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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Unified Theory of Party Competition
- 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 Nonpolicy Factors
- 4 Factors Influencing the Link between Party Strategy and the Variables Affecting Voter Choice: Theoretical Results
- 5 Policy Competition under the Unified Theory: Empirical Applications to the 1988 French Presidential Election
- 6 Policy Competition under the Unified Theory: Empirical Applications to the 1989 Norwegian Parliamentary Election
- 7 The Threat of Abstention: Candidate Strategies and Policy Representation in U.S. Presidential Elections
- 8 Candidate Strategies with Voter Abstention in U.S. 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
- Appendix 1.1 Literature Review: Work Linking Behavioral Research to Spatial Modeling
- Appendix 2.1 Alternative Statistical Models of Voter Choice
- Appendix 2.2 Controversies in Voting Research: The Electoral Impact of Party Identification
- Appendix 2.3 Relationship between the Unified Discounting Model and the Directional Model of Rabinowitz and Macdonald
- Appendix 3.1 Spatial Models That Incorporate Valence Dimensions of Candidate Evaluation
- Appendix 4.1 Uniqueness Theorem and Algorithm for Computing Nash Equilibria
- Appendix 4.2 Proof of Theorem 4.1
- Appendix 4.3 Simulation Analysis and an Approximation Formula for Nash Equilibria
- Appendix 4.4 Derivations of Formulas Relating Electoral Factors to the Shrinkage Factor, ck
- Appendix 6.1 Equilibria for Outcome-Oriented Motivations: The Kedar Model
- Appendix 7.1 Proof of Lemma 7.1
- Appendix 7.2 Derivations for the Unified Turnout Model
- Appendix 8.1 Coding and Model Specifications
- Appendix 8.2 Alternative Turnout Models
- Appendix 11.1 Proof of Theorem 11.1
- Appendix 11.2 Empirical Estimation of the Mean and Standard Deviation of Valence Effects
- References
- Index
6 - Policy Competition under the Unified Theory: Empirical Applications to the 1989 Norwegian Parliamentary Election
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Unified Theory of Party Competition
- 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 Nonpolicy Factors
- 4 Factors Influencing the Link between Party Strategy and the Variables Affecting Voter Choice: Theoretical Results
- 5 Policy Competition under the Unified Theory: Empirical Applications to the 1988 French Presidential Election
- 6 Policy Competition under the Unified Theory: Empirical Applications to the 1989 Norwegian Parliamentary Election
- 7 The Threat of Abstention: Candidate Strategies and Policy Representation in U.S. Presidential Elections
- 8 Candidate Strategies with Voter Abstention in U.S. 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
- Appendix 1.1 Literature Review: Work Linking Behavioral Research to Spatial Modeling
- Appendix 2.1 Alternative Statistical Models of Voter Choice
- Appendix 2.2 Controversies in Voting Research: The Electoral Impact of Party Identification
- Appendix 2.3 Relationship between the Unified Discounting Model and the Directional Model of Rabinowitz and Macdonald
- Appendix 3.1 Spatial Models That Incorporate Valence Dimensions of Candidate Evaluation
- Appendix 4.1 Uniqueness Theorem and Algorithm for Computing Nash Equilibria
- Appendix 4.2 Proof of Theorem 4.1
- Appendix 4.3 Simulation Analysis and an Approximation Formula for Nash Equilibria
- Appendix 4.4 Derivations of Formulas Relating Electoral Factors to the Shrinkage Factor, ck
- Appendix 6.1 Equilibria for Outcome-Oriented Motivations: The Kedar Model
- Appendix 7.1 Proof of Lemma 7.1
- Appendix 7.2 Derivations for the Unified Turnout Model
- Appendix 8.1 Coding and Model Specifications
- Appendix 8.2 Alternative Turnout Models
- Appendix 11.1 Proof of Theorem 11.1
- Appendix 11.2 Empirical Estimation of the Mean and Standard Deviation of Valence Effects
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Unlike France, which has a strong president as well as a governing party or governing coalition in the parliament (the National Assembly), Norway is a pure parliamentary government. Election of this parliament (the Storting), like many similar elections in Europe and elsewhere, is held under proportional representation (PR) and a list system in which each voter votes for a party, not a candidate. Seats in the Storting are assigned roughly in proportion to the vote share received by each party (using a modified Sainte-Laguë system). Again, as in many other polities, some grouping of parties must form a coalition – either explicitly or implicitly – to constitute a government, unless one party can achieve a majority of all the seats, something that has not happened in Norway since 1961.
Not only is Norway the only one of the four countries in our study that has a parliamentary election under PR, it also has a relatively large number (seven) of viable parties that usually secure seats. These parties, in their conventionally conceived order from left to right, are the leftist Socialists and Labor; three center parties – the Liberal, Center, and Christian People's Parties; the rightist Conservative Party; and the ultra-right and maverick Progress Party. Five, and at times six, of these parties partition themselves into two relatively stable blocs that traditionally vie for sufficient seats to form a government (Aardal 1990; Aardal and Valen 1997; Strøm and Svåsand 1997; Urwin 1997). The two leftist parties may form a leftist coalition, or Labor may form a minority government with implicit support from the Socialists.
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- Information
- A Unified Theory of Party CompetitionA Cross-National Analysis Integrating Spatial and Behavioral Factors, pp. 94 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005