^aGovernment Department, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. E-mail: k.m.dowding@lse.ac.uk

Abstract

The paper examines some of the potentially fruitful avenues of inquiry for the economic or public choice approach to the study of British politics. It considers the types of questions that might be addressed in core executive studies, parliament, local government, political parties and pressure groups examining a selected view of some of the studies that have been published in these areas. It suggests that the economic approach is most fruitful for identifying interesting hypotheses for empirical evaluation.