This article looks at the development of the two main features of the party system in the European Parliament (EP): the organization of the party groups, and the nature of competition between these groups. On the organizational side, we examine the foundation of the party groups in the Common...

This article tests multi-factor explanations for variance among Chinese citizens’ attitudes toward two related but separable party system concepts: the appropriateness of the current one-party system for China today, and the more abstract notion that multiple parties lead to chaos. Using data...

This paper provides insight into the impact of party cues on the public’s desire for climate protection. In particular, the effects of cues from one or multiple parties as well as the mechanisms behind these effects are analyzed. Utilizing the case of Germany’s multi-party system, two online...

This paper estimates the effect of political power on tax policies in municipal councils under a proportional election system. The main challenge in estimating the causal effect of parties on policy is to isolate the effect of power from underlying voter preferences and the selection effect of...

This paper tests the existence and the extent of a politically induced business cycle in the U.S. in the post-World War II period. The cycle described in this paper is different from the traditional "political business cycle" of Nordhaus. It is based on a systematic difference between the...

Countries that elect their policy-makers by means of Plurality Voting tend to have a two-party system. We conduct laboratory experiments to study whether alternative voting procedures yield a two-party system as well. Plurality Voting is compared with Approval Voting and Dual Voting, both of...