Politics : a unified introduction to how democracy works / Ian Budge.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

How to use this book -- Preface: Explaining politics systematically -- Introduction: Politics and policy what do we want to explain and how? -- Why politics? : making policies to provide public goods -- How popular preferences develop -- Measuring electoral preferences -- Electors' policy thinking : from a joined up left-right perspective to issue-by-issue reactions -- Party policy thinking : framing policy targets and election-based -- Estimates of majority preferences -- Matching public policy to popular preferences -- The "web of explanation" : relating process theories to each other within a general political science context -- Majority choice of policies : voting paradoxes and attempted solutions -- General elections and election systems : finalizing collective choice of policies -- Citizens, parties and governments : interactive preference formation -- Parties : ideological policy-carriers -- Governments : prime participants in policy making -- Ministries : separating out policy areas -- Globalization and world democracy -- Generating "big data" : sources, procedures, error checks -- Simplifying "big data" : dimensions, majorities and the (missing?) middle -- Managing "big data" : theoretical explanation and statistical analysis -- Developing political science by explaining democracy.

"This comprehensive introduction to politics provides an essential template for assessing the health and workings of present day democracy by exploring how democratic processes bring public policy into line with popular preferences. Incorporating the latest findings from Big Data across the world, it provides a crucial framework showing students how to deploy these for themselves, providing straightforward, practical orientation to the scope and methods of modern political science. Key features: Everyday politics is explained through concrete applications to democracies across the world; Predictive theories illuminate what goes on at various levels of democracy; Outlines, in easy to understand terms, the basic statistical approaches that enable empirically-informed analysis; Rich textual features include chapter summaries, reviews, key points, illustrative briefings, key concepts, project and essay suggestions, relevant reading all clearly explained in 'How to Use This Book'; Provides a firm basis for institutional and normative approaches to democratic politics; Concluding section reviews other approaches to explaining politics, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Politics is an essential resource for students of political science and of key interest to economics, public policy analysis and more broadly the social sciences"-- Provided by publisher.