Roundtable: Representation & Electoral Systems Featured Books Event - Dominance through Division: Group-based Clientelism in Japan

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Overview

Dominance through Division: Group-Based Clientelism in Japan (Cambridge University Press)
Author: Amy Catalinac

Japan presents a puzzle: a democracy dominated by a single party that wins almost all elections. Catalinac argues that when politicians compete in districts with discernible voter groups, they can make allocations contingent on how groups vote. Using data spanning 1980-2014, she shows LDP politicians leverage dominance to make groups compete for resources. The book explains why the LDP has remained in power, why opposition parties are weak, and why Japan’s 1994 electoral reform had limited impact.

Section

• 02. Representation & Electoral Systems

Cosponsor

• 84. Working Groups (In House)

Chair

• Tanushree Goyal, Princeton University

Participants

• Amy Catalinac, New York University

• Herbert Kitschelt, Duke University

• Charles McClean, Yale University

• Shikhar Singh, Duke University

• Jiajia Zhou, University of Toronto