Michael Koß has pulled off a truly impressive feat: with historical depth, theoretical incisiveness, and awesome empirical scrupulousness, he gives us a new portrayal of the emergence of Europe's democracies. Through a careful and powerfully comparative telling of the institutional evolution of Europe's parliaments, we emerge with new appreciation for the details of how parliaments organize themselves. Legislative rules matter not only for legislatures but also
for democracy itself.
Michael Koß is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institute of Political Science, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. His publications include The Politics of Party Funding (OUP, 2011), Left Parties in National Governments (co-edited with Jonathan Olsen and Dan Hough, Palgrave, 2010), and The Left Party in Contemporary German Politics (co-authored wtih Dan Hough and Jonathan Olsen, Palgrave, 2007).