Policy, Office, or Votes?

Figures; Tables; Contributors; 1. Political parties and hard choices Kaare Strom and Wolfgang C. Muller; 2. Office, votes and then policy: hard choices for political parties in the Republic of Ireland, 1981-1992 Michael Marsh and Paul Mitchell; 3. Party behaviour and the formation of minority coalition governments: Danish experiences from the 1970s and 1980s Jorgen Elklit; 4. From policy-seeking to office-seeking: the metamorphosis of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party Donald Share; 5. Changing strategies: the dilemma of the Dutch Labour Party Ron Hillebrand and Galen A. Irwin; 6. Party behaviour in a polarized system: the Italian Communist Party and the historic compromise Roberto D'Alimonte; 7. Decision for opposition: the Austrian Socialist Party's abandonment of government participation in 1966 Wolfgang C. Muller; 8. Leadership accountability and bargaining failure in Norway: the Presthus debacle Kaare Strom; 9. Winner takes all: the FDP in 1982-1983: maximizing votes, office and policy? Thomas Poguntke; 10. Trade-offs in Swedish constitutional design: the monarchy under challenge Torbjorn Bergman; 11. Parliamentary rules and party behaviour during minority government in France John D. Huber; 12. Conclusions: party behaviour and representative democracy Wolfgang C. Muller and Kaare Strom; Index.

"...This book demonstrates that the notions of parties as seekers of office,votes,or policy can enhance understanding of these democratic organizations. This volume is highly recomended to enrich collections on comparative politics." "The main virtues of this book are...the astute way in which the editors have identified a theoretically important matter that requires a preliminary empirical survey and the professionalism with which the authors of the case studies have set about their tasks. This is...essential reading for those who have ambitions to build more complex models of party competition. It is also an attractive supplementary text for those teaching courses on party competition." Michael Laver, Political Science Review