Strategic Imperatives of Japan's SNTV Electoral System and the Cooperative Innovations of the Former Opposition Parties

Abstract

Single nontransferable vote (SNTV) electoral systems create severe collective-action problems for political parties. If multimember districts are used, large political parties must run the optimal number of candidates in each district and divide the vote equally between those candidates. Failure to do so will cost a party seats. In Japan, the former parties of the non-Communist opposition cooperated in all national elections from 1971 to 1990. In their efforts to cooperate, these parties as a group faced collective-action problems. To compensate for these problems, these parties modified their methods of cooperation. The widespread nature of these innovations in cooperation rebuts the common assertions that the Japanese opposition acted irrationally or incompetently.