Political Competition: Theory and Applications

John E. Roemer

Published by Harvard University Press 2001

Political Competition

Theory and Applications

John E. Roemer

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674042858

Overview
Contents

About this book

John Roemer presents a unified and rigorous theory of political competition between parties and he models the theory under many specifications, including whether parties are policy oriented or oriented toward winning, whether they are certain or uncertain about voter preferences, and whether the policy space is uni- or multidimensional.

Reviews

Roemer characterizes—correctly—the traditional Downsian model of political competition as one modeling competition between ‘opportunistic politicians’ who themselves have no policy preferences and who choose instead to adopt positions that appeal to the preferences of the optimum number of voters. This, he says, is a misguided model, easy to use but empirically and theoretically inaccurate and producing meaningless results. He offers instead a more complex model…based on ‘parties in conflict,’ which have real policy preferences. Well written… [A] fine contribution to the literature on spatial modeling.
-- M. Berheide Choice

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Political Competition over a Single Issue: The Case of Certainty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	13
2. Modeling Party Uncertainty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	38
3. Unidimensional Policy Spaces with Uncertainty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
4. Applications of the Wittman Model Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
5. Endogenous Parties: The Unidimensional Case Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
6. Political Competition over Several Issues: The Case of Certainty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
7. Multidimensional Issue Spaces and Uncertainty: The Downs Model Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
8. Party Factions and Nash Equilibrium Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
9. The Democratic Political Economy of Progressive Taxation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
10.Why the Poor Do Not Expropriate the Rich in Democracies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	189
11. Distributive Class Politics and the Political Geography of Interwar Europe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
12. A Three-Class Model of American Politics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
13. Endogenous Parties with Multidimensional Competition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
14. Toward a Model of Coalition Government Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
Mathematical Appendix Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	323
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 352

eBook

Published: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 9780674042858