Comparing Government Activity

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.

List of Tables - List of Figures - Preface - Notes on Contributors - Introduction; L.M.Imbeau - Throwing Money and Heaving Bodies: Heuristic Calisthenics for Comparative Policy Buffs; A.J.Heidenheimer - Patterns of Post-War Expenditure Priorities in Ten Democracies; R.I.Hofferbert & I.Budge - Case Interdependence and Non-Activity in Response to Pressures for Activity; K.Armingeon - Laws and the Distribution of Power in Society; V.Lemieux - Comparative Textual Analyses of Government and Party Activity: The Work of the Manifesto Research Group; I.Budge & R.I.Hofferbert - The Suitability of Several Models for Comparative Analysis of the Policy Process; P.A.Sabatier - Methodological Individualism and the U-Shaped Curve: Some Theoretical Guidelines for the Comparative Analysis of Public Policy; H.Milner - Politico-Economic Models and the Economic Theory of Government Behaviour: Some Problems and Results; J-D.Lafay - The Developmental State: Governance, Comparison and Culture in the `Third World'; C.Clapham - Accumulation, Aggregation, and Eclecticism in Political Science: A Case Study of Foreign Policy Analysis; R.D.McKinlay - Index