UMEDA, Michio

Max Weber Fellow 2011-2012  

Email Michio.Umeda@EUI.eu   
Tel. [+39] 055 4685 646
Office VF 9

European University Institute
Max Weber Programme
Via delle Fontanelle 10
I-50014 San Domenico

Departmental affiliation: Political and Social Sciences  
Mentor: Stefano Bartolini  

My research interests are in: comparative politics of the developed democracies, more specifically the effects of the electoral systems on the strategies of political parties and the electorates; Japanese politics; quantitative methodology, more specifically the statistics of the causal inference and survey methodology.

I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 2011. In my dissertation project titled ‘Three Essays on the Party Strategies under the Mixed-Member Electoral System’, I examine two effects of electoral reform to the mixed-member electoral system on representation in Japan. The first two papers examine the strategic behaviour of small parties when they face a system biased against them, and the other studies unexpected institutional effect that cancels out incumbency advantage of major parties.

I taught graduate-level classes in the use of statistical computing software (Stata and R) at Michigan as primary instructor. Prior to my Ph.D., I earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Tokyo.