A Cross-National Measure of Electoral Competitiveness

Mark Andreas Kayser and René Lindstädt

Political Analysis, 2015, vol. 23, issue 2, 242-253

Abstract: Electoral competitiveness is a key explanatory construct across a broad swath of phenomena, finding application in diverse areas related to political incentives and behavior. Despite its frequent theoretical use, no valid measure of electoral competitiveness exists that applies across different electoral and party systems. We argue that one particular type of electoral competitiveness'electoral risk'can be estimated across institutional contexts and matters most for incumbent behavior. We propose, estimate, and make available a cross-nationally applicable measure for elections in 22 developed democracies between 1960 and 2011. Unlike extant alternatives, our measure captures vote volatility and is constructed at the party (not system) level, exogenous to most policy predictors, and congruent with the perceptions and incentives of policy-makers.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:polals:v:23:y:2015:i:02:p:242-253_01

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Political Analysis from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().