ABSTRACT
Why would any politician support reforms that could increase the uncertainty of re-election? More specifically, why would any politician change the electoral rules they were successfully elected under or make it more difficult to raise funds for re-election? The answer to this puzzle is not readily apparent. The public often supports reform, but politicians usually do not. What is surprising is that politicians sometimes also favor new regulations that could make their political lives more difficult. The passage of political reform is rare; yet, when exploring the history of parliamentary politics in postwar Japan we can find several advocates of political reform.1 Take, for example, the case of a current member of the Upper House of the Japanese Diet, Matsuda Iwao.2
