Coalition Governments in Western Europe is the most comprehensive empirical analysis to date of coalition politics. Based on a large cross-national data collection, covering the entire post-war period from 1945 to 1999, it is the first systematic study of institutions of governance and conflict resolution in coalition governments. The book is also an unparalleled source of information, membership, termination, and electoral performance of coalition parties. The volume also analyses the institutional frameworks in which coalition politics takes place in the individual countries and discusses which constraints for government formation, coalition governance, and colition termination result from them. The information has been collected in standardized form by first rate country experts, and is presented in the form of standard tables.
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An impressive and meticulously researched work...a superb reference work that scholars of developed democracies will cite for years...all of the individual country chapters are expertly done, with rich attention to detail in developing comparable data. -- 'American Political Science Review'
n impressive and meticulously researched work...a superb reference work that scholars of developed democracies will cite for years...all of the individual country chapters are expertly done, with rich attention to detail in developing comparable data - American Political Science Review
a unique and timely contribution to the field of comparative institutional politics...The ... fine balance between methodological and empirical needs will appeal to theorists and country specialists alike...invaluable for specialist and ... sufficiently accessible for use on undergraduate and postgraduate courses - Political Studies
This is an extraordinarily valuable book that deserves a place in any political science library and... on the shelves of anyone with a serious professional interest in the making and breaking of governments...a carefully designed and executed reference volume...three sets of tables, rigorously and carefully compiled for each country ... put together information that would take an independent researcher months if not years to assemble. Their value greatly exceeds any to be found in earlier edited collections...a resource of immense value. -- 'Party Politics'
This book will remain for many years THE information source on coalitions in Western Europe. -- Jean Blondel, European University Institute
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.
Kaare W Strøm is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.
Rudy B. Andeweg is a professor of Political Science at Leiden University and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research interests include political legitimacy and representation.
Eirikur Bergmann is Professor of Politics and Director of Centre for European Studies at Bifrost University in Iceland. He was also a member of Iceland’s Constitutional Council which has delivered a bill to Parliament for a new constitution. His research interests within the field of International Politics can be positioned in the intersection of European Integration Politics and International Political Economy. In that context he also focuses on Nationalism and Identity Politics. A further interest is within the field of Constitutional Politics. He has recently published Iceland and the International Financial Crisis: Boom, Bust & Recovery (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Maurizio Cotta is Professor of Political Science and Comparative Politics at the University of Siena. Luca Verzichelli is Associate Professor of Political Science and Italian Politics at the University of Siena.
Erik Damgaard is Professor of Political Science at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.
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.
José M Magone is Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Hull, Great Britain.
Paul Mitchell is Lecturer in Political Science at LSE, Great Britain.
Hanne Marthe Narud (1958-2012) was professor of political science at the University of Oslo. Her main research focus was on coalition behaviour, political recruiting, and voting behaviour. She published articles in Comparative Sociology, European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies, West European Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, Party Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies, Journal of Theoretical Politics and Acta Politica, in addition to numerous contributions to books in Norwegian and English. She also wrote a book with Henry Valen on political representation in a multiparty system. She was frequently called upon to commentate on Norwegian politics in the news media.
Jaakko Nousiainen was a Finnish academic who was a Professor of Political Science, and has served as a Chancellor of the University of Turku.
Thomas Saalfeld is Reader in Political Science at the University of Kent at Canterbury, Great Britain.
Jean-Louis Thiébault is Professor of Political Science, Université Lille II, France.
Arco Timmermans is Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Twente, the Netherlands.
Luca Verzichelli is Professor of Political Science at the Centre for the Study of Political Change (CIRCaP, University of Siena). His academic interests cover the field of comparative political institutions, political elite and budgetary politics.
