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.
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Petr Kopecký has published extensively in the fields of comparative politics, party politics and democratization. His books include Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics (Ashgate 2001), Uncivil Society? Contentious Politics in Eastern Europe (co-edited, Routledge 2003), Political Parties and the State in Post-Communist Europe (edited, Routledge 2007). He is a co-editor of the journal East European Politics. He is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University, Netherlands.
The late Peter Mair was Professor of Comparative Politics at the European University Institute. His publications include Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy (Verso, 2013), Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies (co-edited with Petr Kopecký and Marcia Spirova, OUP, 2012), Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations, and Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability (edited, Cambridge, 1990).
Maria Spirova is senior lecturer of Comparative Politics and International Relations, University of Leiden. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and has previously studied political science at the Central European University and the American University in Bulgaria. She works in the area of comparative politics and her research interests include political parties, party patronage and corruption and the democratic representation of ethnic minorities.
Zina Assimakopoulou is Head of Human Resources, European Ombudsman.
Carina Bischoff is an Assistant Professor at University of Copenhagen.
Fabrizio Di Mascio is Professor of Political Science at the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning, University of Turin.
Matthew Flinders is Professor of Politics and Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield.
Raul Gomez is Reader (Senior Associate Professor) in Comparative Political Science at the University of Liverpool. His main research interests lie at the intersection of sociology, social psychology and comparative political science.
Elin Haugsgjerd Allern is postdoctoral fellow in political science at the University of Oslo, Norway. Previously she was senior research fellow at the Institute for Social Research, Oslo. Her research interests include party organisations, the relationship between parties and interest groups, and political parties and multi-level government. Allern's doctoral thesis was shortlisted for the ECPR's Jean Blondel PhD Prize 2008. Her work has appeared in several journals and edited volumes, including Acta Politica, European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, and Political Parties and Democracy: Europe .
Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson is Professor of Political Science, University of Iceland.
Krisztina Jáger Kis an Independent Research Professional, based at Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary.
Carlos Jalali is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Aveiro.
Stefanie John is a Research Associate in the Department of Political Science, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
Felicity Matthews is a Senior Lecturer in Governance and Public Policy, University of Sheffield.
Jan Meyer-Sahling is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Nottingham, School of Politics and International Relations.
Diogo Moreira a PhD candidate in Comparative Politics at the Social Sciences Institute, University of Lisbon.
Eoin O'Malley is senior lecturer in politics at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. He has published over thirty journal articles mainly on questions relating to Irish politics, parties and prime ministers. He is author of Contemporary Ireland (Palgrave 2011) and co-editor of Governing Ireland (IPA 2012).
Takis S Pappas is Associate Professor at the University of Macedonia, Greece, and during this project, was a Marie Curie Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. His most recent book is Populism and Crisis Politics in Greece (Palgrave 2014). He is currently working on a new book project under the tentative title Democratic Illiberalism: How Populism Grows.
Thomas Poguntke is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf and Director of the Düsseldorf Party Research Institute (PRuF). He has previously held chairs at the universities of Keele, Birmingham, and Bochum. In 1998 he was Senior Research fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim. His research interests include the comparative analysis of political parties, parties in the European union, and the presidentialisation of modern democracies.
Stephen Quinlan is a Senior Researcher at the GESIS-Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Mannheim Germany and Project Manager of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) project.
Patricia Silva is an Assistant Professor at the University of Aveiro and a researcher at the Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies Research Centre (GOVCOPP) of the University of Aveiro, where she has worked on governance and local administration, political parties, and the politicization of the recruitment of appointed elites.
Oliver Treib is Professor of Comparative Policy Analysis and Research Methods at the University of Münster.
Sandra van Thiel is Professor of Public Management at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Tània Verge is Full Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF).
