Hirofumi Miwa

Previous studies examining the demand side of democratic backsliding have focussed on partisan motivation as the leading cause of voters' acceptance of executive aggrandizement. A recent study by Grossman et al. [2022. “The Majoritarian Threat to Liberal Democracy.” Journal of Experimental Political Science 9 (1): 36–45] argues that a substantial proportion of voters grant popularly elected politicians considerable latitude and that such a majoritarian understanding of democracy is the driving force behind democratic erosion. This paper compares these two perspectives using an online public opinion survey conducted in Japan, one of the least politically polarized democracies worldwide, comprising both an observational component and a preregistered survey experiment. Analysis of the survey data reveals that respondents were more inclined to support executive power grabs when these were framed as aligning with citizens' views in policy formulation. In addition, we estimated that a substantial subset of respondents was classifiable as “election supremacists,” meaning that they supported such power grabs and regarded them as democratic regardless of the partisanship of the chief executive. This paper contributes to the literature by presenting a new case wherein the public's majoritarian understanding of democracy may pose a threat to democratic politics.

Comparative public opinion surveys, including the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), often rely on identical labels and question items to measure respondents’ symbolic and operational ideology across countries. However, it remains unclear whether common symbolic measures of ideology carry the same meaning across contexts, or whether the issue items used to construct common operational measures are equally relevant in national settings. To address these concerns, we compare symbolic and operational ideology as measured using common cross-national items and country-specific items. We conducted public opinion surveys before and after national elections in seven Asian and Western countries. Our analyses reveal that (i) country-specific measures of ideology are generally more stable over time than common measures, (ii) country-specific symbolic and operational ideology are more strongly associated with each other than their common counterparts, (iii) respondents tend to have a greater understanding of country-specific ideological labels than common ones, (iv) country-specific measures are generally more predictive of vote choice in elections, and (v) ideological extremity, as measured by these two types of indicators, shows different correlations with respondents’ attitudes toward democratic values. These findings suggest that researchers should use country-specific measures of ideology in comparative public opinion research.

Does permitting voters to select multiple candidates in majoritarian elections increase diversity among those elected? While majoritarian systems typically use single-vote ballots, research suggests that allowing multiple selections may increase the representation of women and racial minorities. However, empirical evidence regarding actual voter behavior remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted a survey experiment that varied the number of selectable candidates from one to three in multimember local elections. The results revealed that, under the multiple-vote condition, respondents were more likely to alternate by gender, particularly in their second- and third-ranked choices, supporting the theory that multiple voting fosters more diverse representation. Nevertheless, men often emerged as the first-ranked choice, giving them an overall advantage at the aggregate level.

Does permitting voters to select multiple candidates in majoritarian elections increase diversity among those elected? While majoritarian systems typically use single-vote ballots, research suggests that allowing for multiple selections may increase the representation of women and racial minorities. However, empirical evidence regarding actual voter behavior remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted a survey experiment that varied the number of selectable candidates from one to three in multi-member local elections. The results revealed that, under the multiple-vote condition, respondents were more likely to alternate by gender, particularly in their second- and third-ranked choices, supporting the theory that multiple voting fosters more diverse representation. Nevertheless, men often emerged as the first-ranked choice, giving them an overall advantage at the aggregate level.

Understanding the ideological positions of political parties is crucial for empirically testing various theories in political science. In Japan, some studies have assessed each party’s policy outlook through electoral platforms, candidate surveys, or expert surveys, with most studies focusing on the past thirty years. However, limited efforts have comprehensively and longitudinally quantified the conflicts between political parties. Although previous studies have used election-related data to reveal interparty conflicts during elections, interparty conflicts between elections remain unclear. This study determines the stance of Japanese political parties during parliamentary debates. We collected text data from committee speeches from the Diet Proceedings Database from 1959 to 2019 and conducted a quantitative text analysis. By applying the Wordshoal method, we first estimated political party positions on specific policy topics in the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. Then, we aggregated these policy-specific positions yearly via dynamic factor analysis. Consequently, we succeeded in discerning the axis of conflict in Japanese parliamentary debates and evaluated the longitudinal one-dimensional ideal points for political parties. Additionally, we visualized the changes in each party’s ideological position, identified controversial topics, and explored how these topics changed over time, providing new insights into the study of Japanese politics.