ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to make a comparative analysis of Japan and Taiwan based on a newly constructed dataset covering all major parties that have used primaries for leadership selection. It addresses the political context in the two countries, focusing on their political and party systems and examines the rationales for adopting the primary at individual party level. The chapter explores the primary processes as a whole, taking into account both the rules governing internal elections and their actual functioning. It then examines the impact of the primary on political parties, focusing on party support among the general public and membership recruitment. However, as for the cases of Japan and Taiwan, using general election results to evaluate the effects of primary elections is methodologically problematic, primarily because party leadership selection is not synchronised with general elections, unlike candidate selection.
