Politicians and political parties make promises during electoral campaigns. However, achieving a policy goal can sometimes hurt them electorally, and a party can be better off not pursuing what its supporters want. This study empirically demonstrates that Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been gaining an electoral advantage by not achieving its stated goal of revising the constitution.

Ko Maeda (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 2005) is Associate Professor of political science at the University of North Texas, specializing in elections, party competition, and political institutions. His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Politics,  British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Theoretical Politics.