Political Competition: Theory and Applications. By John E.
Roemer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 352p. $60.00.
John Roemer sets out to slaughter a golden calf of positive political
theory: the Downsian model of electoral competition and its famous
implication, the median voter theorem. Roemer contends that not only is
the premise of the Downsian model—political parties seeking election
without policy objectives of their own—historically incorrect, but
it also leads to implausible predictions. Throughout political history, he
postulates, parties have represented disparate interests and have
advocated divergent policies; thus, a model that is premised on the
opposite and predicts convergence as the only equilibrium—provided
an equilibrium even exists—cannot be the right tool for analyzing
politics.