An Empirical Theory of Rational Nominating Behaviour Applied to Japanese District Elections

Abstract

Plurality electoral systems with multi-member districts and single nontransferable votes (SNTV) allow parties to win multiple seats in district elections by nominating multiple candidates, but they also penalize a party's seat share if the number of candidates offered is 'too many' or 'too few'. Given an institutional incentive to nominate the 'correct' number of candidates, we seek to establish empirically that the nominating behaviour of parties in such systems results from a rational calculus of strategic choice. So we develop and test an empirical theory of rational nominating behaviour applied to Japanese district elections before the 1994 electoral reform. We establish, for all possible nominating strategies, the conditions on voting outcomes required for actors to maximize benefits in the context. The efficiency of actual strategy choices for maximizing benefits is found by comparing an observed outcome from voting (the distributed benefit) with the benefit that would be expected had the party chosen its 'best' alternative nominating strategy instead. Empirical testing indicates that Japanese parties discriminated between available nominating strategies and made choices that maximized benefits in the context, evidence that the nominating behaviour of parties in this test environment was based on rational calculation.The issue of whether the nominating behaviour of Japanese political elites may be considered rationality-based is informed in the literature by two methodological approaches that derive conclusions from the empirical detection of party nominating errors. The first of these, exemplified by the work of Cox and his collaborators, 4 seeks to establish a 'maximally demanding' analytic benchmark of error-free nominating behaviour against which actual Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) nominations are evaluated. 5 To determine whether an error has been committed, Cox and Niou 6 develop a calculation procedure that requires parties to nominate only the number of candidates that can win seats, conditional upon some empirically determined magnitude of votes cast for opposing candidates and an efficient ('equalized') split of the party vote among its own candidates. From these conditions, three types of nomination error are derived: 'overnomination', where more candidates than can win a seat are nominated, 'undernomination', where fewer candidates than could win seats are nominated, and a 'non-optimal vote split', where the behaviour of party voters prevents the victory of some party candidate(s) that otherwise would have won a seat. Empirical testing based on these criteria indicates that about one-third of the LDP's nominating decisions were made in error.While Cox and his collaborators make no explicit claim regarding rationality, their theoretical assumption that the nominating and voting behaviour of actors will be 'efficient' in maximizing the party share of parliamentary seats is, in fact, what is commonly considered an expectation of rational behaviour. Their observation of substantial LDP nominating ...

Mixed-Member Electoral Systems in Constitutional Context

“…Under SNTV, much of the intraparty competition takes place in the general election stage, as parties routinely nominate multiple candidates in the same district. While the optimal strategy is for a party to nominate the "right" number of candidates and then distribute its support evenly among them Cox and Thies 1998;Browne and Patterson 1999), overnomination is not always a disaster. If more than the appropriate number of candidates insists on running and no compromise can be found, the party can sometimes simply let them all run and let the electorate decide which is the weakest.…”

“…Governing parties have a tremendous advantage because they can use the resources of the state to overcome these coordination problems (Cox 1996Rosenbluth 1993, 1996;Patterson and Stockton 2010;. Many studies have found that a key reason for prolonged periods of LDP dominance was the LDP's ability to accomplish strategic nomination and vote coordination (Browne and Patterson 1999;Horiuchi and Kohno 2004). 4 If governing parties are expected to do well under SNTV, so are small parties.…”

Strategies, Institutions, and Outcomes Under SNTV in Taiwan, 1992–2004

“…They would then ask if the resulting votes received by KMT4-the best this fourth nominated KMT candidate could do-would be sufficient to defeat the weakest winning candidate, PFP2, who obtained 38,799 votes. Since the fourth nominated KMT candidate receives 41,375 votes under the alternative nomination strategy, and this amount exceeds that obtained by PFP2, Cox and Niou (1994) and Browne and Patterson (1999) would have labeled this an overnomination.…”

“…Taking the KMT's nomination strategy as an example, we note that both Cox and Niou 1994) and Browne and Patterson (1999) would evaluate it in the same way. Because the KMT nominated five candidates but obtained only three seats, they would evaluate this strategy by asking if there is an alternative the KMT could have employed that would result in it winning an additional seat.…”

Coordination failure and the politics of tribes: Jordanian elections under SNTV

“…The failure to coordinate on an optimal number of candidates results in an inferior outcome. Political parties, for example, can be penalized by loss of seats for nomination errors, including running too many candidates and thus dividing the vote among supporters, or running too few candidates and losing an additional seat (Reed, 1990;Cox and Niou, 1994;Browne and Patterson, 1999).…”