Comparing Government Activity

✍ Scribed by Louis M. Imbeau, Robert D. McKinlay (eds.)

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 219
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The comparative analysis of government activity raises many methodological, theoretical and substantive problems. In this volume authors drawn from varied subfields of political science address some of these problems, including: the usefulness of expenditure data, case interdependence, the issue of non-decision, the measurement of the distribution of power through laws, methodological individualism, cultural explanations, politico-economic interactions, the usefulness of textual analysis and issues of accumulation and aggregation.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xiii
Introduction: The Comparative Observation of Government Activity....Pages 1-12
Throwing Money and Heaving Bodies: Heuristic Callisthenics for Comparative Policy Buffs....Pages 13-25
Patterns of Post-War Expenditure Priorities in Ten Democracies....Pages 26-47
Case Interdependence and Non-Activity in Response to Pressures for Activity....Pages 48-69
Laws and the Distribution of Power in Society....Pages 70-81
Comparative Textual Analyses of Government and Party Activity: The Work of the Manifesto Research Group....Pages 82-100
The Suitability of Several Models for Comparative Analysis of the Policy Process....Pages 101-117
Methodological Individualism and the U-Shaped Curve: Some Theoretical Guidelines for the Comparative Analysis of Public Policy....Pages 118-138
Politico-Economic Models and the Economic Theory of Government Behaviour: Some Problems and Results....Pages 139-158
The Developmental State: Governance, Comparison and Culture in the ‘Third World’....Pages 159-178
Accumulation, Aggregation and Eclecticism in Political Science: A Case Study of Foreign Policy Analysis....Pages 179-197
Back Matter....Pages 198-205

✦ Subjects

Comparative Politics;Political Science