Books in the Comparative Politics series

In this new work, two leading political scientists reassess the shifting fortunes of the Whitehall model of governance -- and find it wanting. As we prepare to enter the twenty--first century, it has become clear that the model now has much less currency abroad as well as in the UK.

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.

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.

This book examines the role played by the parties themselves in two-party systems. It rejects the argument that the behaviour of the parties is determined largely by social forces or by the supposed logic of the electoral market. Instead, it shows that both structure and agency can matter.

This book provides the first comparative study of coalition governments in Central Eastern Europe. It introduces the players in the coalition game and covers the full life-cycle of coalitions.

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.

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.

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.

This ambitious and ground-breaking book provides a broad-ranging and engaging introduction to the application of social choice theory to real world political institutions

Semi-Presidentialism is the term used to describe the constitutional arrangement where there is a directly elected president and a prime-minister who is responsible to parliament. This title examines the politics of semi-presidentialism and explores why it is that seemingly similar political systems operate in such different ways.

This text examines the extent to which a network approach should inform research on collective action. Leading social movements researchers systematically map out and assess the contribution of social network approaches to their field of enquiry in light of broader theoretical perspective.

This book examines the frequency, causes and management of divided government in comparative context, identifying the similarities and differences between the various experiences of this increasingly frequent form of government. The countries studied include Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Poland, and the US.

For the first time in a single volume, the growing field of network analysis is systematically explored and assessed in terms of its ability to throw light on individual behaviour, social movements and political processes.

This text assembles the evidence of how democratic institutions and processes are changing and considers the larger implications of these reforms for the nature of democracy. The findings point to a new style of democratic politics that expands the nature of democracy.

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).

This book examines the ways in which political parties choose their leaders and the implications of the different choices they make.

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.

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.

This fully revised and updated edition of an established reference book provides in one volume the most comprehensive and detailed statistical guide available to the government and politics of the twenty-four countries in the OECD.

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.

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 analysis of coalition politics in Western Europe is based on the most comprehensive data set ever employed in coalition studies exploring both coalitional and single-party countries and governments.

Three unprecedented large-scale democratic experiments have taken place in which groups of randomly selected ordinary citizens were asked to independently design the next electoral system. The lessons drawn from the research are relevant for those interested in political participation, public opinion, deliberation, public policy, and democracy

Politics at the Centre studies the ways in which political parties select and remove their leaders in five parliamentary democracies: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. It addresses the subject through cross national comparison of 25 parties in these countries from 1965 to the present day.

Designing Democracy in a Dangerous World addresses a question at the heart of contemporary global politics: how does one craft democracy in fragile and divided states? By bringing new evidence and arguments to bear on the topic of promoting democracy this book contributes to both foreign policy and academic debates.

The Politics of Party Funding analyses an increasingly popular institutional choice-the introduction of state funding to political parties-and represents a first step towards a theory which explains differences and similarities in party funding regimes.

This pioneering book presents a new approach to understanding political parties, sheds light on their inner workings and offers the first comprehensive analysis of the way parties choose their candidates for public office. Candidate selection is, after all, the function that separates parties from other organizations.

Stein Rokkan was one of the leading social scientists of the post-war world. He was a prolific writer whose main contribution to social science - the conceptual and developmental map of Europe - is presented here for the first time in an integrated and systematic way.

This book is the sequel to Political Parties in Advanced Industrial Democracies (Oxford 2002). It offers a systematic and rigorous analysis of parties in some of the world's major new democracies, focusing on Latin America and postcommunist Eastern Europe.