Party Systems and Structures of Competition

Bibliographic Data

ID23701286
AuthorsPeter Mair (0000-0002-1408-3762, corresponding author)
Year1998
Pages199-224
Publication date1998-10-29
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueParty System Change (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/0198295499.003.0009
OpenAlexW2477538904
ISBN9780198295495
LanguageEN
Citations received22
References cited94

This is the third of three chapters on political party systems and structures of competition, and presents an overall review. In the first section, Approaches to the Classification of Party Systems: A Review it looks at the principal existing approaches to the classification of party systems, pointing to both their limits and possibilities when applied within comparative analysis. It then goes on in the second section, Party Systems and the Competition for Government, to underline the importance of understanding the structure of competition in any given party system, since in many ways the whole notion of a party system is centred on the assumption that there exists a stable structure of competition. Structures of competition can be seen to be either closed (and predictable) or open (and unpredictable), depending on the patterns of alternation in government, the degree of innovation or persistence in processes of government formation, and the range of parties gaining access to government. The emphasis in the third section, Party Systems and Electoral Outcomes, is on the need to distinguish between processes of electoral change on the one hand, and changes in party systems and the structures of competition on the other, a distinction which also allows the possibility of situations in which electoral change is the consequence rather than the cause of party system change.

Business · Competition (biology) · Computer security · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security) · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Populism, Right-Wing Movements

Tools

Open DOI