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This Open Access book provides a comprehensive analysis of political reforms in Japan since the 1990s, emphasizing the role of ideas in shaping their goals and outcomes. For more than fifteen years following the collapse of Japan's economic bubble, politicians, business people and academics tackled a range of institutional reforms. The sweeping changes they enacted—covering almost all facets of the public sphere, including elections, public administration, courts and the central bank—fundamentally altered Japanese political processes and policies. Taken together, they arguably represent the final touches of Japan's political modernization, which had been unfolding since the mid-19th century. Throughout the reform process, advocates were inspired by a combination of liberal and modernist ideas. This book examines those guiding concepts and illustrates the often messy process of applying them to real-world institutions. While most reforms began from common goals, they ultimately produced different—and frequently unexpected—institutional outcomes, which continue to shape Japanese politics. By focusing on the relationship between the ideas and processes that shaped Japan's reforms, this book presents a broad vision of institutional change in comparative politics.

Geography and the dilemma of the left -- The long shadow of the industrial revolution -- From workers' parties to urban parties -- Urban form and voting -- What is wrong with the Pennsylvania Democrats? -- Weaker together : political geography and the representation of Democrats -- The battle for the soul of the left -- The road not taken : proportional representation -- The end of the dilemma?

AbstractAshtabula, Ohio, was the pioneer city in the adoption of the Hare plan of proportional representation for its municipal elections. This year's test was embarrassed by the presence of ten other old‐style ballots…. The story of Kalamazoo's second election under P. R. is promised for early issue.

Proportional electoral rules are associated with more substantial women's representation than majoritarian ones. To provide causal evidence that electoral rules affect women's representation and the qualification of politicians, we collect panel data on the universe of Italian politicians from all levels of government over the period 1987–2013 and analyse an Italian reform which, in 2005, changed the electoral rule for national elections from (mostly) majoritarian to proportional, but did not affect subnational level elections. We find that this reform increased the number of women elected by 5%, while not decreasing the overall qualification levels of politicians, measured by the level of education and political experience. We provide evidence that the highest qualification women are not elected and that the overall qualification of elected politicians could have increased (rather than remain constant) if the best women candidates had been elected.

We prove that cumulative voting usually enables a minority population to achieve political representation corresponding to apportionment by Webster's method, which minimizes the absolute difference of per capita representation between the minority and the remaining majority population. The minority, of arbitrary size, can generally attain its `Webster-fair' share of n seats with probability greater than 75 per cent and otherwise, with probability at most 4 n/n+1 1 the minority can attain just one seat less than its Webster-fair representation. Furthermore, for two subpopulations, the potential representation yielded by cumulative voting is identical to that obtained from apportionment by Jefferson's method, and for more than two subpopulations the potential representation by cumulative voting cannot be greater than that of Jefferson apportionment. These results confirm the potential of cumulative voting to yield representation proportional or nearly proportional to population, and the results counter claims or concerns that cumulative voting would be unfairly advantageous to minority populations.

Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral systems are considered by some to be "the best of both worlds" because they combine single member district representation with proportional outcomes. Critics, however, maintain that such systems cause voter confusion leading some voters to cast misinformed votes. Survey data from Germany & New Zealand are used to investigate voter's political knowledge of the electoral system & their voting behavior. The findings suggest that knowledge about the electoral system is similar in New Zealand & in Germany. Although some may very well find the system complex, there is no evidence to suggest that a lack of knowledge about the electoral system influences voting behavior. The results undermine the claims made by skeptics who fear that misunderstanding threatens the legitimacy of electoral outcomes. Tables, Figures, Appendixes, References. [Copyright 2006 Elsevier Ltd.]

На основе принципиального набора в конституции выборы единственный демократический и юридический путь доступ, чтобы двинуться на большой скорости. С одной стороны, выборы наиболее широко используемая форма внедрения прямой власти людей. С другой стороны, это самый демократический способ организовать государственную власть и органы местного самоуправления. В то же время выборы-политические инструменты для реализации граждан право голосовать, и оценит государственную власть и органы местного самоуправления. В этой статье приведены самые широко распространенные избирательные системы в мире и их прикладные возможности в Азербайджане, которые были проанализированы и изучены, в то же время автор подчеркивает особенности избирательной системы Азербайджана ; On the basis of the principles set in the Constitution, election is the only democratic and legal way access to power. On the one hand, elections are the most widely used form of the implementation of direct power of people. On the other hand, it is the most democratic way of organizing the the state power and local government authorities. At the same time, elections are political tools for the realization of citizens' the right to vote, and an oppartunity of assesment the state power and local government authorities. In this article, the most widespread electoral systems in the world and their application possibilities in Azerbaijan were analyzed, at the same time has been talking about the features of the election system of Azerbaijan were studied

Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales. Maestría en Derecho ; Throughout the democratic history of Mexico, various events have shaped both society and its government and institutions. Presidentialism, the years of the hegemonic party, the arrival of reforms in electoral matters and the triumph of the opposition to give way to alternation, are examples of the most relevant changes or moments. Along the same lines, the regulatory framework that structures state powers has been influenced for its evolution in particular by social movements and crisis of legitimacy that, by 1977, forced the political system to adopt the mixed electoral system, by which gave life to lawmakers of proportional representation, in the integration of legislative power. The arrival of proportional representation, provided greater legislative plurality and represented a support for the opposition. However, over time the political forces that enjoy democratic openness, within the Mexican multi-party system, have rethink the existence of the representation itself proportional. The contribution of this thesis is precisely in the analysis of the divergent and common elements that have motivated legislative initiatives, to modify the number of proportional representation legislators, in the period from 2013 to 2017 in the congresses of the states of Michoacán, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Colima; area called bajío - occidente. Thus, the reader is offered a contrasting picture of both the content, authors and context in which these initiatives were presented. ; A través de la historia democrática de México, diversos hechos han moldeado tanto a la sociedad como a su gobierno e instituciones. El presidencialismo, los años del partido hegemónico, la llegada de las reformas en materia electoral y el triunfo de la oposición para dar paso a la alternancia, son ejemplo de los cambios o momentos más relevantes. En esa misma línea, el marco normativo que estructura los poderes estatales, ha sido influenciado para su evolución en particular por movimientos ...

While reform of Canada's electoral system has not yet occurred, it has been an ever-present, ever-potent topic in Canadian political science since the middle of the 20th Century. While there are aspects of First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) to be admired, its fundamental flaws cannot be ignored; the system encourages parties to exacerbate sectionalism, leaves far too many voters unrepresented, and too often allows for uncooperative governments. Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP), a form of Proportional Representation (PR), possesses the best aspect of FPTP, local representation and accountability, and amends its most serious flaws. MMP represents all votes cast, attenuates sectionalism, and creates diverse legislatures that incentivize cross-party cooperation far more than FPTP does currently. Canada is nearly a perfect country for MMP, and this system should be implemented for our federal elections.

Many studies examined the state of citizen-elite congruence at the party system, legislative and government stages of representation. Few scholars examined, however, whether citizen preferences are adequately represented in enacted policies. The article addresses this gap in the literature and examines the role of electoral systems in fostering citizens-policy congruence. Building on studies of government congruence and responsiveness, we expect levels of policy congruence to be greater under majoritarian electoral systems than under proportional representation electoral systems and as the number of parties in government decreases. In order to test these expectations, we make use of data from the International Social Survey Programme and examine the proportions of respondents whose preferences are congruent with government levels of spending in eight major policy domains. Overall, the results do not support our expectations and indicate that levels of policy congruence are similar across electoral systems and government types. In line with recent works on electoral systems and representation, our findings support the claim that majoritarian and proportional representation electoral systems both have mechanisms which allow governments to represent their citizens similarly.

Although scholars agree that ethnically divided societies are generally more prone to political violence, critics of consociationalism suggest that proportional representation and parliamentarism provide poor solutions for ethnically heterogeneous settings. I argue that extant findings about the impacts of powersharing institutions on conflict likelihood assume that institutions have a linear relationship with ethnic diversity, whereas in reality, the relationship is more complex. I demonstrate that proportional representation and parliamentarism are associated with an increased likelihood of civil conflict at mid-range levels of diversity but are associated with a decreased risk of conflict in more extremely divided settings, while federalism is independently associated with greater conflict risk at higher levels of ethnic heterogeneity. The results underscore that the peace-promoting effects of institutions may depend on how polarized societies are, encouraging scholars to think more seriously about the effectiveness of consociationalism for mitigating violence where there is greater ethnic diversity.

The 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement in Bosnia and Herzegovina instituted ethnic quotas between Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats: the three "constituent peoples." This institutionalization of ethnicity, criticized by some contemporary authors, is often seen as a creation of the peace agreement. Interestingly, several scholars deem such proportional representation a legacy from socialist times. But the existing literature lacks a historical perspective on the question of ethnic quotas. In addressing this issue, this paper reminds one of the existence of ethnic quotas, called the "national key," during socialist times. A deeper analysis of the "national key" in the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the ethnic quotas in the last two decades shows, interestingly, more differences than continuity. The article concludes that few similarities and more differences can be observed between the two periods, especially regarding the legal aspects of the "national key," in ideological justification and in the conceptions based on parity or proportional representation.

We develop a simple theoretic game a model to analyze the relationship between electoral systems and governments' choice in trade policies. We show that existence of international pressure or. foreign lobby changes a government's final decision on trade policy, and trade policy in countries with proportional electoral system is more protectionist than in countries with majoritarian electoral system. Moreover, lobbies pay more to affect the trade policy outcomes in countries with proportional representation systems.