Edited by Dowding, Keith; Dumont, Patrick

• 1. Structural and Strategic Factors Affecting the Hiring and Firing of Ministers 2. Hiring and Firing Ministers under Informal Constraints: Germany 3. Cabinet Dynamics and Ministerial Careers in the French Fifth Republic 4. Choosing, Moving and Resigning at Westminster 5. Italy: the Difficult Road towards a more Effective Process of Ministerial Selection 6. Cabinet Dynamics in Democratic Spain 7. Ups and Downs of Ministerial Careers in a Partitocratic Federal State 8. Portugal: The Primacy of ‘Independents’ 9. In Tranquil Waters: Swedish Cabinet Ministers in the Post-War Era 10. Constructing and Maintaining Irish Governments 11. More Safe than Sound? Cabinet Ministers in Iceland 12. Learning to Rule: Ministerial Careers in Post-Communist Democracies

'This book is the first product of a joint cross-national project whose goal is to systematically analyse the selection and de-selection of political elites. It is clearly a highly successful first move, and lays solid foundations for the next steps in an ambitious project. The book contains invaluable background information on the structure and formation of governments, and rich data on various aspects of the hiring and firing of ministers in ten West European democracies (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland and Iceland). It also includes a chapter on ten new post-communist democracies. The book is useful for many purposes – from information-gathering in order to prepare an informed class on cabinets and ministers to conducting research. If one is studying the government in a single country, it offers data to put the subject in a comparative perspective. If one aims at a cross-national comparison, this volume is a good starting point.'Gideon Rahat, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel