Dynastic politicians: Theory and evidence from Japan

Yasushi Asako, Takeshi Iida, Tetsuya Matsubayashi, Michiko Ueda

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

47 Scopus citations

Abstract

Dynastic politicians, defined as those whose family members have also served in the same position in the past, occupy a sizable portion of offices in many parts of the world. We develop a model of how dynastic politicians with inherited political advantages affect electoral outcomes and policy choices. Our model predicts that, as compared with non-dynastic legislators, dynastic legislators bring more distributions to the district, enjoy higher electoral success, and harm the economic performance of the districts, despite the larger amount of distributive benefits they bring. We test the implications of the model using data from Japan between 1997 and 2007.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)5-32
Number of pages28
JournalJapanese Journal of Political Science
Volume16
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 10 2015

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Political Science and International Relations

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Dynastic politicians: Theory and evidence from Japan'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this