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22. Additional information on the CSES surveys, fieldwork, and questionnaires is available from the project website (www.cses.org). Both CSES modules include Thailand, but the Thai survey did not include the left-right scale.Google Scholar

23. See McAllister, Ian, Political Behaviour (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1992).Google Scholar

24. The Japanese survey used a progressive/conservative scale as an equivalent to left-right. The left-right question is widely used in electoral research. Inglehart, and Klingemann, , “Party Identification, Ideological Preference”; Fuchs, and Klingemann, , “The Left-Right Schema”; Dalton, , “The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems.” Google Scholar

25. However, in the World Values Survey, 97 percent of the Taiwanese respondents positioned themselves on the left-right scale.Google Scholar

26. Dalton, , “Social Modernization.” In addition, nineteen Western democracies were included in module II of CSES, and on average 89 percent of these publics positioned themselves on the left-right scale. Among the four East European democracies in this module, 88 percent positioned themselves on the scale.Google Scholar

27. See the regional comparisons in Dalton, , “Social Modernization.” Google Scholar

28. The percentage of the public able to locate two major parties is as follows: Australia, Liberals (83 percent) and Labour (80 percent); New Zealand, Labour (82 percent) and National (80 percent); Japan, LDP (85 percent) and JCP (80 percent); Korea, GNP (93 percent) and UD (90 percent); Philippines, Lakas (83 percent) and NPC (81 percent); Taiwan, DPP (49 percent) and KMT (49 percent).Google Scholar

29. In part, this reflects the unusually personalist nature of Korean party politics. The progressive, democratic reformer Kim Dae-jung ran for the presidency in 1998 as the head of a centrist/conservative coalition.Google Scholar

30. Rood, , “Elections as Complicated and Important Events.” Google Scholar

31. For instance, in the 2001 World Values Survey, the Philippine left-right mean is 6.44, which is between the CSES mean of 7.16 in 1998 and 6.01 in 2004.Google Scholar

32. Karp, Jeffrey A. and Banducci, Susan A., “Issues and Party Competition Under Alternative Electoral Systems,” Party Politics 8, no. 1: 123–141.Google Scholar

33. For example, Sartori, , Parties and Party Systems; Powell, , Contemporary Democracies. Google Scholar

34. Dalton, , “The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems.” Google Scholar

35. We thank Rein Taagepera for his assistance in developing these statistics. The polarization index is measured as P = Σ (party vote share _i )^* (party L-R score _i – party system average L-R score/5)² (where i represents individual parties). This P index has a value of 0 when all parties occupy the same position on the left-right scale, and 10 when all the parties are located at either 0 or 10 on the scale. The representation index is measured as R = Σ (governing party L-R score – voter L-R score _i )/n (where i represents individual voters). The representation gap is measured as the absolute difference between the average voter and the perceived position of the governing party. The governing party is defined as the party of the prime minister.Google Scholar

36. These cross-national comparisons are based on a different set of nations in both timepoints, and thus changes over time may reflect a different mix of nations. There were fourteen Western democracies (Western Europe and North America) in module I and seventeen in module II. There were seven Eastern European nations in module I and four in module II. For additional analyses, see Dalton, , “The Quantity and the Quality of Party Systems.” Google Scholar

37. Ibid. Google Scholar

38. Ibid. Google Scholar