Threat of taxation and turnout of the rich: Evidence from danish upper house elections

A SIGNIFICANT FEATURE of public life in Japan during recent decades of extraordinary economic growth and associated social change has been continuity in politics. Government power has been in the hands of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) since 1955. While other democratic countries in the industrial world have experienced long periods of one-party domination, in none has the possibility of change in government seemed more unlikely.' Or at least it appeared so untilJuly 1989 when voters in the Upper House (House of Councillors) elections handed the ruling party its biggest defeat ever with the LDP's comfortable 142-seat majority in the 252-seat chamber being reduced to 109 seats. In a dramatic reversal of waning power, the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) increased its strength from 43 to 68 seats. While other parties declined a bit, the newly formed Japan Trade Union Confederation (RENGO) went from 1 to 12 seats. Together, then, the nation's political opposition parties, invariably described as a permanent opposition, gained a majority, although in a body significantly inferior in constitutional power to the Lower House (House of Representatives) in which the LDP continued to command an absolute majority. Voters, upset by the LDP's four-point set of evils (introduction of a 3 percent consumption tax; the Recruit Cosmos influence-peddling affair that developed into the most far-reaching scandal in the postwar period; rejection of domestic agriculture's demands for continued protection from foreign imports; and alleged sexual peccadilloes of the incumbent prime minister)2 issued a sharp rebuke to the nation's conservatives. Many political commentators quickly pronounced that a long-awaited Great Reversal could very well take place when elections for the Lower House were held next. The LDP's days in power were in doubt, enfeebled it seemed by unpopular policy choices, discredited political leaders, dubious political ethics, and rejection at the polls. Speculation about a potential Great Reversal marked general political discussions for months just as it continued to haunt the LDP.3

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a stunning defeat in the July 2007 upper house elections, creating an unprecedented situation in which the LDP-led coalition lost its majority in the upper house while retaining a two-thirds majority in the lower house. In this new environment of “divided government” Japanese style, the LDP and the opposition jockeyed for advantage in foreign and domestic policy debates while preparing for a critical confrontation in the next lower house election.

This chapter is about change. The LDP's loss of its absolute majority in the Upper House in 1989 marked the dawn of a new era. This chapter covers the second and third periods identified in Chapter 3 – the period between the 1989 Upper House elections and the emergence of the non-LDP government and the period between the emergence of the non-LDP government and the 1996 Lower House elections. From the perspective of the structural logic approach, the second and the third periods share two similarities. First, in both periods, multiple political parties possessed veto power. Second, the electoral system remained the same MMD/SNTV system. This chapter demonstrates that, as a result of the emer-gence of multiple political parties with veto power and the persistence of a multimember district system, Japanese welfare politics during this period came to resemble welfare politics in northern Europe, as expected on the basis of the structural logic.

In bicameral legislatures, gender representation varies significantly between chambers. Historically, Japan's upper house has maintained a proportion of women twice that of the lower house. However, electoral systems alone cannot fully explain this disparity. We argue that seemingly gender‐neutral legislative institutions influence both voting behavior and candidates' willingness to run, contributing to significant disparities in gender representation in bicameral legislatures. To test this argument, we conduct two survey experiments exploring the underlying mechanisms from the perspectives of voters and candidates. Our findings suggest that informing voters about the upper house's subordinate role increases support for female candidates in upper house elections. Furthermore, women display a greater willingness to pursue office when assured of job security in the upper house, while men exhibit less interest when made aware of its limited authority to appoint the prime minister. This study enhances our current understanding of the effects of asymmetrical institutions between chambers from a gender perspective.

While the high drama of the Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential election has grabbed international headlines, Japan has quietly completed an election that may also have far-reaching implications. In the elections for the Upper House of the Diet (Japan's parliament) on July 10, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partners won 162 seats, which, together with Diet seats not up for election and the seats of sympathetic but unaffiliated members, give the coalition a two-thirds majority in the Upper House. It already had a two-thirds majority in the Lower House.

