Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the political underrepresentation of people with disabilities in the Japanese Diet and the conditions that allow their participation in the parliament.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the political underrepresentation of people with disabilities in the Japanese Diet and the conditions that allow their participation in the parliament. The paper addresses the following three research questions: 1) how are people with disabilities represented in contemporary Japan and the EU member states, and what are the differences between them?; 2) why have people with disabilities been underrepresented in Japan?; and 3) how do candidates with disabilities but with no typical political career become members of the Diet? This paper further discusses the electoral system, political parties’ attitudes toward people with disabilities, social and community participation of people with disabilities, and political culture as factors that affect minority groups’ participation in the Japanese parliament. The analysis revealed the following: 1) a comparison with EU member states showed that the underrepresentation of people with disabilities in parliamentary bodies is a common issue; 2) people with disabilities are less involved in traditional political communities and the society in general, which hampers their participation in the parliament. It was also observed that a negative political culture toward the political participation of people with disabilities might also lead to their underrepresentation; and 3) in the immediate post-war period, disabled Diet members were mainly wounded people with typical political careers, but especially from 1990s onwards, disabled people who did not have typical political careers became Diet members. Moreover, the proportional electoral system and political parties’ commitment to include candidates with disabilities, for example, their favorable treatment on the proportional list, use of specific quotas such as the Tokutei-waku, campaign finance and campaign assistance, and reasonable accommodation during election campaign that takes their physical and mental condition into account, facilitate their participation in the parliament.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the similarities and differences among female and male candidates' use of Twitter as a campaign medium in terms of informing, educating, and mobilizing voters during the July 2019 Upper House election.

Paper long abstract:

Compared to their counterparts in other western democracies who have been using Internet-based media channels for campaigning since the late 1990s and early 2000s, in Japan, Internet-based campaigning during the crucial election campaign activities period immediately preceding an election is relatively new. Since the Public Offices Election Law was changed in April 2013 to allow for Internet-based campaigning during this period, Japanese candidates have enthusiastically taken up Internet-based campaigning, including social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook.

Japan is entering a period of maturation of Internet use during campaigns, which signals a possible "normalization" period of using online means to accompany traditional - and highly regulated - campaign media. As such, we are able to start to discern patterns in how candidates approach online campaign, particularly through social media, in terms of political party and gender. Combined with a growing spotlight on female political participation, accompanied by a record high number of 103 female candidates, the 2019 Upper House election provides an opportunity to investigate Internet-based campaign from a gendered perspective.

In this paper, I examine the similarities and differences among female and male candidates' use of social media, focusing on Twitter, using data from the July 2019 Upper House election. Are there differences among candidates in terms of gender with regards to using Twitter for informing, educating, and mobilizing the public? Are there similarities or differences in terms of the issues that are addressed in Tweet content and hashtags? The results from this study have implications for identifying general patterns in campaigning, as well as potential differences among female and male candidates.