For those of you who might be interested, I would like to direct your attention to an article with Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth), Teppei Yamamoto (MIT), and Mayumi Fukushima (MIT) published today in Nikkei Business Online.
We conducted a new type of field survey experiment (adapted from the marketing world) during the campaign period of the recent election to examine which of the policies promoted in party manifestos were most attractive to voters.

Many touted the election as a public referendum on the set of Abe's economic policies known as Abenomics--including the much-heralded "three arrows"
of monetary easing, fiscal stimulus, and structural reforms to Japan's regulatory system. But were these really the issues that voters cared about? Each of the main parties that contested the election took positions on Abe's economic policies, to be sure, but parties also presented voters with different positions on a range of other issues, including nuclear energy, TPP, collective self-defense, constitutional revision, and whether or not the number of Diet seats should be reduced.

The results of our survey experiment reveal that Abenomics actually took a backseat to some of these other issues in voters' minds. Full explanation and results are here (in Japanese):

http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/topics/20141218/
275309/

Daniel M. Smith
Assistant Professor
Department of Government
Harvard University