All subsequent references to this series are from, Koko kara–teiten kansoku•kokkai mae Fixed Point Observations: Outside the National Diet], Tokyo Shimbun, Morning edition.

According to an announcement on the group’s homepage, the composition of MCAN changed in from the original 13 groups that founded the organization on , to 11 groups and “other sympathetic individuals”. See.

If we assume that 30% of the “other, no reply” category were LDP voters then the LDP’s reliance on the antinuclear vote is 70

MCAN spokesperson Misao Redwolf has 7,142 followers on Twitter. The official MCAN Twitter account has 23,664 followers. These figures are both current as at , an official Twitter account in the name of SEALDs had 59,261 followers and leading SEALDs member Okuda Aki had 24,384 followers.

Email message to the author, . I obtained permission to cite this source as it accurately reflects the attitudes of Japan’s newspaper reporters.

Taken from a comment made by payday loans near me Union City TN Misao Redwolf in a roundtable discussion. See Oguma (ed), Genpatsu o tomeru hitobito, 17.

When asked about the future of Japan’s nuclear power plants in a public opinion poll conducted by the Asahi newspaper group from , 16% of respondents said “reduce them to zero immediately,” 58% said “reduce them to zero in the near future” and 22% said “don’t reduce them to zero.” 28% were in favor of restarting existing nuclear reactors while 55% were opposed. Asahi Shimbun, , Morning edition.

The tenth region was added in 1972, following the return of Okinawa to Japanese control

Noda Kazusa, “Shogeki no deta ‘ato 10 nen de jiminto no 9 wari ga takai suru’,” President Online, . After the LDP returned to power in , Diet members were assigned a quota and tried to increase party membership. This is said to have produced an increase in party membership from 730,000 in 2012 to 780,000 in 2013 and 890,000 in 2014. Noda claims, however, that regional LDP Diet members who were assigned a quota simply paid the membership fees themselves and that local residents were registered as party members in name only. They did so because they were afraid that if they could not achieve their quota they would not be re-endorsed by party headquarters. If they could maintain their endorsement then they could pay the membership fees out of the money they received from the party.

On the effects of this electoral cooperation see the analysis in Sugawara Taku, Yoron no kyokkai (Kobunsha shinsho 2009), chap. 2. The JSP and the People’s New Party engaged in electoral cooperation with the DPJ. The JCP put forward a limited number of candidates in electoral districts where the competition was tight, thereby indirectly supporting the DPJ.

Sugawara Taku, “Naze Jiminto wa sosenkyo ni shori shi, Abe naikaku wa shiji o atsumeteiru no ka,” Sight, Spring, 2013.

I calculated this figure as follows. For each of the percentages for “scrapping nuclear power immediately,” “gradually phasing out nuclear power altogether” “not pursuing zero nuclear power” I multiplied the percentage of respondents who said they had voted for the LDP in each, giving a total of %. The LDP received % of the vote in proportionally represented constituencies in the 2012 House of Representatives elections, giving a gap of 1.01%. The number of informal votes in this House of Representatives election was 2.4% so I subtracted this from the “other, no reply” category of 7% giving 5.6%. If we assume that the number of LDP votes contained in this 5.6% is the remaining 1.01% then 18% of this group voted for the LDP. There is not much difference between this figure and the 16% of people who favored “scrapping nuclear power immediately” and voted for the LDP so it is probably too low. I then made a provisional calculation of the total percentage of votes obtained by the LDP of % at the slightly higher rate of 30%. If we assume that four tenths of those who replied “other, no reply” were LDP voters then the LDP’s reliance on the antinuclear vote is 68.5% (of whom, 7.6% favor scrapping nuclear power immediately) and if we assume seven tenths voted for the LDP then the party’s reliance on the antinuclear vote is 64.0% (of whom 7.1% favor scrapping nuclear power immediately). 9% (of whom 7.8% favor scrapping nuclear power immediately). Whichever figure we choose, these are merely estimates based on an exit poll, so no effort was made to achieve strict consistency.