Rejoinder to Reed's Comment on ‘An Empirical Theory of Rational Nominating Behaviour Applied to Japanese District Elections’

We are again pleased to respond to commentary on our article ‘An Empirical Theory of Rational Nominating Behaviour Applied to Japanese District Elections’, which appeared in the April 1999 issue of the Journal (pp. 259–89). Unlike an earlier comment by Gary Cox,Gary W. Cox, ‘A Comment on Browne and Patterson, “An Empirical Theory of Rational Nominating Behaviour Applied to Japanese District Elections† ’, British Journal of Political Science (1999), 565–9. See also our reply to Cox: ‘A Rejoinder to Cox's Comment on “An Empirical Theory of Rational Nominating Behaviour Applied to Japanese District Elections† ’, British Journal of Political Science, 29 (1999), 569–75. Professor Reed'sSteven R. Reed, ‘What Is Rational and Why Should We Care? A Comment on Browne and Patterson’, British Journal of Political Science, 30 (2000), 538–40. focuses upon his belief that the nominating behaviour of Japanese parties cannot be explained by a decision process based on rational calculation. Rather, he believes that Japanese nominations result from an on-going learning process based on ‘trial and error’ experimentation by party leaders. The substance of Reed's comment is that we ‘fail to address [his] learning hypothesis’ and that our interpretation of the Japanese nominating process is both theoretically implausible and empirically deficient. In the short space available to us we are not able to address all of Reed's misinterpretations of our work. Thus, we shall content ourselves here by offering some general comments on the issues he has raised.