Description: 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.
Brief description: John E. Roemer is Elizabeth S. and A. Varick Stout Professor of Political Science and Economics at Yale University.
Review Quotes: 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" (1/1/2002 12:00:00 AM)