This book brings together leading scholars in the field of electoral studies and political representation to examine the democratization of the recruitment of political representatives in Western Europe. The study deals with long-term changes in parliamentary recruitment and patterns of political careers in eleven European countries from the middle of the 19th century until 2000. The book provides the first ever truly comparative study of parliamentary representation in Europe.

Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change and Convergence explores representation as a core element of democracies in the modern era. Over the past 150 years parliamentary representation has developed into a main link between polity and society, and parliamentary representatives have come to form the nucleus of political elites. The twenty authors of the 16 chapters follow a comparative and empirical approach by exploiting the unique longitudinal data-base of the EURELITE project, which has gathered standardized evidence about the structures of parliamentary representation in 11...

The Nature of Party Government examines on a comparative basis the relationship betwen governments and the political parties which support them. This book highlihts the fact that, if parties in western European democracies have a strong influence upon governements, executives - far from being a passive instrument - have an important influence within parties. Party government is in fact a two-way relationship.

Over the last two decades, the process of European integration has become interwoven with the theme of citizenship and the debate on the democratic quality of the EU and of its institutions has become more salient. This text explores how Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain have addressed these issues.

Party and Government is an eleven-country study of the relationship between the governments of liberal democracies, mainly from Western Europe, but also including the United States and India, and the parties which support these governments. It examines this relationship at the three levels at which governments and parties connect: appointments, policy-making, and patronage. The emphasis is on a two-way relationship: parties influence governments but governments also influence parties. The extent and the direction of this influence varies from country to country. In some cases, governments and...