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Political Analysis Advance Access originally published online on November 22, 2006
Political Analysis 2007 15(1):85-96; doi:10.1093/pan/mpl009
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

UK OC OK? Interpreting Optimal Classification Scores for the U.K. House of Commons

Arthur Spirling

Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, NY 14627

Iain McLean

Nuffield College, Oxford University, Oxford OX1 1NF, United Kingdom. e-mail: iain.mclean{at}nuffield.ox.ac.uk

e-mail: spln{at}mail.rochester.edu (corresponding author)

Poole's (2000, Non-parametric unfolding of binary choice data. Political Analysis 8:211–37) nonparametric Optimal Classification procedure for binary data produces misleading rank orderings when applied to the modern House of Commons. With simulations and qualitative evidence, we show that the problem arises from the government-versus-opposition nature of British (Westminster) parliamentary politics and the strategic voting that is entailed therein. We suggest that political scientists think seriously about strategic voting in legislatures when interpreting results from such techniques.


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