Party Transformations In European Democracies

Political parties regularly change and adapt in response to ever-changing circumstances. Until now these changes have frequently prompted both scholars and the media to suggest a whole new type of political party, and over time the number of models and types has proliferated to the point of confusion, contradiction, and a loss of explanatory power. In this sophisticated yet accessible study, André Krouwel rejects this mélange of models as inadequate. He utilizes a wide range of data sources to analyze the ideological, organizational, and electoral change undergone by more than one hundred European parties in fifteen different countries, from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, between 1945 and 2010. The result is one of the most comprehensive empirically grounded studies to date of the genesis, development, and transformation of political parties in advanced democratic states.

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. Based on an extensive new data gathered through expert interviews in fifteen European countries, this book offers the first systematic comparative assessment of the scale of party patronage and its role in sustaining modern party governments. Among the key findings are: First, patronage appointments tend to be increasingly dominated by the party in public office rather than being used or controlled by the party organization outside parliament. Second, rather than using appointments as rewards, as used to be the case in more clientelistic systems in the past, parties are now more likely to emphasize appointments that can help them to manage the infrastructure of government and the state. In this way patronage becomes an organizational rather than an electoral resource. Third, patronage appointments are increasingly sourced from channels outside of the party, thus helping to make parties look increasingly like network organizations, primarily constituted by their leaders and their personal and political hinterlands. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

This special issue of the German Political Science Quarterly addresses the transformation and the sustainability of European party democracies, both at the level of party organization as well as party systems and competition. The contributions in this volume are dedicated to these areas of change of European party democracies from different perspectives. It shows which new dynamics of change can be stated and how they can be explained.

'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.

Two decades have passed since the transition to democracy began in Eastern Europe. Today, West and East-Central European countries share a common political space - the European Union. This has created a fascinating opportunity for analysis of the similarities and differences between these countries. Here, Vít Hloušek and Lubomír Kopecek critically apply the party-families approach to political parties in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. With chapters devoted to social democrats, greens, the far right and left amongst many others, this book charts the parties' origins, ideologies, and international ties alongside their Western European counterparts. By examining the political relevance of different party families, Hloušek and Kopecek are able to assess the validity of this typology in the analysis of the transformation of political parties in this region. Detailed analysis coupled with an innovative application of the party families approach, makes this essential reading for students of party politics.

The abrupt transformation of one-party Communist regimes into political systems holding competitive elections challenges theories of democracy by evolution. Part One develops an inter-active model of how the supply of parties by political elites shapes the responses of inexperienced electors, and what this means for the institutionalisation of party systems and party identification. The model is then applied to elections since 1990 in ten Central and East European democracies that are now members of the European Union. Part Two provides a definitive and up to date text of election results and the formation and disappearance of parties in these ten countries. In addition, there is a lengthy chapter on elections in Russia.

This book contributes to a better understanding of relations between social and political change, and the importance of institutional factors in shaping the political elites of European democracies. It helps to substantiate theoretical debates in the social and political sciences on issues such as historical institutionalism and path dependency.

The partisan groups in parliament form the link between mass suffrage, parties and parliaments, and are generally accepted today as necessary instruments of parliamentary business. Parliamentary party groups are central actors in most European democracies. This volume analyses the manifestations and operations of these actors across thirteen different countries and in the European parliament.