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

This book explains how parties and candidates locate themselves on the Left-Right ideological dimension.

James F. Adams (Author), Samuel Merrill III (Author), Bernard Grofman (Author)

9780521836449, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 March 2005

332 pages, 44 tables
22.9 x 2.2 x 15.2 cm, 0.66 kg

This book integrates spatial and behavioral perspectives - in a word, those of the Rochester and Michigan schools - into a unified theory of voter choice and party strategy. The theory encompasses both policy and non-policy factors, effects of turnout, voter discounting of party promises, expectations of coalition governments, and party motivations based on policy as well as office. Optimal (Nash equilibrium) strategies are determined for alternative models for presidential elections in the US and France, and for parliamentary elections in Britain and Norway. These polities cover a wide range of electoral rules, number of major parties, and governmental structures. The analyses suggest that the more competitive parties generally take policy positions that come close to maximizing their electoral support, and that these vote-maximizing positions correlate strongly with the mean policy positions of their supporters.

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.

Subject Areas: Political parties [JPL], Political structure & processes [JPH], Comparative politics [JPB]