Books in the Comparative Politics series

This book provides the first systematic book length study of political parties across Central Europe since 1989, and provides new tools and conceptual frameworks that can be used to explain party politics in other regions across the globe.

This book examines the ways in which federal institutions assign fiscal power and policy-making power and how this shapes the long-term development of political competition.

Parliaments and Coalitions reveals that parliaments play a much more important role in policymaking in parliamentary systems than is usually acknowledged. Based on an analysis of roughly 1,300 government bills across five democracies the book paints a detailed picture of the treatment of government legislation in contemporary parliaments.

Recent election success across the continent strikingly demonstrates the endurance of the extreme right in Europe. This volume provides the definitive account of this important political phenomenon. What is its significance? Why have such parties prospered in some countries and not others? Who votes for them and why?

Several of the world's leading scholars present critical analyses (both conceptual and empirical) of important substantive themes on political parties in contemporary democracies. They critically re-examine the classic concepts and typologies that have guided research in this field over the past decades, and explore new challenges faced by parties today.

A systematic and comprehensive study of 70 electoral systems used by 27 democracies, including those of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, Costa Rica, India, Israel, Japan and New Zealand. - for 384 national, legislative and European Parliament elections between 1945 and 1990.

Organizing Democratic Choice offers a new, invigorating theory of how democracy actually works. It also presents a challenge to democratic pessimists who would have everyone believe that neither political parties nor mass publics are up to the tasks that democracy assigns them.

Electoral Malpractice shows how this phenomenon might be reduced by means of a variety of strategies designed to raise the cost of electoral manipulation by increasing the ability of civil society and international actors to monitor and denounce it.

Some of the foremost scholars of European party politics review the latest empirical findings on the challenges currently faced by West European political parties. Published to great critical acclaim in hardback, this paperback edition will be essential reading for anyone interested in the changing nature of western Europe's political parties.

This volume provides a comparative explanation of the institutional evolution of parliaments since the intensification of political competition in the last third of the 19th century.

This book discusses the origins and trajectories of political parties, welfare policies, and income inequality, and how the former two affects the latter.

This volumes examines two major developments in contemporary democratic politics- the change in party-society linkage and political personalization-and their relation to each other.

This volume presents the first findings of a novel cross-national effort to assess the current state of political parties' internal rules and organizational resources.

This volume explores when, why, and how, democratic institutions are reformed.

This book explains why, and how, political parties in several advanced democracies are undertaking high-profile organizational reforms.

This book answers two fundamental questions for European advanced democracies: how Europeans view democracy (or how democracy should be) and how Europeans evaluate democracy (or how European democracies work in practice).

The authors propose a volume which will explore the reasons for, and consequences of, the increasing personalization of electoral systems.

This book offers a broad overview of an important and ongoing transformation in relations between political parties and their closest supporters. It focuses on established parliamentary democracies, showing how the changing nature of party membership is affecting how political parties define themselves and the choices presented to voters.

Institutional Design and Party Government in Post-Communist Europe examines the institutional foundations of coalition government in the 10 post-communist democracies of Eastern and Central Europe, arguing that differences in the arrangement of political institutions systematically explain variations in patterns of multi-party government

Based on interviews with members of over 70 parliamentary assemblies Representing the People explores how members of parliament perceive their role as representatives, and shows that the way in which they represent depends very much on the party to which they belong.

The Limits of Electoral Reform examines a variety of reforms, including campaign finance, direct democracy, legislative term limits, and changes to the electoral system itself. This study finds electoral reforms have limited, and in many cases, no effects. The findings here suggest there are hard limits to effects of electoral reform.

The Challenges of Intra-Party Democracy provides a comprehensive examination of the costs and benefits of intra-party democracy and the issues parties must contend with in setting their own organizational norms.

Why are some new parties entering national parliaments able to defend a niche at the national level, while others conspicuously fail to do so. This ground-breaking volume studies 140 new parties in seventeen advanced democracies over a forty year period, to provide the answers.

The Strain of Representation examines the quality of democratic representation in Europe, focusing on the way that political parties channel the preferences of different groups of citizens into government policies.

Based on extensive data sets from national election studies in nine major democracies, this book brings together leading experts to assess the impact of political leaders on voting patterns. This is the first major book-length treatment of the importance of leaders' personality on the outcome of democratic elections.

Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies brings together insights from the worlds of party politics and public administration in order to analyze the role of political parties in public appointments across contemporary Europe.

This book argues that governments' choices in favour or against strong intergovernmental institutions are not primarily driven by considerations of efficiency but by internal political dynamics within their own boundaries. It applies the argument to Canada, Switzerland, the United States, and finally to the European Union.

Why do national governments implement devolution given the high risk that it will encourage peripheral parties to demand ever more devolved powers? The aim of Challenging the State is to answer this question through a comparative analysis of devolution in four European countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Why do businesses contribute to political parties? Is money a universal language? Do business contributions to political parties convey different messages in different countries? This book answers these questions based on intensive case studies of Australia, Canada, and Germany.

The Gendered Effects of Electoral Institutions argues that in most countries women continue to lag behind men in an array of political orientations and activities. Understanding this, and why some countries have been more successful than others in decreasing gender gaps, is imperative for producing stronger and more representative democracies.