IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v20y1990i03p335-356_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structure and Behaviour: Extending Duverger's Law to the Japanese Case

Author

Listed:
  • Reed, Steven R.

Abstract

Japan uses simple plurality elections with multi-member districts to elect its lower house. This system tends to produce competition among n + 1 candidates per district. This ‘law of simple plurality elections’ is a structural generalization akin to Duverger's Law. Evidence from Japan also indicates that the causal mechanism behind this ‘law’ is not strategic voting, although strategic voting occurs, but elite coalition building. It is further argued that the connection between structure and behaviour is learning and not rationality. Equilibria are reached slowly through trial and error processes. Once reached, the equilibrium is unstable because parties and candidates try to change it. Even without rational actors and stable equilibria, however, this structural generalization accurately describes the dynamics of electoral competition at the district level in Japan.

Suggested Citation

  • Reed, Steven R., 1990. "Structure and Behaviour: Extending Duverger's Law to the Japanese Case," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 335-356, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:20:y:1990:i:03:p:335-356_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123400005871/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Spenkuch, Jörg, 2013. "On the Extent of Strategic Voting," MPRA Paper 50198, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Michael Herrmann, 2012. "Voter uncertainty and failure of Duverger’s law: an empirical analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 63-90, April.
    3. Arnaud Dellis, 2013. "The two-party system under alternative voting procedures," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(1), pages 263-284, January.
    4. Myerson, Roger B., 1993. "Incentives to Cultivate Favored Minorities Under Alternative Electoral Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 856-869, December.
    5. Kohno Masaru, 2012. "Rethinking Japan's democracy: origins of “hybrid institutions” and their political consequences," Contemporary Japan, De Gruyter, vol. 24(1), pages 95-112, March.
    6. Yoichi Hizen, 2015. "Does a Least-Preferred Candidate Win a Seat? A Comparison of Three Electoral Systems," Economies, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-35, January.
    7. Stephen Coleman, 1995. "Dynamics in the fragmentation of political party systems," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 141-155, May.
    8. Spenkuch, Jörg L., 2018. "Expressive vs. strategic voters: An empirical assessment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 73-81.
    9. Dean Lacy & Emerson M. S. Niou, 1998. "Elections in Double-Member Districts with Nonseparable Voter Preferences," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 89-110, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:20:y:1990:i:03:p:335-356_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.