Abstract
This study examines a dynamic, legislative party system that has witnessed the fissions and fusions of parties that accompany the extensive switching of legislative members. Office-seeking models predict the formation of minimal winning coalitions that are based on distribution of seats among parties. Without assuming that the party is a unitary actor, one can examine the office-seeking assumptions of individual legislators to gain critical theoretical implications. The Japanese party system has provided an experimental case of dynamic legislative party systems for the last two decades. Building on Laver and Kato (2001), this study further explores the Japanese case to examine the theoretical implications when office-seeking assumptions are applied to a dynamic system. More specifically, it examines the interaction between legislative party systems in both houses of the Japanese Diet. The evidence here suggests the split of a super majority party into a bare majority party and a near majority party’s attraction for switchers to help it pass a majority threshold. The study demonstrates that the dynamic that resulted from a near majority or super majority party occurred with the formation of the government as well as with the incongruence of majorities in both houses.
Published Version
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