The Self-Dynamics Toward Uni-Dimensional Party Competition: A Numerical Experiment.

The article discusses the self-dynamics toward unidimensional political party competition. Although the ideological space in most European countries is often characterized with its multidimensionality, empirical estimation shows that party positions in some of those countries can be more or less placed on a unidimensional scale. An alternative spatial model is suggested which allows parties to influence the salience and (non)-separability of both dimensions at voters' decision processes.