ABSTRACT
The terms competition and competitive have been applied to very different aspects of party politics. If party system competitiveness has any significant impact on governance, it must surface through all types of political systems. Measuring competitiveness by the point margin between the two largest parties is better suited to relatively rare two-party systems, like that in the United States, than to far more common multiparty systems, like those in Europe. This chapter discusses different effects of party system traits on administrative and political aspects of country governance. Country wealth retained its significant and strong effect on all governance indicators. The chapter routinely explains both country size and country wealth as control variables, allowing in advance for their effects on country governance. Regression analyses include five independent variables: SmallArea, Wealth, NoParties, NonPartisan, and Party. The chapter focuses on testing H2.1 through H2.6 concerning the effects of party system competition for the 189 countries with party systems.
