Policy and Party Competition

Fülszöveg

POLITICS/GOVERNMEN
' fS i

Policy and Party Compétition is the first text to offer a comprehensivelöok at the role of policy in the process of political party compétition by providing both a theoretical and empirical examination of the subject.
The book opens with a theoretical discussion of the nature of political parties, policies and compétition. Taking the view that the preferences of the electorate are the logical and ideological starting points of party compétition, Laver and Hunt examine the structure of policy preferences, patterns in party systems, parameters of party compétition and the role of party policy in government formation.
Claiming that the ideál way to understand theory is to gather and analyze data, however, the authors present in the second section of the book a unique dataset of twenty-four parliamentary democracies. In this comprehensive look at political party systems in virtually every western European country, as well as the United States, Canada,... Tovább

Fülszöveg

POLITICS/GOVERNMEN
' fS i

Policy and Party Compétition is the first text to offer a comprehensivelöok at the role of policy in the process of political party compétition by providing both a theoretical and empirical examination of the subject.
The book opens with a theoretical discussion of the nature of political parties, policies and compétition. Taking the view that the preferences of the electorate are the logical and ideological starting points of party compétition, Laver and Hunt examine the structure of policy preferences, patterns in party systems, parameters of party compétition and the role of party policy in government formation.
Claiming that the ideál way to understand theory is to gather and analyze data, however, the authors present in the second section of the book a unique dataset of twenty-four parliamentary democracies. In this comprehensive look at political party systems in virtually every western European country, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Israel, Lave| and Hunt determine the degree of ínfluence cast by theories of party compétition'ön the actual practice of such compétition.
Unique in its approach and highly accessible in its style, Policy and Party Compétition is the first study to fully explore the methodological issues involved in the application of spatial models of party compétition in the real world.
Michael Laver is Professor and Ghair of the Department of Political Science and Sociology at University College, Galway, Ireland. He is author of Invitation to Politics, Social Choice and Public Policy, and co-author of Multiparty Government. W. Ben Hunt is Assistant Professor of Politics at New York University. Vissza