ABSTRACT
The biggest obstacle to reform in Japan is its anachronistic one-party democracy. Two requirements are needed to produce a political system genuinely responsive to the needs of the population. First, genuine competition where parties (or coalitions) regularly alternate in power. Second, a one-person-one-vote system where the vote of each city dweller counts as much as that of a farmer. Currently some rural districts get more than twice as much Diet representation as the most under-represented city districts. In 1994 Japan went through a major electoral reform advertised to reduce the influence of “money politics” and to usher in the era of competitive politics. The reform abolished the old multiseat-constituency Diet. In that system, three, four, or five members were elected from each district. The Liberal Democratic Party would get even fewer seats if it weren’t for a malapportioned system that gives rural voters more power than urban ones.
