Language：Japanese Book type：Scholarly book

Language：English   Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

Venue：Virtual   Country：United States  

Political trust determines individual political behavior and is also determined in the context of evaluations of government performance and as a result of social capital accumulation. This paper brings another perspective to the trust literature. Specifically, I argue that people trust the government in order to ensure consistency with their own behavior. The case is taken from people's behavior after the huge earthquake hit Japan and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011. In the face of the turmoil, some people left the Tokyo metropolitan area to avoid the alleged radioactive contamination and other Tokyo citizens stayed where they were. Considering the aftermath of their behavior in the pressing circumstances, I hypothesize that those who left Tokyo often expressed a sense of distrust in the government and that those who stayed often mentioned trust in the government so that they were able to ensure consistency with their own behavior. To test this, I conduct a survey asking people in the alleged-radioactively contaminated area about their then behavior. The results bolster the hypothesis that people trust government for consistency with their behavioral choice. This project will make a contribution to the trust literature by bringing another perspective.

Language：English   Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

Venue：Boston   Country：United States  

This project addresses the effect of female candidates on the voter turnout rates. My research question is whether female candidate boost voter turnout rates. The past two decades have seen increasing numbers of female candidates running for a political leader such as the U.S. President and Governor in Japan. In these elections with female candidates, is the turnout higher than usual? If so, what mechanism works behind the relationship between female candidates and voter turnouts? According to the classic voting theory, having female candidates in an election may stimulate voters' perception of the expected benefits from a candidate who they will vote for. Two hypotheses follow. First, simply because female candidates are not always running, an election with female candidates show higher turnouts than usual. Second, gender difference between candidates helps people realize the benefits from the candidate who they will vote for, which motivates people to cast a ballot. Thus the turnout in an election with a female candidate versus a male candidate is likely to be higher than that in an election with only male candidates. To test these hypotheses, I collect around 200 gubernatorial election results from 2000 to 2018 in Japan. Because the data are time-series cross sectional, I utilize a multilevel model. Findings are 1) a close election with a female candidate turns a higher turnout than an election without a female candidate and 2) just having a female candidate does not boost the turnouts. By understanding the mechanism of the effect of female candidates on voter turnout rates, this project makes a contribution to the field of gender politics and voting behavior.

Language：English   Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

Venue：Chicago   Country：United States  

This paper aims to explain the dynamic relationship between trust in national and local governments focusing on the effect of civic engagement. The previous literature suggests that each level of trust in government is shaped differently but is related to each other. Additionally, civic engagement is supposed to affect each level of government though the extent of the effect is different between trust in national and local government. Using multiple time-series analyses, I examine these reciprocal relationships between these three variables. The findings are (1) the movements of civic engagement and trust in local political trust are in a long-lasting reciprocal relationship, (2) the movement of civic engagement do not respond to trust in the federal government and vice versa, and (3) the movements of trust in national and local governments are reciprocal for a short term. Uncovering these relationships gives a clue to understanding how the hierarchical structure of democratic society forms stability.

Language：English   Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

Venue：Chicago   Country：United States  

This paper examines how natural disasters affect people's attitudes toward their politicians, governments, and communities. To this end, we designed and implemented two original surveys in Japan, one in Joso City, which experienced severe flooding in 2015, and the other in Kumamoto, which experienced devastating earthquakes in 2016. Our analysis of the data demonstrates that citizens who live in more severely damaged areas are less likely to vote for candidates from the governing parties. Moreover, those who are satisfied with administrative and financial support from the government are more likely to vote for candidates from the governing parties. These results are largely consistent with the existing findings that voters punish incumbent leaders for the occurrences of natural disasters but reward them for disaster relief efforts.