Normally the government enjoys comfortable majority support in the Lower House until the next general election that might be called before the term of four years expires.The Upper House election takes place every three years in which half the members are elected.Thuswhen the political climate suddenly changes as a result of economic downturn or poor government performancevoters tend to turn the cold shoulder to the incumbent governments parties causing the loss of a majority in the Upper House. As the Upper House election draws near legislators up for reelection in the governing parties feel insecure with the incumbent prime minister if his cabinet suffers from poor approval ratings.Since the loss of a majority in the Upper House might lead to future government turnover after the next general election rank‑and‑file members in the Lower House also may not be happy with the situation. Governing partieslegislators in both Houses do not allow for an unpopular prime minister and try to unseat him with a popular one.Nyblade (2011 argues that the recent rapid turnover of prime ministers is a perverse consequence of the increased prominence and influence of the position and the greater electoral importance of the party label in a time of heightened electoral volatility and voter dissatisfaction.Thus the Upper House election has become crucial to the survival of the prime minister.

The Japanese Diet has several institutional features that together create a “short session” system, and the scarcity of legislative time makes the possession of agenda power a central concern of parliamentary politics. During the course of this paper, we attempt to show how the institutionally-induced scarcity of time affects the way in which both the government and the opposition exercise the parliamentary prerogatives and bias the legislative outcomes to their advantage. To take into account the time factor and the censored nature of legislative process, we utilize a duration model to estimate the likelihood of a legislative proposal to pass the Diet. Combining micro-level legislative data from major postwar sessions, we compare the legislative process of the bills submitted by the cabinet with that of those proposed by the Diet members, and show that the likelihood of successful legislation depends critically on how the cabinet controls agenda setting in the Diet. The findings not only force us to reassess the literature on party politics in Japan, but also contribute to a comparative understanding of legislative institutions with respect to procedural restrictions and the incentives they provide.

Let us first evaluate the LDP's victory by comparing it with past elections. As of this election, the number of seats up for re-election was reduced by five; however, the 64 seats the LDP won this time is roughly equivalent to 67 seats won under the former system (when there were 126 seats up for re- election), a total that does not quite match the 72 seats won under Nakasone in the same-day election (both Upper and Lower Houses) of 1986, but which matches the 67 and 68 seats won in the 1992 and 1983 elections respectively. Further, if we look at the proportion of votes obtained by proportional representation (PR) in the national constituency, this year's 38.6% shows an increase of 13.4% over the 1998 election and compares favourably with the 1986 proportion, which remains the highest to date. As for the constituencies in the prefectures, the LDP, on the defensive, limited the number of officially recognised candidates to one per district even in the multi-seat districts and ended up with 41.0% of the vote, which represents an increase of only 9.5% from the previous election. Normally, the votes won by the LDP in the prefectural constituencies outnumber those garnered through PR by several to more than ten percent; however, the increase in PR votes in this election outshone the increase in the prefectural constituency votes such that the difference between the two shrunk to a mere 2.4%.

Let us first evaluate the LDP's victory by comparing it with past elections. As of this election, the number of seats up for re-election was reduced by five; however, the 64 seats the LDP won this time is roughly equivalent to 67 seats won under the former system (when there were 126 seats up for re- election), a total that does not quite match the 72 seats won under Nakasone in the same-day election (both Upper and Lower Houses) of 1986, but which matches the 67 and 68 seats won in the 1992 and 1983 elections respectively. Further, if we look at the proportion of votes obtained by proportional representation (PR) in the national constituency, this year's 38.6% shows an increase of 13.4% over the 1998 election and compares favourably with the 1986 proportion, which remains the highest to date. As for the constituencies in the prefectures, the LDP, on the defensive, limited the number of officially recognised candidates to one per district even in the multi-seat districts and ended up with 41.0% of the vote, which represents an increase of only 9.5% from the previous election. Normally, the votes won by the LDP in the prefectural constituencies outnumber those garnered through PR by several to more than ten percent; however, the increase in PR votes in this election outshone the increase in the prefectural constituency votes such that the difference between the two shrunk to a mere 2.4%.

This article employs a simple model of sophisticated voting under incomplete information and explores the strategic contexts of the vote on political reform bills in Japan. The government-sponsored political reform bills were voted down by the defection of government coalition members in the House of Councillors before a final compromise was reached in the joint committee of both houses and passed subsequently. In contrast to the accepted view that the defectors were short-sighted sincere voters, I show that Japan's institutional arrangements created an uncertainty about the agenda in the legislative process and led to the sophisticated voting behavior of pivotal voters whose preferences were different from the party leadership. The analysis underscores the importance of sophisticated voting for the empirical study of Japanese legislative politics.

Theory: This paper provides a comparative study of legislative institutions in the United States and Japan. It explains the rise of committee-based legislative organizations as an institutional choice made by rational legislators deciding how best to regularize their career advancement subject to electoral and constitutional constraints.Hypotheses: We argue that the rise of careerism within a legislature leads to a regularized system of career advancement, or a seniority system. Furthermore, the details of this system depend on the heterogeneity of intra-party preferences and each country's electoral and constitutional system. To the extent that parties can offer members electoral security and influence over policy, they will retain control over the policy-making process. Otherwise, control will devolve to smaller organizational units, such as committees.Methods: We develop a new measure of seniority within committees. We present statistical evidence linking a rise in average tenure within both legislatures to a regularization of careers, and detailing the nature of committee-based seniority in each country.Results: In the United States, single-member electoral districts, alternating party control, and a separation of powers system gave legislators an incentive to create committee-based policy jurisdictions. In Japan, multi-member districts, single-party control, and a parliamentary system led to a unique two-tiered seniority system in which members rise first through committees and then through cabinet posts.

The relationship between nationalization of the U.S. electorate and partisan realignment is explored. Concepts and measurement of nationalization are examined, as well as definitions of electoral change. The British concept of swing is utilized as an appropriate measure of electoral change. Examination of long-term trends in the variances of the congressional vote and swing from 1842 to 1980 shows they are related to the electoral dynamics of realignment. Analysis utilizing a variance-components model shows there has never been a nationalization in terms of configuration of the electorate. But nationalization in the movement of the electorate has taken place cyclically, corresponding to the partisan realignments of the 1890s and the 1930s, rather than monotonically, as suggested by previous research.