Japanese Election Maps

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Interesting to see the overwhelming LDP strength in the southwestern periphery (including, of course, Abe's own seat in Yamaguchi). That's been--in various guises--a very 'establishment' area ever since the Meiji Restoration.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Interesting to see the overwhelming LDP strength in the southwestern periphery (including, of course, Abe's own seat in Yamaguchi). That's been--in various guises--a very 'establishment' area ever since the Meiji Restoration.

Is there any reason for this beyond general cultural conservatism/relative lack of urbanisation? Although a certain... er... obvious point of comparison between Kyushu and Sicily can be made

Maybe it's because I'm a little tipsy right now but I'm not sure which of the similarities between Kyūshū and Sicily you're referring to; explain?

Originally it was this way because the Meiji Restoration happened at all mainly on the strength of the domains Satsuma (the Kagoshima area) and Chōshū (Yamaguchi), which thus drew a lot of water in setting imperial policy well into the 1920s (all of the genrō except one were from one or the other of these domains). The southwest gained control over the naval officer corps, especially, almost to the exclusion of other parts of the country; it wasn't the Whig Oligarchy but it was pretty damn close. This led to the area becoming institutionally favored in various ways. When the LDP hegemony started, a general policy of porking rural areas to hell and back, drawing constituencies to wildly overrepresent them, et cetera set in, and in the case of the southwest this served as confirmation of the area's existing establishmentarian political tradition.

Interesting but not surprising that Nagasaki is the most DPJ-friendly part of this part of the country. It has the highest proportion of Christians in Japan and has for over four hundred years. (In addition to the most obvious feature of Nagasaki history.)

Lol at Dazai Osamu's son-in-law's old constituency.

I'd be interested in seeing 1993 at some point if you have the requisite data for it.

Worth noting that some (but by no means all) of the insanely high LDP percentages are in constituencies where there was only a JCP candidate running against them. But that in itself generally reflects a seat that's utterly safe anyway...

Indeed; even in 2009 Abe had a +33.2 majority in Yamaguchi-04.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Interesting but not surprising that Nagasaki is the most DPJ-friendly part of this part of the country. It has the highest proportion of Christians in Japan and has for over four hundred years. (In addition to the most obvious feature of Nagasaki history.)

IIRC you said that Japanese Christians' political leanings aren't much different from the general population. Am I misremembering?

You're not misremembering but I think now that I may have been mistaken when I said that.

Interesting to see the overwhelming LDP strength in the southwestern periphery (including, of course, Abe's own seat in Yamaguchi). That's been--in various guises--a very 'establishment' area ever since the Meiji Restoration.

Is there any reason for this beyond general cultural conservatism/relative lack of urbanisation? Although a certain... er... obvious point of comparison between Kyushu and Sicily can be made

Maybe it's because I'm a little tipsy right now but I'm not sure which of the similarities between Kyūshū and Sicily you're referring to; explain?

Kyushu has provided the bulk of yakuza members throughout history, including many bosses.

I actually did not know that! For some reason I tend to associate the yakuza primarily with Kansai.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

From what I know of Fukuoka I'm not surprised.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What are the main voting demographic patterns in Japan?

The LDP is strong everywhere but especially in rural areas outside Tōhoku and Hokkaidō; the 'new right' (ORA/JRP/JIP/ORA/PFG/PJK/XYZ) is relatively speaking stronger in the cities. DP and its predecessors are strong-ish in Tokyo, Nagoya, and points northeast. KP is a boondoggle associated with a specific Nichiren Buddhist religious group; JCP has a quasi-religious vibe as well (sort of in the sense that R.C. Zaehner described dialectical materialism as being a religion, but not really) and has some local organizing strength in Kyoto and I think also Okinawa (which has its own local parties too). Very young voters are developing a nasty right-revisionist streak; I'm not quite sure about age demographics otherwise but I think the most left-leaning generation is that which grew up immediately after the war. I could be wrong.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

There's a lot that's weird demographically about Kōchi. When I was doing the Japanese religious demographics maps I discovered that it's considerably more attached to Shinto qua Shinto than practically anywhere else in Japan, including, as here, the rest of Shikoku.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

'The right policy, fun politics' indeed.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I mean, a hard-left party that opposes those things is appealing to me, but that doesn't mean it makes any sense as a campaign or is or was right for Japan.

My favorite JCP campaign is still the one I saw in action personally: House of Councillors 2013, with the posters of Shii Kazuo saying 'Protect your livelihood! Fight the consumption tax increase!' and putting his dukes up.