A Unified Theory of Party Competition: A Cross-National Analysis Integrating Spatial and Behavioral Factors

ISBN-13: 9780521836449 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 332 str.

James Adams; III Samuel Merrill; Bernard Grofman

Opis

The authors explain how parties and candidates position themselves on the Left-Right ideological dimension and other issue dimensions. Their unified theoretical approach to voter behavior and party strategies takes into account voter preferences, voter's partisan attachments, expected turnout, and the location of the political status quo. The approach, tested through extensive cross-national analysis, includes studies of the plurality-based two-party contests in the U.S. and multiple-party competition in France, Britain, and Norway.

Spis treści

1. Modeling party competition; 2. How voters decide: the components of the unified theory of voting; 3. Linking voter choice to party strategies: illustrating the role of non-policy factors; 4. Factors influencing the link between party strategy and the variables; 5. Policy competition under the unified theory: empirical applications to the 1988 French Presidential Election; 6. Policy competition under the unified voting model: empirical applications to the 1989 Norwegian parliamentary election; 7. The threat of abstention: candidate strategies and policy representation in US presidential elections; 8. Candidate strategies with voter abstention in US presidential elections: 1980, 1984, 1988, 1996, and 2000; 9. Policy competition in Britain: the 1997 general election; 10. The consequences of voter projection: assimilation and contrast effects; 11. Policy-seeking motivations of parties in two-party elections: theory; 12. Policy-seeking motivations of parties in two-party elections: empirical analysis; 13. Concluding remarks.