Electoral Systems Today: The Politics of Reform in Japan and Taiwan

Issue Date April 2006
Volume 17
Issue 2
Page Numbers 118-131
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For decades, Japan and Taiwan had combined developmentalism with electoral competitions held under the single nontransferable vote (SNTV), a peculiar system responsible for their perennial one-party dominance. When the cost of maintaining this system became too high to bear, some politicians of the ruling party began to promote a mixed formula that assigns a high percentage of seats to be elected by first-past-the-post (FPTP), hoping to cultivate a new system that prolongs their political powers while the old regime is collapsing. This has happened in Japan in the past decade, and will most likely appear in Taiwan in the future.

About the Author

Jih-wen Lin is associate research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and associate professor at National Chengchi University and National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. His articles have appeared recently in Electoral Studies, China Quarterly, the Journal of East Asian Studies, and Issues and Studies

View all work by Jih-wen Lin