Politics in Europe

An approachable, yet rigorous introduction to the region, the book's strong analytic framework and organization, coupled with detailed country coverage, ensure that students not only get a robust introduction to each country, but also are able to make meaningful cross-national comparisons. "In substantive terms, the book offers thorough and comprehensive coverage of the major issues. It covers basic institutional patterns particularly well and places them usefully in a broader context, both in terms of a country's historical development and in terms of its political economy and predominant policy approaches. The book is clearly written and quite accessible to students, pitched at the right level in terms of theoretical sophistication and difficulty." -- Kurt Weyland "I teach a large first year comparative politics module which focuses on European states. This book is perfect for my module. It provides comparative analysis of political systems of key European states looking at factors which affect balances of power. Each chapter includes in-depth analysis of key cleavages, political parties, electoral systems, policy-making processes, multilevel governance, civil service, executive agencies, and interest group participation in each state written by leading experts in the field. It assesses how changing patterns of governance are affecting traditional models of governance. The book is up-to-date, gives sound theoretical overviews in introductory chapters, is empirically rich and easily accessible for undergraduates." -- Allison Harcourt