Constituency-Level Election Data and the Analysis of Party Systems

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The researchers want to undertake two related tasks, both of which are valuable for the advancement of the study of comparative public policy and of comparative political parties and elections. First, they wish to improve the understanding of why some countries do better than other countries in delivering public benefits related to the health and well-being of their residents. The researchers focus attention on whether countries have political parties in their national parliaments that represent narrow geographic constituencies versus having political parties that represent broad, national coalitions that unite many regions. Using data from 60 countries, including many developing countries, the researchers plan to test the theory that broad, national parties running governments tend to lead to more comprehensive public health policies and thus better health outcomes. Alternatively, coalitions of regional parties running governments tend to lead to fragmented, piecemeal policies that fail to cover all geographic areas. While the data concern immunization levels and infant mortality rates, the findings will have implications for other areas of policy, including education and infrastructure. The overall purpose of this portion of the project is to understand the links between the nature of political parties and party competition at the national level, on the one hand, and the delivery of public services by national governments, on the other. Second, the researchers wish to coordinate and archive constituency-level election returns for many of the world's democracies, a task that is sorely needed by the community of researchers studying elections and political parties. They will be gathering and archiving constituency-level election data for use by the broader research community. In creating this archive of data (known as CLEA, the Constituency-Level Election Archive) the study will enable these and other researchers to expand and improve research on comparative politics, political parties, party systems and elections. This project will have four kinds of broader impacts. First, findings from the study will help policy-makers learn the important causal connections between institutional design, party system characteristics, and policy-making. By linking formal institutions to political parties and then to policies and policy outcomes, they will have leverage in advising about institutional design, especially for new and developing democracies. Second, the researchers will make their data widely available through the CLEA archive. This will enable scholars, policy analysts, diplomats, and intelligence analysts to use the data to study the causes and consequences of party system characteristics, and to analyze election results for other purposes. Third, the data collection portion of this project will involve a great deal of collaboration with graduate and undergraduate students. Fourth, the researchers will participate in the University of Michigan's undergraduate research program that helps to attract and retain minorities and women as members of faculty research teams.