Comparing Government Activity

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Introduction: The Comparative Observation of Government Activity

   • Louis M. Imbeau

   Pages 1-12

3. Throwing Money and Heaving Bodies: Heuristic Callisthenics for Comparative Policy Buffs

   • Arnold J. Heidenheimer

   Pages 13-25

4. Patterns of Post-War Expenditure Priorities in Ten Democracies

   • Richard I. Hofferbert, Ian Budge

   Pages 26-47

5. Case Interdependence and Non-Activity in Response to Pressures for Activity

   • Klaus Armingeon

   Pages 48-69

6. Laws and the Distribution of Power in Society

   • Vincent Lemieux

   Pages 70-81

7. Comparative Textual Analyses of Government and Party Activity: The Work of the Manifesto Research Group

   • Ian Budge, Richard I. Hofferbert

   Pages 82-100

8. The Suitability of Several Models for Comparative Analysis of the Policy Process

   • Paul A. Sabatier

   Pages 101-117

9. Methodological Individualism and the U-Shaped Curve: Some Theoretical Guidelines for the Comparative Analysis of Public Policy

   • Henry Milner

   Pages 118-138

10. Politico-Economic Models and the Economic Theory of Government Behaviour: Some Problems and Results

    • Jean-Dominique Lafay

    Pages 139-158

11. The Developmental State: Governance, Comparison and Culture in the ‘Third World’

    • Christopher Clapham

    Pages 159-178

12. Accumulation, Aggregation and Eclecticism in Political Science: A Case Study of Foreign Policy Analysis

    • Robert D. McKinlay

    Pages 179-197

13. Back Matter

    Pages 198-205

    PDF

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.

• Comparative analysis
• foreign policy
• governance
• government
• Policy
• political science
• Third World
• work

• Laval University, Quebec, Canada

  Louis M. Imbeau

• Lancaster University, UK

  Robert D. McKinlay

Policies and ethics