Daniel M. Smith’s new book examines the causes and consequences of dynasties in democracies. It focuses on the puzzle of why powerful political dynasties continue to exist throughout the modern democratized world. Smith offers a detailed analysis of the dynastic ties of elected legislators in 12 democracies and examines the dynamic case of Japanese dynasties from 1947 until the present day. The result is the most compelling analysis to date of dynasties in democracies in general, and in Japan’s “land of the rising sons” (p. 126) in particular.

Smith’s main argument for understanding democratic dynasties is based on a supply-and-demand framework of candidate selection. Legacy candidates are defined as “any candidate for national office who is related by blood or marriage to a politician who had previously served in national legislative or executive office” (p. 4). On the supply side, legacy candidates are more likely to run for office if their predecessors served longer tenures in office or if their family has a history of multiple generations in politics. On the demand side, institutions such as the electoral system and the candidate-selection process play strong roles in shaping dynastic recruitment. The demand for legacy candidates is higher under candidate-centered than under party-centered electoral systems. Likewise, legacy candidates are more likely to secure the nomination in parties where the candidate-selection process is decentralized to local party actors. Smith’s main arguments are clearly explained and carefully tested using a treasure trove of new data.

The analysis is anchored around a comparative study of democratic countries and a finer-grained analysis of Japanese politics. It is difficult to find reliable data on family ties between politicians, but Smith manages to collect and analyze individual-level data for a total of 12 democracies. The general trend over time for nearly all countries is a gradual decline in the prevalence of dynasties. In the US House of Representatives, for example, dynastic membership reached a peak of 17% after the 1848 election, but in the last two decades only 7% of members are part of family dynasties. In the Norwegian parliament, the proportion of legacy candidates has been between 5% and 10% for most of the 1945–2013 period. Japan, however, seems to have gone in the opposite direction, with a steep upward trend in the proportion of legacy candidates over time. In 1947, the proportion was 6%, which grew steadily over the next several decades, placing Japan next to Ireland as one of the most dynastic democracies in the study. The comparative analysis is outstanding in revealing general trends and patterns across parties and in situating Japan in the comparative dataset.

The case of Japan is important to this study because it offers an opportunity to examine the effect of different institutions within a single democracy. From 1947 to 1993, Japan’s lower house used the single, nontransferable vote electoral system, which was replaced with a mixed-member majoritarian system in 1994. Smith points to Japan’s electoral reform as a kind of “natural experiment” of institutional change in an otherwise constant environment, making it easier to overcome some of the challenges of making causal inferences in the factors shaping the supply of legacy candidates. He skillfully uses the case of Japan to test his broader theories about dynastic politics in general.

The dataset used to analyze Japan spans 25 elections and includes all candidates who ran in a general election or by-election in Japan’s lower house. Smith uses this impressive collection of data to show that the high level of dynasticism is significantly linked to the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Legacy candidates also enjoy an electoral advantage compared to nonlegacy candidates, and this electoral advantage appears to increase with each successive generation within a dynasty. Smith argues that this advantage cannot be explained by differences in personal characteristics: legacy candidates are more likely to be women and younger and are less likely to have had previous political experience. This detailed and convincing analysis gives us a thorough picture of the rampant spread of dynastic politics in Japan and shows how the role of institutions—the election and candidate-selection system in the LDP—were significant contributing factors.

The book also makes an excellent theoretical contribution to the literature through its development of a comparative theory of dynastic candidate selection. Smith’s theory considers how microlevel differences between individual candidates and macrolevel differences between parties and countries can explain how the potential inherited incumbency advantage relates to the formation and continuation of dynasties in democracy. The theory aims to explain the variation across countries by considering both supply and demand factors that are influenced by the institutional context of the electoral system and party organizations. Smith uses Japan as a test case for the theory because it is easier there to isolate the influence of institutions from other factors at the system and party level that may shape patterns in dynastic politics. The effort to develop this theory is one of the book’s strong points, and Smith’s framework will encourage new research on this topic.

Smith devotes a chapter each to the advantages enjoyed by legacy candidates in Japan at three stages of their political careers: selection, election, and promotion. The analysis uses a variety of approaches and measures to study Japanese politics from 1947 onward. Smith makes use of interview material and many examples drawn from electoral politics to illustrate key points. He also devotes some attention to the consequences of Japan’s dynastic politics for gender representation, the representational style of candidates, and legislative behavior. He acknowledges that more research on the consequences of dynastic politics is required and offers many ideas for future research.

This book is clearly much more than just a study of Japanese politics, given the attention paid to other democracies and the extensive effort to advance comparative theories about dynastic candidate selection. The combination approach to studying dynasties in democracy in general along with a fine-grained analysis of Japanese politics is commendable and will help advance research in this area for a long time to come. The datasets used in this book will continue to help drive research into the causes and consequences of dynasties in democracies. Smith’s book is required reading for anyone interested in democratic politics more broadly and in the puzzle of political dynasties in democracies.