Abstract
Already weeks before the Japanese went to the polls on 16 December, many pundits in the domestic and foreign press had been warning about the dangers associated with Japan shifting to the right (e.g. Mainichi, 22 November 2012). In retrospect, those fears seem to have materialized, as the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won 294 out of 480 seats in the House of Representatives (HR). In the context of the wider discourse of stronger right-wing tendencies since the 1990s (see, e.g. Fujimoto 2006 or Mullins 2012: 99), the election results may seem like another major step in the steady and ultimately dangerous drift toward the right. However, can we infer from the election results that a majority of voters are embracing this march toward the right?
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© 2013 Christian G. Winkler
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Winkler, C.G. (2013). Right Rising? Ideology and the 2012 House of Representatives Election. In: Pekkanen, R., Reed, S.R., Scheiner, E. (eds) Japan Decides 2012. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137346124_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137346124_17
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