Localism and coordination under three different electoral systems: The national district of the Japanese House of Councillors

Democratic representation involves tradeoffs between collective actors - political parties seeking to maximize seats - and individual actors - candidates seeking to use their personal vote-earning attributes (PVEAs) to maximize their own chance of election and reelection. We analyze these tradeoffs across three different electoral systems used at different times for the large-magnitude nationwide tier of Japan's House of Councillors. These electoral systems - closed and open-list proportional systems and the single non-transferable vote - differ in the extent to which they entail candidates seeking individual preference votes and in whether collective vote shares affect overall party performance. We use local resources as a proxy for PVEA and seek to determine the extent to which parties nominate " locals" and how much the presence of such locals affects party performance at the level of Japan's prefectures.