Infrastructure as the Magnet of Power

Explaining Why Japanese Legislators Left and Returned to the LDP

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12847780
AutoresJun Saito (0000-0001-5090-5893, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen9
Número3
Páginas467-493
Fecha de publicación2009-12-01
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of East Asian Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1598-2408 • E-ISSN: 2234-6643
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1598240800006743
OpenAlexW1853010249
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas15

By examining party-switching decisions among members of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), this article shows how distributive policy programs exclusively available to the governing party attract incumbents to the party in power. In a stable electoral environment where the government party is likely to stay in power, legislators elected from infrastructure-poor constituencies are effectively tied to the party. However, when the party's electoral prospects are uncertain, legislators behave more sincerely and switch parties to match their policy preferences. It is also found that defectors elected from infrastructure-poor constituencies tended to return to the LDP once the party installed a stable surplus coalition

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