Dear Professor Thies,

I thank you very much for your responsen?"

>A switch to single-member districts, then, has two effects. First, it eliminates the intraparty competition AT THE DISTRICT LEVEL, and hence removes the need for same-party candidates to find a way to divide the vote.As long as the parties maintain control over who runs under their party label, this implies a move away from personalistic campaigning and toward party-based appeals.
I wonder whether the third sentence undermines the first; that is, does the intra-party competition simply become inter-party competition-- just simply with the same actors / MPs? That would be my opinion as conservative MPs line up as the "chosen" candidate for the LDP and Shinshinto, bringing with them their koenkai.

>The second, important effect is that the threshold of exclusion (the percentage of votes a candidate must win in order to guarantee victory) increases dramatically. Now a candidate must win 51 percent of the vote to be assured of a seat (a smaller number might be enough if there are more than two candidates, but Duverger's point was that the field should eventually be whittled to two). Under SNTV with multimember districts, one could be assured of a seat with as little as 25% of the vote in 3-member districts, and as little as 16.7% of the vote in 5-mbr districts.
I agree, however, what is the consequence of a higher threshold value in a smaller district?

>district, and you win. Prof. Rosenbluth's point (taken from Duverger and Downs 1957) was that with the need to win a MAJORITY (50%+1) of the voters, candidates would be obliged to cast their nets more broadly, to appeal to "lowest common denominator" interests in the electorate. This could imply more consumer-based appeals (everyone is a consumer) and fewer "producer-based appeals" (i.e., less catering to special interests).
I am a little unclear, but what is the difference between a "consumer" and a "special interest?" What happens in local districts, e.g. Akita? Can any candidate, from any party, seriously contemplate running-- let alone victory-- without pledging support for agricultural protectionism? I do not personally believe so. What then becomes of policy-appeal and issue/party-label salience?

>One final comparative note in an overly-long contribution. In Germany, whose lower house electoral system Japan has adapted and adopted (there is one crucial difference concerning how seats are allocated between the PR and SMD sections), there is very little if any personal voting of the type common in Japan under SNTV.
This comment is interesting, could you provide a citation.

Thank you once again for your comments.

Sincerely yours,

Yasunobu Kyogoku