Conclusions * Russia's legislative elections, scheduled for 17 December, have only limited legal significance, because most power is concentrated in the presidency. However, the elections will be viewed in Moscow as an indicator of the popular mood and will serve as a surrogate presidential primary. * All indications are that the parliamentary election will not represent a fair sounding of the electorate. Virtually all participants in the election process will use the levers they control to manipulate the outcome: from buying signatures, to obstructing competitors' access to the media, to tampering with the vote count after the election. * Government attempts to influence the outcome of the parliamentary elections probably will temper, but not neutralize, the anti-Government and anti-Yeltsin sentiment of the electorate. However, it is still too early to assess the likelihood of the Communist/nationalist sweep predicted by reformists like Yegor Gaydar. * If hardliners do particularly well in the December elections and use their enhanced position in the new Duma to publicly challenge Boris Yeltsin, this could set the stage for another legislative/executive crisis. Significance of the Legislative Elections The two-year terms of both the lower houses (State Duma) and upper house (Federation Council) are due to expire in December. However, the only election currently scheduled is for the State Duma. The chances are remote that elections to a new Federation Council will be on the ballot this December, primarily because Yeltsin fiercely opposes an upper house directly elected by the people and has vetoed legislation mandating upper house elections. The Duma elections have limited significance from a legal standpoint. The bicameral legislature--thanks to the Constitution drafted by the executive branch and adopted through a referendum in 1993--has little legal authority. In fact, over the past two years, the executive branch has ruled with very little direct interference from parliament. When the legislature adopts measures distasteful to the executive, Yeltsin generally vetoes the legislation and issues a presidential decree on the issue. Regardless of the outcome of the election, the legislature can do little to effect direct changes in policy. The December elections, however, have symbolic significance that goes well beyond the parliament's ability to directly affect policy. * First, Duma elections--in particular the party list vote, which will determine the makeup of half of the Duma's 450 deputies--will be seen by the Moscow political elite as a rough measure of which political forces enjoy the most popular support. In that sense, the Duma elections are a test of the legitimacy of the Yeltsin regime. The pattern of populist support revealed through the elections will also play a role in the formation of future political alliances. * Second, because several of the parties vying in the legislative election are associated with presidential contenders, the elections will function as a kind of presidential primary, shaping perceptions within the Moscow political elite and Kremlin insiders as to the probable outcome of the June presidential elections. * Third, if one group or coalition manages to sweep the elections and gain an overwhelming majority, it would be in a position to override a presidential veto or initiate impeachment proceedings--moves that could pave the way for a replay of the executive-legislative conflict that ended in Yeltsin's attack on the old parliament in the fall of 1993. Weakness of Democracy Although the mere holding of elections is a positive step towards the development of democratic practices, the election process itself has highlighted the fragility of democracy in Russia. It has also demonstrated how deeply ingrained are the habits of bureaucratic politics and authoritarian thinking inherited from the Soviet era. …

Japan’s upper house, the House of Councillors, is a less powerful body than the House of Representatives, the lower house of the national Diet. Yet, electoral results of the upper house can have a significant impact on the government of the day, both for legislative purposes and for judging the credibility of the ruling party and its leader. This article analyses the July 2019 election and its likely impact on the Abe administration, and implications for Japan’s parliamentary democracy and party politics. The article argues that opposition forces are highly fragmented and weak, sustaining the LDP’s dominance in Japanese politics. Such a political landscape is welcomed by the ruling party and its leader, but continuing to entrench the hold on national governance by one dominant party is unhealthy for Japanese democracy.

Elections to Japan's upper house, the House of Councillors, are ‘secondary’ elections, that is, elections that do not choose the government. Among the implications of this secondary status is that the party system is primarily determined elsewhere, by the system used in the general elections that do choose the government. From 1947 through 1993 the system used in general elections fostered a multiparty system that did not sit easily with the many single-member districts of the House of Councillors. Since 1996 general elections use a system based primarily on single-member districts, which is fostering a two-party system. As a two-party system emerges, we should expect the single-member districts of the upper house to become more and the multi-member districts to become less congruent with the party system. The 2004 House of Councillors election presented us with our first example of what two-party elections might look like in future upper house elections. The overall results do indeed indicate the advent of the two-party system with the major parties winning 96% of the seats in the district tier and 71% in the PR tier.

Significance Continued public anger regarding the LDP’s slush fund scandal led to opposition party gains and caused the LDP to fall short of a majority. The LDP now faces parliamentary gridlock, with the fates of the party and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba unclear. Impacts Ishiba will work hard to attract votes ahead of a special Diet session, to be convened within 30 days, to elect a prime minister formally. Opposition Constitutional Democratic Party leader Yoshihiko Noda will contrive to deny Ishiba the support he needs. The supplementary budget and a related economic package must be passed immediately and next year’s budget must be set by end-2024. Elections to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Upper House will be held in June and July 2025, respectively. Another Lower House election is likely within twelve months to create a stable basis for government.

Equal representation and electoral participation lie at the core of democracy. However, the two are sometimes contradictory. When redistricting is used to correct malapportionment, a typical example of unequal representation, it can discourage citizens from voting by increasing their anxiety about whether their interests are represented and increasing their information cost. The effect of redistricting on electoral participation has not been accurately estimated due to difficulty isolating the effect from past redistricting and other factors. Japan’s upper house conducted its first redistricting in 2016, providing an ideal opportunity to identify and isolate the effect of redistricting on electoral participation by avoiding the usual methodological problems. Using an original dataset on Japan’s upper house elections from 2001 to 2019 and employing a differences-in-differences design, this study reveals that redistricting reduced voter turnout by 10.3 percentage points and that the effect lasted until the second election after redistricting.

