Ethan Scheiner is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. He received a Ph.D. in Political Science at Duke University in 2001. He has been a Visiting Scholar at Keio University (Mita) in Tokyo, Japan, an Advanced Research (postdoctoral) Fellow in the Program on U.S.- Japan Relations at Harvard University (2001-02), and a postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies (2002-2004). His work examines parties and elections within both Japan-specific and explicitly comparative contexts. He has published articles on political parties, elections and electoral systems in the British Journal of Political Science,… Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, and Legislative Studies Quarterly. His analysis of recent Japanese elections appears (in Japanese) in Foresight Magazine in Japan.