著者

大山 七穂

出版者

東海大学文学部

雑誌

東海大学紀要 文学部 (ISSN:05636760)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.81, pp.192-174, 2004

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This study examines the influence of electoral environments on female candidates, using the data of the 2003 prefectural legislative elections. First, electoral environments in each prefecture are compared, by using measures: number of female candidates, number of female winning candidates, proportion of female candidates, proportion of female winning candidates, successful ratio of female candidates, and successful ratio of male candidates. The results show that, in prefectures they have larger population, more women become candidates and winning candidates. However, the relation between numbers of female winning candidates and successful ratio of female candidates is not clear. Rather, there is negative relation between numbers of female candidates and successful ratio of female candidates. Second, this study examines the advantage of incumbents under the current electoral system. And the result indicates female incumbents as well as male incumbents are more elected than newcomers. However, most incumbents are male in elections. Therefore the advantage of incumbents means that the current electoral system work negatively for women who try to involve politics. Moreover, we confirm there is a big range of numbers of seats in electoral districts, that is one through eighteen. The more seats there were in an electoral district, the higher the successful ratio of female candidates became. Because the number of candidates in many electoral districts were one or two more than the number of seats, the more seats there were, the lower likely the competition became. These findings clearly seem to show influences of electoral environments on female candidates' results in prefectural legislative elections.