Browsing by Author "Nordström, Robert Tor Erik"

Uncompetitive elections and opposition failure are well known problems in Japanese politics. The reasons behind these problems are well known, however the impact of these factors on voter turnout has not been thoroughly studied. Falling voter turnout for younger voters is another grave problem in Japanese politics with one of the lowest voter turnouts for 20-year olds for any industrialized country. The purpose of the text is to clarify whether or not competition can be used to explain falling voter turnout patterns in Japan, to examine in which type of areas competition is low and to examine if low competition has an especially strong impact on younger voters. In this text I will first examine the background of opposition failure and uncompetitive elections in Japan. In this part, the general discussion on the relationship between competition and voter turnout will also be discussed. The issue of political competition in Japan from a historical perspective will also be thoroughly discussed and I will also discuss how political competition seems to have changed since the introduction of the new voting system in 1994. In the second part I will examine the impact of low competition on voter turnout through a quantitative study on single-member districts in House of Representatives elections between 2005 and 2012. Competition in the study is examined through three main variables, each being a different type of measure of competition in elections. In this study I will also examine the effects of low competition on young voters as compared to the impact on other age groups. The effects of competition on voter turnout showed to be quite complex. Some of the variables studied showed a stronger impact on voter turnout than others. Also, the impact of low competition on younger voters showed not to be considerably different from the impact on other age groups. The general result seem to show that the effect of competition on voter turnout in Japan is quite consistent with tendencies that have been seen in other countries with mostly majoritarian voting systems.