Policy Representation in Western Democracies
Published on 28. October 1999
Book
Hardback
196 pages
978-0-19-829570-9 (ISBN)
Description
Policy Representation in Western Democracies offers a comparative analysis of policy representation in five Western Democracies: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the US. A leading group of authors examines the impact of belief systems and geographical and institutional characteristics on the match between the policy preferences of the electorate and those of their representatives. The book offers a variety of perspectives on the conceptualization, measurement, and interpretation of congruence between mass and elite opinion. The book also evaluates the consequences of different electoral systems for policy representation.
Reviews / Votes
This book does a fine job of educating the reader on the complexity and difficulty in determining what policy representation entails. Furthermore, the authors make a significant contribution to the comparative study of the subject. Those who are intrigued and challenged by the concept of representation will find this book to be an interesting piece of the policy representation puzzle. * American Political Science Review, 2001 *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
figures and tables
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
464 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-829570-9 (9780198295709)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Author
Regent's Professor of Political ScienceRegent's Professor of Political Science, Arizona State University
Professor Emeritus of Political ScienceProfessor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Michigan
Professor of Political ScienceProfessor of Political Science, University of Twente
Associate Professor of Political ScienceAssociate Professor of Political Science, Arizona State University
Professor in Political Science and Election ResearchProfessor in Political Science and Election Research, Goteborg University
Professor of Political ScienceProfessor of Political Science, Goteborg University
Senior FellowSenior Fellow, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer Sozialforschung (WZB), Mannheim University
Content
1. Introduction: Elite-Mass Linkage in Representative Democracy ; 2. Mass-Elite Issue Linkages and the Responsible Party Model of Representation ; 3. Political Communication between Political Elites and Mass Publics: The Role of Belief Systems ; 4. The Language of Politics: A Study of Elite and Mass Understandings of Ideological Terminology in the United States and the Netherlands ; 5. Collective Policy Congruence Compared ; 6. Not all Politics is Local: The Geographical Dimension of Policy Representation ; 7. System Characteristics Matter: Empirical Evidence from Ten Representation Studies ; Conclusion: Mixed Signals