Representative Government in Modern Europe

Michael Gallagher is Professor of Comparative Politics at Trinity College, University of Dublin. He has also held Visiting Chairs at Sciences-Po, Lille, City University of Hong Kong, The Centre for Eurpean Studies, New York University. Michael Laver is Chair, Department of Politics, New York University, and was previously Professor of Politics at Trinity College, Dublin. He is Visiting Professor Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, University of Bologna. Peter Mair is Professor of Comparative Politics and Government at the European University Institute, Italy. He was previously attached to Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he held the Chair of Comparative Politics and where he is now Honourary Professor in Comparative European Politics. Peter Mair holds the chair of Comparative Politics in Leiden University in the Netherlands and previously taught at the University of Limerick, the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, the University of Manchester, and the European University Institute, Florence. He is the author (with Stefano Bartolini) of Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability (Cambridge, 1990), which was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize, and of Party System Change (Oxford, 1997). Recent co-edited books include How Parties Organize (London, 1994), and Partien auf komplexen Wahlermarkten (Vienna, 1999). He is co-editor of the European Journal of Political Research and is currently engaged in a project on the long-term development of elections, parties, and governments in Western Europe over the period from 1950 to 2000.

• 1.Introduction 2.The executive3.Parliaments4.Constitutions, judges and politics5.The EU and representative government6.Levels of governance7.Patterns in party politics and party systems8.Party families9.Cleavage structures and electoral change10.Inside European political parties11.Elections, electoral systems and referendums12.Building and maintaining a government13.Does representative government make a difference?14.Politics outside parliament