The scope and intensity of the challenges currently faced by West European political parties is exceptionally great, threatening the viability of the manner in which they have traditionally operated and causing them to seek new behaviours and strategies. This volume brings together some of the foremost scholars of European party politics, whose evaluation of political parties in 'the new Europe' is organised under four broad headings: 'Parties and Society'; 'Parties as Purposive Organizations'; 'Parties and National Government' and 'Parties, the Nation State, and Beyond'. The contributors review the latest empirical findings and provide a concise, critical review of the theoretical and methodological 'state of the art'. They also highlight the analytical challenges confronting party researchers and suggest new avenues for party research.
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 result is a set of highly rewarding and challenging contributions. This really is a very, very good book, and it constitutes a major contribution to party studies. It comes as close as I have yet seen to a 'state of the art' in the field, and it is a credit to the editors and to their Summer School work over the years. -- Peter Mair, 'Party Politics'
... this is a worthy book, both for the wealth of empirical material and as a contribution to further theorizing on the various dimensions of political parties. -- 'Political Studies Review'
Kurt Richard Luther is Professor of Comparative Politics at Keele University, UK and at Tongji University, Shanghai. He chairs the ECPR Standing Group on Political Parties. His current research includes party organisation and strategy and party-interest group links. He also continues to specialise on Austria and holds the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Arts.
Ferdinand Müller-Rommel is Professor of Comparative Politics and Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany.
Luciano Bardi is President of the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation at the University of Pisa and part-time Professor at the Alcide De Gasperi Research Centre of the European University Institute
He was member of the Executive Committee (2006-2009) of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) and then Chair (2009-2012). His main research interests include political parties at the national and European level, party systems, elections, democracy and representation in the European Union.
Russell J Dalton is Research Professor at the Center for the Study of Democracy at UC Irvine. His research focuses on the role of citizens in the democratic process, involving the topics of political culture, electoral politics, and political representation. Dalton’s most recent books include The Good Citizen (2020), Political Realignment—Economics, Culture and Electoral Change (2018), The Participation Gap (2017), and The Civic Culture Transformed (2015). He has received a Fulbright Professorship at the University of Mannheim, a Barbra Streisand Center Fellowship, German Marshall Research Fellowship, and a POSCO Fellowship at the East/West Center.
Lieven De Winter is a senior professor at the UCLouvain. His research focuses on the (comparative) analysis of government formation, legislatures, elections and political parties and political regionalism, mainly in Western Europe.
David Farrell holds the Chair of Politics at University College Dublin. A specialist in parties, electoral systems and representation, Professor Farrell’s most recent book was the award-winning Political Parties and Democratic Linkage, published by Oxford University Press in 2011. He was the research director of the Irish Constitutional Convention.
Robert Harmel is Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, USA.
Richard S Katz is Professor of Political Science at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He was co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research (2006-2012). His books include A Theory of Parties and Electoral Systems (Johns Hopkins 1980, 2006), Democracy and Elections (Oxford 1997), Handbook of Party Politics, ed. with William Crotty (Sage 2006), The Challenges of Intra-Party Democracy, ed. with William P. Cross, (Oxford 2013). He was vice-chair and treasurer on the Executive Committee of the European Consortium for Political Research.
Hans Keman is Professor and Chair in Comparative Political Science at the Free University of Amsterdam. He has been co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research and of Acta Politica – an international journal for political science. He has published widely on political parties and party government and policy formation – mainly regarding the Welfare State, as well as on methodology and institutional politics. Among his most recent books are Comparative Democratic Politics (2002) and Doing Research in Political Science (2006).
Hans-Dieter Klingemann is Professor Emeritus, Social Science Research Center, Berlin. Among his recent publications are Public Information Campaigns (with A Roemmele) (Sage Publications, 2001); Mapping Policy Preferences (with I Budge et al) (Oxford University Press, 2001); Russell J Dalton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, eds. 2007 The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior (2009); The comparative Study of Electoral Systems (2009).
Ian McAllister is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at The Australian National University.
Wolfgang C Müller is Professor of Democratic Governance at the University of Vienna (Austria). Previous appointments included Chair and Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim. He is currently Speaker and Principal Investigator of the Austrian National Election Study (AUTNES). Since 2013 he has been co-editor of West European Politics. His research interests include government coalitions, political parties and political institutions.
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.
Andrea Volkens is a Senior Research Fellow at the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB).
Martin Wattenberg is a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine. He is an expert on American elections and party politics and is co-author of, 'Government in America: People, Policy, and Politics'.
