Constituency-Level Election Data and the Analysis of Party Systems

研究人员希望承担两个相关的任务，这两个任务对于推进比较公共政策和比较政党与选举的研究都是有价值的。首先，他们希望增进对为什么有些国家在提供与其居民健康和福祉有关的公共利益方面比其他国家做得更好的理解。研究人员关注的重点是，各国议会中的政党是代表狭隘的地域选区，还是代表广泛的、团结许多地区的全国联盟。利用来自60个国家（包括许多发展中国家）的数据，研究人员计划验证这样一种理论，即广泛的国家政党执政往往会产生更全面的公共卫生政策，从而产生更好的卫生结果。另一种情况是，由地方政党组成的联合政府往往会导致支离破碎的政策，无法覆盖所有的地理区域。虽然数据涉及免疫水平和婴儿死亡率，但调查结果将对包括教育和基础设施在内的其他政策领域产生影响。本项目这一部分的总体目的是了解政党性质和国家一级政党竞争之间的联系，以及国家政府提供公共服务之间的联系。其次，研究人员希望协调和存档世界上许多民主国家的选区级选举结果，这是研究选举和政党的研究人员社区迫切需要的任务。他们将收集和存档选区级别的选举数据，供更广泛的研究界使用。在创建这个数据档案（被称为CLEA，选区级选举档案）的过程中，这项研究将使这些研究人员和其他研究人员能够扩展和改进对比较政治、政党、政党制度和选举的研究。这个项目将产生四种更广泛的影响。首先，研究结果将有助于政策制定者了解制度设计、政党制度特征与政策制定之间的重要因果关系。通过将正式机构与政党联系起来，然后与政策和政策成果联系起来，它们将在为制度设计提供建议方面发挥杠杆作用，特别是对新兴和发展中的民主国家而言。其次，研究人员将通过CLEA档案广泛提供他们的数据。这将使学者、政策分析人士、外交官和情报分析人士能够利用这些数据来研究政党制度特征的原因和后果，并为其他目的分析选举结果。第三，本项目的数据收集部分将涉及与研究生和本科生的大量合作。第四，研究人员将参加密歇根大学的本科生研究项目，该项目有助于吸引和留住少数族裔和女性作为教员研究团队的成员。

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.