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The Study of Local Elections

Editors' Introduction: A Looking Glass into the Future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

Melissa Marschall
Affiliation:
Rice University
Paru Shah
Affiliation:
Macalester College
Anirudh Ruhil
Affiliation:
Ohio University

Extract

Given the large number of cases and considerable institutional and contextual variation across and within local governments, one might assume that the study of local elections is an area already well harvested by political scientists. The truth, however, is that this area of inquiry is relatively unexplored. In fact, to say that a field of study on local elections exists would be a bit of an overstatement. Not only is the literature rather small and not particularly cohesive, but the data collection and methods of analysis are also somewhat primitive, particularly compared to research on state and federal elections. While, on the one hand, this lack of subfield development means that there are many unanswered and even unexplored questions, on the other hand, it means that the possibilities for future research are practically limitless.

Type
Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

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