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D.W. Henderson, Social Indicators: A Rationale and Research Framework. Ottawa: Information Canada, 1974, pp. vii, 90

Perhaps no recent approach to constructing political theory has proved more intriguing than that based on game theory. As an introduction to the possibilities and pitfalls of game theory applications to politics, as well as a valuable original contribution, Coalition Theories and Cabinet Formations by Abram De Swaan is a welcome addition to the scholarly literature. De Swaan first examines the assumptions and logical structure of coalition theories previously offered by Riker, Gamson, Leiserson, and Axelrod. These theories all predict that governing coalitions will be in some sense "minimal." Riker and Gamson, for example, argue that rational players (parties) will form a winning (governing) coalition of minimal voting "weight." Leiserson and Axelrod differ in that they incorporate players' perceived policy positions into their theories. These theories are similar to those of Riker and Gamson, however, in that the predicted coalitions are those of minimal range along a hypothesized unidimensional policy continuum. Given considerable evidence that, in reality, "non-minimal" coalitions frequently occur, De Swaan proposes a new variation of coalition theory policy distance theory. "The basic notion of policy distance theory is that an actor strives to be included in a winning coalition that he expects to adopt a policy which is as close as possible to his own most preferred policy" • (p. 83). With the help of four additional assumptions, De Swaan is capable of predicting which coalitions are most likely to form under the basic assumption of policy preference maximization.