The Spatial Analysis of Elections and Committees: Four Decades of Research

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1993

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Abstract

"The spatial analysis of both committees and elections suffers from a number of deficiencies that are sufficiently serious so as to make it uncomfortable defending that analysis against the charge of having failed to produce the volume of ideas that we could reasonably anticipate in thirty or forty years (for a sense of the rate of progress, the reader can consult my 1976 survey of the literature as it existed in the early 70's and Mueller's 1989 more general survey of Public Choice). Some of these deficiencies, especially those that pertain to the adequacy of a spatial representation of preferences and the limited institutional structures considered, apply to research on both committees and elections. Other deficiencies are unique to one area or the other. On the other hand, I also want to argue that spatial analysis has altered fundamentally the way we think about voting, elections, and parliaments, and that both implicitly and explicitly it contributes much to those who study democratic politics."

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spatial theory, elections, public choice, committees

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