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Established Democracies ◽  
Expert Surveys ◽  
Cross National

Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party–voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party–voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties’ manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties’ positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters’ preferences provide strong support for this argument.

Adjustment to Stagflation and Neoliberal Reforms in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States

1998 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 602-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
NOBUHIRO HIWATARI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Policy Changes ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Japanese Politics ◽  
Neoliberal Reforms ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Ruling Party

This article explains why the stagflation and neoliberal reforms that reinforced party polarization in the United Kingdom and the United States instead led to party convergence in Japan. In Japan, industry-centered adjustment and bureaucratic coordination distributed the costs of policy changes across societal groups and facilitated party convergence, whereas the lack of such societal and state institutions in the United Kingdom and the United States led to policy changes with polarizing consequences. Focusing on industry-centered adjustment brings the unions back into Japanese politics and provides an alternative to the pluralism-neocorporatism dichotomy of organizing societal interests. Bureaucratic coordination not only includes the opposition in the framework but also provides a more nuanced view than is assumed in the debate over whether the ruling party of the bureaucracy dominates the Japanese state. When combined, these conceptualizations of market and state go a long way toward explaining the dynamics of party competition.

Partisanship and Policy Choice: Issue Preferences in the British Electorate, February 1974

1976 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-290 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Alt ◽  
Bo Särlvik ◽  
Ivor Crewe
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
Electoral Behaviour ◽  
Issue Knowledge ◽  
New Literature ◽  
Party Policy Positions

Inherent in many models of voting, as well as in defences of representative democracy, is the assumption that the voting public has knowledge of and opinions about public policy issues. In recent years in the United States a stream of scholarly articles has been devoted to assessing not just the extent to which issue knowledge and opinions exist but also the extent to which they influence electoral decisions. This new literature suggests that issue-related perceptions and attitudes are rather more important in the electoral process than earlier studies had suggested. This increased focus on issues appears to reflect both methodological changes in the analysis of them and also real changes in the importance of policy issues in American electoral politics. By contrast, students of British electoral behaviour have made few systematic attempts to assess the fit between popular attitudes and knowledge of party policy positions on issues. Instead, the conventional wisdom is repeated which holds that ‘a majority of people are either ignorant of, or disagree with, the specific policies of the party they support’. The implication of this seems to be that electors' familiarity with issues is so low, and the holding of policy attitudes by them so uncommon, that rigorous analysis of issues in the context of electoral politics is unnecessary.

Government Formation and Endogenous Parties

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Baron
Keyword(s):  
Formal Theory ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Electoral Incentives ◽  
System A ◽  
Parliamentary Systems ◽  
The Government

I provide a formal theory of government for a political system characterized by a proportional representation electoral system, a parliamentary government that exercises collective responsibility, and a government formation process. Political parties are assumed to be policy-oriented and to serve the interests of those who vote for them. Parties choose policy platforms that determine their representation in parliament; and given that representation, the parties bargain over the government to be formed and the policies that government will implement. The model yields equilibria with the property that parties choose dispersed policy positions. Thus, electoral incentives in proportional representation parliamentary systems need not lead to policy convergence. The theory provides predictions of party locations such as those developed in the manifesto project.

Agree or disagree

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zeynep Somer-Topcu
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Change ◽  
Party Leadership ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Party Positions ◽  
Leadership Changes ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The One ◽  
Party Policy Positions

Political party leaders are among the most influential actors in parliamentary democracies, and a change in party leadership is an important event for a party organization. Yet, we do not know how these leadership changes affect voter perceptions about party policy positions. On the one hand, we may expect party leadership changes to renew attention to the party, educate voters about its policy positions, and hence reduce disagreement among voters about party positions. On the other hand, rival parties may use a leadership change as an opportunity to defame the party, its leadership, and policies, and hence, increase voter confusion about the party’s policies. Using data from seven Western European democracies, I show that leadership changes help parties reduce voter disagreement about party policy positions. This effect is stronger if the new leader shifts the party’s policy positions.

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