Cabinets in Eastern Europe is a comprehensive study which enables the reader to compare the origins, structure, composition and activities of these cabinets and to draw lessons from this comparison. Each chapter begins with a survey of the evolution of cabinets since the fall of communism at the beginning of the 1990s. The emphasis is then laid on the place of the cabinet in the constitution and on the role of presidents and prime ministers in the formation of the life of each cabinet. At a time when most Eastern European countries are candidates for membership in the European Union, this volume provides a unique comparative presentation of the way in which cabinets have been evolving in Eastern Europe since the end of communism.

A fully-updated second edition of the presentation of the structure and workings of the national cabinets in Western European countries today. This book is based on a common framework which enables the reader to compare the origins, structure, composition and activities of these cabinets and to draw lessons from this comparison. Emphasis is placed on the leadership and on the character of coalitions. When West European ministers are working ever more closely together, a knowledge of the life of national cabinets is vital as is an understanding of the differences between types of cabinet decision-making in the context of the reforms proposed of Western European governments.

Coalition government among different political parties is the way most European democracies are governed. Traditionally, the study of coalition politics has been focused on Western Europe. Coalition governance in Central Eastern Europe brings the study of the full coalition life-cycle to a region that has undergone tremendous political transformation, but which has not been studied from this perspective. The volume covers Bulgaria, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. It provides information and analyses of the coalition life-cycle, from pre-electoral alliances to coalition formation and portfolio distribution, governing in coalitions, the stages that eventually lead to government termination, and the electoral performance of coalition parties. In Central Eastern Europe, few single-party cabinets form and there have been only a few early elections. The evidence provided shows that coalition partners in the region write formal agreements (coalition agreements) to an extent that is similar to the patterns that we find in Western Europe, but also that they adhere less closely to these contracts. While the research on Western Europe tends to stress that coalition partners emphasize coalition compromise and mutual supervision, there is more evidence of 'ministerial government' by individual ministers and their parties. There are also some systems where coalition governance is heavily dominated by the prime minister. No previous study has covered the full coalition life-cycle in all of the ten countries with as much detail. Systematic information is presented in 10 figures and in more than one hundred tables. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Emilie van Haute, Professor of Political Science, Université libre de Bruxelles; Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Leuphana University; and Susan Scarrow, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Political Science, University of Houston.

This book focuses on Prime Ministers (PMs) in the post-communist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It shows how the survival of PMs in chief executive office depends on their interrelations with other actors in three different arenas. The first arena encompasses the linkages between PMs and their parties. In this respect, being a party leader is a major power resource for PMs to retain office even under critical circumstances. At the heart of the second arena is the PMs’ relationship to other parliamentary parties. In this regard, the high fragmentation and fluidity of many post-communist party systems pose enormous challenges for PMs to secure constant parliamentary support. In the third arena, PMs are confronted with state presidents. Given their relatively strong powers in most CEE countries, presidents may use their constitutional powers to interfere in the political domain of PMs and thus jeopardise the stability of party governments. The book offers new evidence on these relationships from case studies and a broader comparative perspective. This volume will be of great use to students and researchers interested in comparative politics and government, European studies as well as political leadership. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of East European Politics and are accompanied by a revised introduction and a new conclusion.

The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics is an authoritative overview that will help a wide readership develop an understanding of the region in all its political, economic, and social complexity. Including Central Europe, the Baltic republics, South Eastern Europe, and the Western Balkans, as well as all the countries of the former Soviet Union, it is unrivalled in breadth and depth, affording a comprehensive overview of Eastern European politics provided by leading experts in the fields of comparative politics, international relations, and public administration. Through a series of cutting-edge articles, it seeks to explain and understand patterns of Eastern European politics today. The Routledge Handbook of East European Politics will be a key reference point both for advanced-level students developing knowledge about the subject, researchers producing new material in the area, and those interested and working in the fields of East European Politics, Russian Politics, EU Politics, and more broadly in European Politics, Comparative Politics, Democratization Studies, and International Relations.

Governing New European Democracies is a fully comparative study of decision-making processes in the cabinets of ten post-communist countries of East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. It is based on interviews collected from over 300 ministers. This book provides the first comprehensive panorama of life in cabinet governments.

This insightful book brings the study of coalitions and coalition governance in Central and Eastern European democracies up to date, with an analytical focus framed by difficult economic and social periods, such as the end of the economic crisis and the Coronavirus pandemic. The volume posits insights from a plethora of experts on party politics and coalition studies from their respective countries, with chapters on Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Embellished with illustrative tables and extensive datasets throughout, each chapter maps the developments of party system change, covering the coalition life cycle from the early 1990s until the end of 2021, and explores whether there has been transformation of the coalition, governance and dissolutions patterns due to heightened pressures. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of coalition politics, representative democracy, governance, political parties, European Union politics, East and Central European politics, and comparative politics.

This books examines the institutional foundations of coalition government in the ten post-communist democracies of Eastern and Central Europe for the 1990-2010 period: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Its central argument is that differences in the arrangement of political institutions systematically explain variations in patterns of multi-party government across these states. The book starts with the premise that electoral systems and constitutional provisions about the powers, the structure, and the relationship between parliament and the presidency determine the degree to which political power is dispersed or concentrated in the political system. On the basis of these institutional features, three groups of states are distinguished with regard to their degree of power concentration; the substantive chapters of the book demonstrate how these institutional combinations and differences shape three specific facets of party government which capture the main stages of the lifecycle of coalitions governments: the formation of electoral coalitions, government formation and government duration. Specifically, three comparative chapters assess the impact of institutional power concentration on the size of electoral coalitions; the likelihood that political parties form a minority government; and the number of days that a government lasts in office. The main finding of the book is that power concentration matters: political parties in those democracies where institutions are designed to concentrate political power tend to form large electoral coalitions, they tend to form majority rather than undersized governments, and they build more durable cabinets. In addition, the book contains a detailed case study of government formation in Hungary and a previously unstudied comparison of indirect presidential elections in four states: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and Latvia. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu.

The formation of governments without a majority in parliament is a counterintuitive, albeit empirically relevant, phenomenon: minority governments make up about one-third of all governments in Europe. The author offers an analysis of the conditions leading to the formation of minority governments in Central and Eastern Europe and provides the reader with a detailed overview of the processes underlying the formation of governments from the early 1990s up to 2010.

"An English adaptation of Helmolt's Weltgeschichte, with a rejection of sections which did not seem quite adequate from the point of view of its English readers". -- Publisher's note.