The Contamination Effect in a Mixed-Member Majoritarian System: the Impact of Party's Dual Candidacy Strategies in Japanese House Elections
| Autor: | Ming-Feng Kuo, 郭銘峰 |
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| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 99 The Mixed electoral system combines the spirits of Plurality and Proportional Representation. The way two-ballot structure influencing the electoral behavior however is not settled. Of the two distinctive schools, one believed two ballots work separately and therefore, their influences should be estimated independently. The other group of people advocated the existing of interaction effects (or the so-called “contamination effects”), and believed it is necessary to consider the interaction between two ballots. As for the Mixed-Member Majoritarian (MMM) Electoral System which was realized in Japanese House Election since 1996, it is actually more complicated because of the addition of dual candidacy. The purpose of this study is trying to evaluate the impact of this new electoral system in Japan. Specifically, this study is especially interested in the interaction effects of two-vote structure that caused by parties’ dual candidacy strategies. To avoid the causal biased estimation and capture the contamination effect more precisely based on district-level data, this study applies Heckman’s treatment-effects model to remove the endogeneity and self-selection problem. The result not only shows the dual candidacy strategy influences the interaction between two ballots, it also indicates the impact is dissimilar from different parties and different periods of time. More specifically, the dual candidacy strategy improves the PR votes obviously for the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) in 2009, the DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) in 2003, and the SDP (Social Democratic Party) in 2000, 2005, and 2009. In order to make sure the validity of the findings of district-level data and get further information, this study takes advantage of the survey collected by Japanese Election Studies (JES) since 1996. Specifically, this study uses the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as an example, and applies Greene’s bivariate probit model to analyze the interaction between the voters’ two ballots. The result shows that the dual candidacy in the new electoral system did influence the interaction between the two ballots; the LDP’s dual candidacy strategies indeed helped to attract more PR votes gradually. The result is consistent with the findings of district-level data. In addition, the bivariate probit result also shows that the party identification, political ideology, and the urbanization of districts still influence the voters’ voting behavior. In conclusion, this study supports existing literatures and theories, such as the Japanese voting behavior, the impact of parties’ dual candidacy strategies, and the contamination theory of mixed-member electoral systems. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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