Naofumi Fujimura, "The influence of electoral institutions on legislative representation: Evidence from                    Japan's single non-transferable vote and single memeber district systems" Party Politics, 21 (March 2015), 209-221. [Available at http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/vol21/issue2/]

Figures and Table

Figure 1: Percentage of votes needed to win a seat by district magnitude
Table 1: Policy classification in Japan by 12 areas
Table 2: Descriptive statistics for the variables
Table 3: Regression analysis of interests represented by legislators
Figure 2: Effects of electoral systems on legislators' representation
Figure 3: Career path of legislators under the SNTV/MMD and SMD/PR systems

This study has discussed how the types of policies or benefits that legislators favour differ by electoral systems. The study has demonstrated that legislators elected in MMD/SNTV were more likely to represent specific benefits, especially general interests, in targeted policy areas, while those elected in SMDs were more likely to represent diverse benefits, especially general interests, in various policy areas. These results are consistent with the theory proposed by this study, that electoral systems with higher district magnitude are more likely to offer electoral incentives for legislators to represent specific benefits, including particularistic interests in targeted policy areas, while electoral systems with lower district magnitude are more likely to provide electoral incentives to represent diverse benefits, including general interests in various policy areas.