In Dynasties and Democracy, Daniel M. Smith embarks on a bold and novel endeavor: explaining the wide variation in the presence of political dynasties that we can observe in democracies. Why are political dynasties so prevalent in many democracies? The answer, in part, is the electoral system. Japan, along with Ireland, stands out among advanced democracies, with about three times the proportion of dynasties in other countries since 1945. These countries both have an atypical electoral system. This book's focus is Japan, explaining how electoral system reform has contributed to recent reductions in dynasties.
Smith defines a legacy politician as someone who enters a country's legislature or executive after one of their family relatives. He first describes variations in the proportions of such legacy candidates over time in different democracies, for which he compiled the “dynasties in democracy” dataset. This dataset includes information on the family links between elected politicians in 12 countries. The data is formed of originally compiled information, based on biographical information previously collected by scholars interested in political elites. Such information is difficult to collect, and so family links across democracies have never before been put into comparative perspective. This book presents us with truly novel, comparative facts about political dynasties across countries for the very first time. Germany is the least dynastic context. Most other countries have between five and nine percent of dynasties. In contrast, until recently almost a third of the Japanese lower chamber was formed of political dynasties: the most dynastic country in this comparison.
In addition to this unique first comparative view over dynasties, and an excellent summary of existing theories and empirical findings from others studying political dynasties in other contexts, this book offers a unique, compelling perspective on politics in Japan. Smith analyses dynastic links among all Japanese politicians and candidates since 1958. In this view on dynasties in Japan, the book compares in scope and depth to Chandra's recent edited volume on democratic dynasties in India. The statistical results concisely summarize the prevalence of Japanese dynasties, and the narrative illustrates compellingly with many insightful examples of specific families.
Potential explanations for the comparative variation range from culture or history to electoral institutions. Smith extensively discusses supply- and demand-side factors that could explain legacy candidates. The book highlights how the electoral system can explain why Japan experienced particularly dynastic politics.
The influence of the electoral system can be seen right from dynastic recruitment at the candidate selection stage. Incumbents, and those who are part of an existing dynasty, have better chances of being succeeded by a relative, consistent with findings for other countries. The degree of decentralization of the candidate selection process within the different internal party organizations can also help explain why dynastic representation grew in importance in some but not other parties, and more strongly under the old SNTV electoral system. Smith explains the importance to Japanese candidates of jiban (electorate organization), kaban (financial resources) and kanban (name recognition). The introduction of the MMM electoral system changed the relevance of these three factors, and correspondingly also parties’ recruitment patterns.
Consequences of the 1994 electoral system reform on dynastic persistence were starkest for first-time candidates. The immediate consequences for the overall share of legacies in parliament remained limited. Dynasties were only slightly further reduced after internal party organizations adapted to the changed incentives by introducing open recruitment. Smith explains that if demand for legacy candidates had decreased, supply remained largely unaffected. The impact of electoral system change is therefore hard to see until party turnover.
Experienced dynastic candidates continued to be successful, relying on an inter-personal incumbency advantage. Being a relative and inheriting a jiban pays electorally and is strongly correlated with the total tenure length of one's predecessor. Yet self-selection can account for these results. Moreover, surveying voters learns that they do not value dynastic ties as such.
Dynastic MPs could be more likely to be promoted because they survive more elections and build up more experience. Smith recognizes the challenges to estimating the effect of one's family when analyzing promotions. However, he shows that ever since the electoral reform, legacy MPs from cabinet dynasties are more likely to enter the cabinet, even controlling for their tenure length.
Finally, the book explores some of the consequences of dynastic politics: Dynastic politicians are less likely to be male since the 1980s, and the representational styles of members of the same family tended to be similar in Japan, until the electoral reform changed the messages that candidates wanted to send to constituents. However, legacy and non-legacy legislators differ little in terms of legislative activity.
Many of this book's findings on the influence of institutions on dynasties in Japan beg the question whether they hold equally well over time, in different countries, at different levels of democratic experience. A well-known problem with assessing institutional consequences is the fact that politicians chose these institutions. Further testing could help to disentangle cause and effect. Research employing methods of causal identification, which includes some of Smith's other recent work, shows that longer tenure is not always associated with dynastic persistence. Further theory should aim to pull apart certain complex demand and supply-side explanations. Why should parties prefer more legacy candidates precisely in candidate-centered contexts? There, such characteristics should be particularly valuable to individual candidates. We also need more empirical verification beyond Japan, and ideally in as much fine-grained detail.
Clearly, this book is important not only for those with an interest in East Asia, but for everyone seeking to understand political dynasties in the world. This book offers a wealth of hypotheses and information for scholars interested in explaining the continued success of dynastic politicians to take to the test in their country of interest. It opens up a wide research agenda for future empirical and theoretical work on understanding dynastic prevalence.
