Explaining and Predicting Elections

Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-Three Democracies

Ian Budge, Dennis J. Farlie

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040403150
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First published in 1983, Explaining and Predicting Elections is the first cross-national and comprehensive explanation of election results. It considers why one election differs from another and attempts to account for party gains and losses in the elections which have taken place in twenty-three democracies in the post-war period. Budge and Farlie base their study on a radically new view of party behaviour—Parties not arguing or debating over the same issues but 'talking past each other'. Their book shows why it is in the parties' interest to do this, how parties might improve their appeal, and how electors react in a broadly 'rational' manner by supporting one party alternative rather than another. The discussion also considers important topics—for example whether electors are abandoning old partisan loyalties and becoming more volatile.

The usefulness of these ideas is measured and checked against new evidence from twenty-three countries. These ideas are then used to produce advance predictions of ten elections in different countries which are then checked against actual results. The reader can use the methods to make his own predictions for elections which interest him. In many ways this makes Explaining and Predicting Elections the most comprehensive and useful investigation of the election process yet produced. It will interest the general reader, political practitioner, historians, and election and area specialists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Previous Work
• 2 Saliency Theory
• 3 Issues and Votes
• 4 Predicting Elections
• 5 Electoral Volatility
• 6 Party Appeals
• 7 General Theory
• References
• Appendix A Postwar Votes in Twenty-Three Democracies
• Appendix B Issues and Scorings for Individual Postwar Elections in Twenty-Three Democracies
• Appendix C The Coding of Issues: Procedures and their Validity
• Appendix D Scoring Election Issues: Assumptions and Performances of Alternative Schemes
• Index