No Substitute for Competence. On the origins and consequences of issue ownership. Lanz, SimonLondon / New York, ECPR Press / Rowman & Littlefield International (2020), 145p., ISBN 978‐1‐78552‐344‐1

No Substitute for Competence by Simon Lanz (ECPR Press / Rowman & Littlefield International) presents an ambitious, comparative analysis of issue competence evaluations. It sets out to investigate three questions: what are the sources of voters’ evaluations of party competence? How do evaluations of party competence influence vote choices? And to what extent does the impact of party competence on the vote vary across contexts? The book originates from Lanz’ award-winning dissertation, and has a lot to offer to the reader. First, it presents a rich comparative study on issue ownership. Comparative work on issue ownership is exceedingly rare. This book presents evidence covering 24 countries, moving beyond the few Western democracies that tend to dominate the issue ownership literature (e.g. the U.S., Belgium, the Netherlands). Furthermore, it leverages the comparative design and investigates contextual variations in competence evaluations’ effect on the vote. Second, in addition to offering an excellent introduction to the relevant literature in its opening chapters, Lanz breaks new ground in theorizing how contextual factors (e.g. party system fragmentation) may condition the impact of competence evaluations on the vote. Third, it evaluates the rich theoretical framework through a robust analytical strategy while still making the results accessible to a broad audience. The structure of the book is straightforward and sensible: after the introductory chapter, chapters 2 and 3 discuss the theoretical framework; chapter 4 presents the data and methodological choices; and chapters 5 through 7 examine the determinants of competence evaluations (chapter 5), the impact of competence evaluations on the vote and individuallevel moderators (chapter 6), as well as the extent to which the impact of competence on the vote varies across contexts (chapter 7). The book closes up with a brief conclusion and reflection on the limitations of the design. The theoretical framework consists of two chapters. Chapter 2 offers an accessible introduction to rational choice models and issue ownership theory. This makes it accessible to readers that are new to the field of issue ownership. Lanz’ discussion moves beyond the ‘usual suspects’ such as Petrocik (1996) and Budge & Farlie (1983). It includes both classic works on issue ownership such as RePass (1971) and Kuechler (1991), and contemporary insights emanating from prominent scholars in the field. For anyone unfamiliar with issue ownership, chapter 2 thus provides an excellent overview. The most interesting chapter for scholars of issue voting is chapter 3, however. Lanz presents a rich set of hypotheses regarding the sources of issue competence, its effect on the vote, and the way the latter is conditioned by micro(ideology, partisanship) and macro-level factors (fragmentation, polarization, and clarity of responsibility). The Swiss Political Science Review