This study empirically examines the causal impact of economic shocks of trade on trade policy positions by candidates who run for national elections using politician-level data of Japan during the period from 2009 to 2014. The focus of this research is an examination of how the influence of trade shocks, measured by import competition with China on politicians’ trade policy stance, is related to election pressure. The results revealed that an increase in import exposure deters candidates from supporting trade liberalization, even after considering offset by export exposure. Among other points, this protectionist effect is more pronounced for challengers than for incumbents, and for candidates who run for the Lower House election and are exposed to stronger pressures of elections than those who run for the Upper House election. Taking these findings into account, politicians who face trade shocks tend to appeal to protectionist trade policies as the pressures of elections become stronger.

In 2003, Japan's dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) committed to the goal of 30% female representation in management and political positions by 2020 to conform with the international norm to promote women's leadership. This nonbinding commitment received widespread media attention. In 2012, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe reemphasized this goal before the lower house election. Yet, in his first cabinet, Abe appointed only two women. Moreover, in the 2013 upper house election, the LDP fielded only 9 women out of 79 candidates, nowhere near the 30% candidate goal (Torres 2013). In September 2014, Abe appointed five new women in his cabinet reshuffle, two of whom were forced to resign a month later due to scandals. Four women currently sit on the cabinet due to one female replacement (Flackler 2014). Despite Abe's attempts to increase women in his cabinet, most agree that Japan is not on target to meet the 30% benchmark (Gender Equality Bureau 2012).

Confidence in the quality of Japanese democracy, never high, has, if anything, weakened since the bursting of the economic bubble. Reform of campaign financing and the Lower House electoral system in 1994 provided temporary reprieves, as did the Prime Ministership of Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) reformer Koizumi Jun’ichirō in the mid-2000s. Moreover, the victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the Lower House election of 2009 put a decisive end to more than 50 years of LDP dominance. Support for the DPJ soon dissipated, however, and the party suffered a humiliating loss in the 2010 Upper House Elections. The DPJ government’s real and perceived failures in dealing with the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in 2011 combined with persistent economic weakness and astronomical budget deficits to produce gloom and dismay. Were the reforms of the 1990s all for naught? Sherry L. Martin and Gill Steel’s Democratic Reform in Japan: Assessing the Impact provides a useful meter stick. Completed just before the end of LDP rule, the volume allows us to isolatethe changes caused solely by the transformation in partisan control. The editors and their contributors display an appropriate awareness of the inherent complexity of democracy as a concept, and often draw attention to the tradeoffs between different democratic desiderata, such as participation, representativeness and effectiveness. The volume is especially interesting for its juxtaposition of national developments—generally portrayed as relatively dynamic—and local politics, which display strong elements of continuity.

The 1980 American national elections produced two highly salient and widely-discussed departures from past tradition. For the first time in forty-eight years, a previously elected incumbent president seeking re-election was defeated. At the same time the Republicans, the traditional minority party, seized control of the upper house. Both events figured heavily in discussions of the American electorate's supposed turn to the right. Much of this emphasis on ideological change may be misplaced. A third, although much less noted, departure from tradition also occurred in 1980: for the first time since 1932, real disposable per capita income declined in the year preceding a presidential election. The importance of such a decline for the electoral fate of an incumbent president has been well documented. Numerous previous studies have indicated a powerful and consistent impact of changes in economic conditions on voting behaviour in presidential elections. The influence of economic conditions on the fate of the president's party in House elections is also well-documented. In the case of Senate elections, however, the literature is curiously silent.

The Asahi Shimbun telephone survey made the transition from the list-assisted method to ASAHI-RDD (Random Digit Dialing) method in its survey prior to the Upper House Election in July, 2001. In fact, the Asahi Shimbun had estimated that more seats would be taken by the LDP than the actual results showed in the Upper House election in 1998 and in the Lower House election 2000, where they were without a win. The most probable cause of past failures consists of the non-coverage error since the list-assisted method had serious faults due to the large unlisted population. As RDD promised to give better results, Asahi decided to make use of Random Digit Dialing. While the Asahi method consists of Bank2 and random sampling, it does not use quota sampling. Its bank2-map includes the data, the number of listed-households and the overlap rate of area. A time schedule is created arranging the number of interviewers according to each day of the week. In addition to the problems caused by the current widespread use of mobile phones, there are many other problem areas which we must investigate and make efforts to solve.