Unit of analysis refers to the primary foci of the articles--the objects of the empirical observations that are reported in the study.

political parties* party systems elections electoral systems voters/citizens members candidates party leaders government leaders legislators public officials interest groups *Virtually all articles submitted to Party Politics deal with political parties. If the term is applied to virtually all articles, it offers no help in searching the data base. Please use "political parties" as a key term for the unit of analysis only when observations are taken on multiple parties, as in a specific comparison among parties or in a cross-national analysis of party traits or activities. If your manuscript focuses on a different unit of analysis. Choose the unit that is most central to the study.