The articles in this ninth volume of SCANDINAVIAN POLITICAL STUDIES are concentrated around two main themes: 'Public Choice and Policy Outputs' and 'Parties and Parliaments'. The volume opens with an article by Ilkka Heiskanen and Tuomo Martikainen (Helsinki), in which they present a general theoretical framework for studies of comparative policy. This is followed by two theoretical analyses of public choice: one by Jan-Erik Lane (Umeå) on the use of means—end analysis and one by Bjørn Stefénsson (Reykjavik) on the mass aggregation of preferences. The first section concludes with an article by Lars Gulbrandsen and Ulf Torgersen (Oslo) on the politics of the housing market in Oslo.

In the section on 'Parties and Parliaments' Erik Damgaard (Aarhus) analyzes the stability of the Danish party system in the last fifty years, and Palle Svensson (Aarhus) concentrates on the expansion of the Danish Social Democratic party in the interwar period. The power structure of the Norwegian Parliament is analyzed by Gudmund Hernes (Bergen).

In a separate section on the corporate state, Olof Ruin (Stockholm) examines the
Swedish political system as a corporate democracy.

The review section in this volume includes a survey of the welfare studies now in progress in Finland, Norway, and Sweden by Stein Ringen (Bergen) and commentaries on the three parliamentary elections in the autumn of 1973: in Denmark (Ole Borre, Aarhus), Norway (Henry Valen, Oslo, and Stein Rokkan, Bergen), and Sweden (Olof Petersson, Gothenburg).

This volume also contains a comprehensive bibliography of political science
literature in Scandinavia for 1973.