Approximately one-third of parliamentary democracies are or are typically ruled by a minority government - a situation where the party or parties represented at cabinet do not between them hold a majority of seats in the national legislature. Minority governments are particularly interesting in parliamentary systems, where the government is politically responsible to parliament, can be removed by it, and needs (majority) support in the parliament to legislate.
The chapters in this volume explore and analyse the formation, functioning, and performance of minority governments, what we term the why, how, and how well. The volume begins with overviews of the concept of and puzzles surrounding minority governments in parliamentary systems, and establishes the current terms of the debate. In the thirteen chapters that follow, leading country experts present in-depth case studies that provide rich, contextualized analyses of minority governments in different settings. The final chapter draws broader, comparative-based conclusions from the country studies that push the literature forward and outline directions for future research on minority governments.
30% off all books in the Comparative Politics Series for ECPR Member affiliates – please contact editorial@ecpr.eu for more details on how to claim the discount.
The book combines precise theoretical analyses with careful, in-depth case studies of 13 countries grouped by whether minority governments are predominant, common, or exceptional...Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals. -- 'Choice'
Bonnie N Field is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Global Studies at Bentley University. Her research interests centre on political parties and political institutions in transitional and institutionalized democracies in Europe and Latin America. She studies minority governments, parliamentary regimes, interparty relations in parliament, processes of candidate selection and political appointments, and regime democratization. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard, a visiting researcher at the Universities of Barcelona and Oslo, Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Irvine, Visiting Fellow at UCI's Center for the Study of Democracy, and Fulbright Senior Researcher in Spain.
Shane Martin holds the Anthony King Chair in Comparative Government at the University of Essex where he also serves as Head of the Department of Government. His research focuses on legislative organization and in particular on how electoral incentives shape representatives' preferences, the internal structures of parliaments, executive oversight, and the production of public policy. He maintains a strong interest in Irish politics. He previously taught at the University of Leicester, Dublin City University, the Pennsylvania State University, and the University of California, San Diego.
Veronica Anghel is Adjunct Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.
Hanna Bäck is Professor of Political Science at Lund University. She received her PhD from Uppsala University, and has previously held a position as Junior Professor at the University of Mannheim, and as Postdoctoral Fellow at Twente University and the European University Institute. Her research mainly focuses on political parties, legislators, and governments in parliamentary democracies, but she also works on topics related to political psychology and political behavior.
Christopher Cochrane is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto.
Kate Crowley is Associate Professor of Public and Environmental Policy at the University of Tasmania.
Jorge M Fernandes is Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon.
Daniela Giannetti is Professor of Political Science at the University of Bologna. Her research interests focus on rational choice theory of political behaviour and institutions. She recently co-edited two books: Intra-Party Politics and Coalition Governments (2009, with Kenneth Benoit) and A Natural Experiment on Electoral Law Reform: Evaluating the Long Run Consequences of 1990s Electoral Reform in Italy and Japan (2010, with Bernard Grofman).
Jean-François Godbout is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Montreal.
Johan Hellström is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Umeå University.
Cath Hughes is an independent researcher and past Chief of Staff of the Office of the Tasmanian Greens.
Andrew Jones is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at University College London.
Csaba Nikolenyi received his PhD from The University of British Columbia in 2000 and joined the Department of Political Science at Concordia University the same year. His research focuses on comparative electoral and party politics. In 2010, he published a singe-authored book on Minority Governments in India; he has also published extensively in leading national and international comparative politics journals such as Party Politics, West European Politics, Political Studies, Journal of Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Canadian Journal of Political Science, the Japanese Journal of Political Science, and Europe-Asia Studies. He has received a number of research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. From 2006 to 2011 he served as English Co-Editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the flagship publication of the profession in Canada.
Olivier Rozenberg is Associate Professor at Sciences Po, Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics.
Kaare W Strøm is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.
Liam Weeks is a Lecturer in Government at University College Cork.
Richard Whitaker is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester.
Radoslaw Zubek is Associate Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford.
