Compare methods

	Two-Level Game Analysis	Spatial Voting Model
Field	Political Science	Political Science
Family	MCDM	MCDM
Year of origin	1988	1957
Originator	Robert D. Putnam	Harold Hotelling, Duncan Black & Anthony Downs
Type	Framework for analyzing international negotiation under domestic constraints	Formal model of electoral and legislative choice
Seminal source	Putnam, R. D. (1988). Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games. International Organization, 42(3), 427-460.	Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. Harper & Row. ISBN: 9780060417505
Aliases	Two-Level Games, Putnam Two-Level Game Framework, Win-Set Analysis, Double-Edged Diplomacy	Spatial Theory of Voting, Downsian Model, Proximity Voting Model, Median Voter Model
Related	4	4
Summary	Two-level game analysis is a framework introduced by Robert Putnam in 1988 for understanding how international negotiations are jointly shaped by bargaining between governments and the need to win domestic approval. A negotiator plays simultaneously at two tables: Level I, where states bargain over an agreement, and Level II, where that agreement must be ratified by domestic constituents. The key analytic device is the win-set — the set of Level I deals that could secure domestic ratification — and an agreement is possible only where the negotiating states' win-sets overlap.	The spatial voting model represents voters and political alternatives as points in a common geometric policy space and assumes that each voter supports the alternative nearest to their own ideal point. Rooted in Hotelling's location theory, Duncan Black's 1948 single-peakedness result, and Anthony Downs's 1957 economic theory of democracy, the model yields two foundational results: the median voter theorem, which identifies the equilibrium policy in one dimension, and the Downsian prediction that two vote-seeking parties converge toward the center. It is the workhorse formalism behind modern empirical estimation of political positions.