Holding on to power: Politicians and reelection

Abstract

We know that politicians use different strategies to get reelected under different electoral systems. Masahiko Asano and Dennis Patterson add to our understanding of these strategies by showing that the factors that make candidates more or less electable change under different electoral rules. Specifically, they explore the impact that holding a ministerial post had on the electability of candidates competing for seats in Japanese district elections from 1967 to 2012 inclusive. They show that being a minister had a strong, positive impact on the ability of candidates to be elected in successive elections under the old multimember district (MMD) system with single nontransferable vote (SNTV) but that this positive impact was greatly reduced under Japan’s new mixed member majoritarian (MMM) system that replaced it in 1994.