Voters' Victory [Paperback]

Jack Vowles (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1869401808 | ISBN-13: 978-1869401801 | Publication Date: March 1, 1998

Completes a triad of studies charting New Zealand's shift to a new MMP electoral system. This volume is the story of the first MMP election in 1996 and asks the question: is MMP beginning to deliver what its advocates hoped? The research for the text used two different multi-stage panels and featured a post-election postal survey of over 2000 electors, and a similar survey of election candidates from those parties securing parliamentary representation; a study based on daily telephone interviews throughout the 1996 election campaign; and post-election re-interviews.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

What happens when a country moves away from British-style, two-party politics and towards multiparty politics, adopting a European system of mixed member proportional representation (MMP)? Voters Victory? explores this question comprehensively and in depth. New Zealands historic first MMP election was held on 12 October 1996. This book examines what New Zealanders could expect from MMP on the basis of international experience and theory, then focuses on the distinctive features of the election and its outcome: the party changes; the patterns of voting; how people used their votes; shifts in support for parties and leaders in the campaign; the composition of the new Parliament; the capture of the Maori seats by New Zealand First; and the fateful National-New Zealand First Coalition outcome.

New Zealands switch to proportional representation, like its economic reforms of the last decade, has attracted international interest. Scholars from Australia, the United States and Canada, as well as New Zealand, are among the contributing authors to this first authoritative analysis of a landmark election.

Voters Victory? is the third major study of voters and electoral choice in New Zealand since 1990, based on the nationwide, post-election surveys of electors and candidates, conducted by the New Zealand Election Study programme and funded by the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology (FRST).

About the Author

Jack Vowles is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Policy, at the University of Waikato. Peter Aimer was Senior Lecturer and is now Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Political Studies, the University of Auckland. They co-authored the two predecessors of Voters' Victory--Voters' Vengeance (1993), and Towards Consensus? (1995). Susan Banducci and Jeffrey Karp are Post-Doctoral Fellows in the Department of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of Waikato.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Auckland University Press (March 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1869401808
• ISBN-13: 978-1869401801
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,684,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)