New Developments in Spatial Models of Party Competition

Abstract

For a long time spatial models have been a class of work horse models in modern political science. Meanwhile, researcher have successfully applied them to various topics including coalition formation, legislative processes, international negotiations, and judicial decision making. However, the spatial models have their root in modelling of candidate/party competition at elections. Consequently, the theoretical and empirical analysis of party competition have strongly driven various developments of spatial models: multi-dimensional space, competition of multi-parties, distinction of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, introduction of random utility models, etc. Despite the long list of important innovations in the past, spatial models can still be improved in different aspects: e.g. the role of uncertainty in exogenous and endogenous valence factors, appropriate measurement of party positions, statistical models being consistently derived from the theoretical model. Additionally, the model predictions should be founded also by psychological studies on decision making processes. These topics will be addressed by the papers on this panel.