Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Click to enlarge

Print Price: $330.00

Format:
Hardback
530 pp.
156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199234202

Publication date:
February 2008

Imprint: OUP UK

Democratic Representation in Europe

Diversity, Change, and Convergence

Maurizio Cotta and Heinrich Best

Series : Comparative Politics

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 European countries and their development over time; in many countries over 160 years. Following on from an earlier book by the same editors (Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000.) which focused on trends in single European countries, Democratic Representation in Europe pursues a trans-national approach by comparing the mechanisms and modes of parliamentary recruitment and career formation between the main party families and various categories of the population in European societies. Such cross-national analyses, which include a longitudinal account of female representation throughout modern European parliamentary history, have not been attempted before. The book concludes with longitudinal in-depth analyses of cleavage representation in European parliamentary history and of the impact of the institutional factor on political elites' transformations.

Democratic Representation in Europe contributes to a better understanding of relations between social and political change, and of the importance of institutional factors in shaping the political elites of European democracies. In so doing it can help substantiate theoretical debates in the social and political sciences on issues such as historical institutionalism and path dependency.

Readership : Scholars and students of european studies, comparative politics, and democracy

1. Maurizio Cotta and Heinrich Best: Parliamentary representatives from early democratisation to the age of consolidated democracy
Part I: Dimensions of variation
2. Michael Rush: The decline of the nobility
3. Maurizio Cotta and Pedro Tavares de Almeida: From servants of the state to elected representatives
4. Verona Christmas and Ulrik Kiaer: Why so few and why so slow?
5. Daniel Gaxie and Laurent Godmer: Cultural capital and political selection
6. Stefaan Fiers and Ineke Secker: A career through the party
7. Mogens N. Pedersen, Ulrik Kjaer and Kjell A. Eliassen: The geographical dimension of parliamentary recruitment
Part II: Variations across party families
8. Valerie Cromwell and Luca Verzichelli: The changing nature and role of European conservative parties in parliamentary institutions
9. Ilka Ruostetsari: Restructuring of the European political centre: withering Liberals and persisting Agrarian party families
10. Luca Verzichelli: Christian Democratic parliamentarians: from a century of multifaceted recruitment to the convergence within a larger family ?
11. Gabriella Ilonski: Socialist and Communist members of parliament: distinctiveness, convergence, variance
12. Juan J. Linz, Carmen Ortega and Miguel Jerez: The extreme right
13. Filippo Tronconi and Luca Verzichelli: Parliamentary elites of new European party families: Unsuccessful challenges or chaotic signs of change?
Part III: Comprehensive analyses
14. Heinrich Best: Cleavage representation in European parliamentary history
15. Maurizio Cotta, Luca Verzichelli: Paths of institutional development and elite transformations
Maurizio Cotta: Conclusions
References

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

Maurizio Cotta is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Change at the University of Siena. He was Co-director of the Scientific Network, 'European Political Elites in Comparison: the long road to convergence' (EURELITE) funded by the European Science Foundation and is currently coordinator of the European 6th Framework programme Integrated Project <"INTUNE Integrated and United: A quest for Citizenship in an ever closer Europe>" He has written extensively on parliaments, executives, and on Italian politics. He has co-edited Il gigante dai piedi di argilla. La crisi del regime partitocratico in Italia (1996), Party and Goverment (1996), The Nature of Party Goverment (2000), Parliamentary representatives in Europe 1848-2000 (2000), L'Europa in Italia (2005).
Heinrich Best is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Jena. He is also Director of the multidisciplinary collaborative Research Centre, 'Societal Developments after the End of State Socialism: Discontinuity, Tradition and the Emergence of New Structures' funded by the German Science Foundation, and was Co-director of the Scientific Network, 'European Political Elites in Comparison: the long road to convergence' (EURELITE) funded by the European Science Foundation. Professor Best's publication list entails 27 books and 105 journal and book contributions as primary author and editor. His recent publications include <"Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000>" (OUP 2000); Elites in Transition: Elite Research in Central and Eastern Europe (1997); Functional Elites in the GDR: Theoretical controversies and empirical evidence (2003).

There are no related titles available at this time.

Special Features

Unprecedented historical sweep, covering 100 years
Based on a unique data set