政治参加としての請願実施と紹介議員の党派性 ―都道府県議会に対する請願の分析を通じて―

Abstract

A Petition is a formal and classic type of political participation based on the right guaranteed by the constitution, and has been continuously provided and processed through the parliament. However, regardless of a petition as the significant type of political participation, conventional literatures covering political participation suggest no unilateral consensus nor provide clarified correlation or causal relationship of a petition. The purpose of this paper is to examine the feature and structure of the petition as a form of political participation, and to explore the political factors, which influence a petition at its level of presentation. The analysis on more than 600 petitions presented to prefectural assemblies shows the existence of two complex political processes, those agreed and signed by Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) and Japanese Communist Party(JCP), at the employment level of a petition. This pattern is similar to nikankouzou which suggests the two exclusively distinctive political processes based on different ideologies and interactions between interest groups and political parties. Panel data multiple regression analysis is conducted by assigning political parties as the critical variable that frames two significant axis of the presentation of a petition. This gives clear evidence that the power structure of LDP and JCP in the parliament is the key factor that deters and promotes the level of presenting petition in prefectural assemblies.