Collaborative Research on Political Parties and Electoral Landscapes

9409602页 本研究项目涉及民主国家中竞争公职的政党之间的选举竞争理论。 选举政治是动态的。 本研究探讨选举规则、民意与政党行为之间的动态互动关系。 拟议研究的一个显着特点是，它采用计算机模型来发现一系列选举和选举机构中政党行为的模式。 该项目中的模型是计算机模拟的高级形式，尽管它们已在自然科学中广泛使用，但对社会科学来说是新的。 这些模型的优点之一是在发展政治行为理论时具有灵活性和描述的准确性。 目前的研究将继续通过使用计算机和数学建模来开发选举竞争理论，然后使用来自美国和欧洲的调查数据来验证这些理论。 本研究共分三个部分。 第一部分是计算机建模，这是合作研究小组先前研究的延续。 这项研究已经产生了关于选举制度和公众舆论对政党行为的影响的解释和预测，无论是政党竞选公职的方式，还是他们执政后制定的政策。 该项目的第二部分涉及使用数学来证实计算机模型的发现。 利用这两种技术，研究人员迄今已证实了早期计算机研究结果的有效性，并对政党行为作出了几项预测。 第三部分使用来自美国和欧洲选举研究的调查数据来测试计算机模型产生的预测。 他们先前研究的一个中心理论发现得到了1972-1988年美国国家选举研究的调查数据的普遍支持。 合作者打算对真实的选举数据进行更多的研究，作为这一研究项目的一部分。 这项研究有两个主要目标。 第一，更全面地理解不同的民主制度如何激励政治精英改变政府政策以吸引选民。 这项研究的知识可能有助于新兴民主国家的宪法设计。 第二个目标是扩大计算机建模在社会科学中的应用，并建立测试社会科学模型完整性和准确性的计算标准。

9409602 Page This research projects concerns theories of electoral competition between political parties competing for public office in democracies. Electoral politics are dynamic. This research examines the dynamic interactions between election rules, public opinion, and the behavior of political parties. A distinguishing feature of the proposed research is that it employs computer models to discover patterns of political party behavior over a series of elections and across electoral institutions. The models in the project are advanced forms of computer simulations that are new to the social sciences though they have been used extensively in the natural sciences. Among their advantages, these models allow for flexibility and descriptive accuracy in developing theories of political behavior. The current research will continue to develop theories of electoral competition through the use of computers and mathematical modeling, and then test these theories using survey data from the United States and Europe. The research consists of three parts. The first part is the computer modeling, which continues previous research of the collaborative research team. This research has already generated explanations and predictions about the effects of electoral institutions and public opinion on the behavior of political parties, both in the way parties campaign for public office and in the policies they enact once in office. The second part of the project involves using mathematics to substantiate the findings from the computer model. using both techniques, the researchers have so far confirmed the validity of earlier computer findings and made several predictions of political party behavior. The third part uses survey data from election studies in the United States and Europe to test the predictions generated by the computer models. One central theoretical finding from their previous research has generally been supported by survey data from the American Nation al Election Study 1972-1988. The collaborators intend to undertake more research on real election data as a portion of this research project. The research has two main objectives. First, to understand more fully the way different democratic institutions create incentives for political elites to change governmental policies to appeal to voters. Knowledge from this research may be helpful in the design of constitutions for emerging democracies. The second objective is to extend the use of computer modeling in the social sciences, and to establish computational standards for testing social science models for completeness and accuracy.