This book analyses the determinants behind the openings in party leader selection rules (leaders' selectorate) in 10 Western European countries and more than 55 parties between the mid-1980s and the mid-2010s. Presenting a novel and revealing theoretical and empirical framework, it tackles the impact of party change and the personalisation of politics, specifically using data coming from the first expert survey on the personalisation of politics in Western Europe; the PoPES. A quantitative analysis is paired with more in-depth explorations of two Italian parties (the Italian Communist Party - Democratic Party of the Left; the Northern League) and the (missed) opening of their leader selectorate. This book highlights the critical importance of studying party leader selection rules against the backdrop of allegedly declining parties and rising party leaders and concludes by placing its findings in a broader discussion about the future of Western European party leaders. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party systems, leadership, political elites, elections, democracy, and more widely of Western European politics and comparative politics.

This book analyses the determinants behind the openings in party leader selection rules (leaders' selectorate) in 10 Western European countries and more than 55 parties between the mid-1980s and the mid-2010s. Presenting a novel and revealing theoretical and empirical framework, it tackles the impact of party change and the personalisation of politics, specifically using data coming from the first expert survey on the personalisation of politics in Western Europe; the PoPES. A quantitative analysis is paired with more in-depth explorations of two Italian parties (the Italian Communist Party - Democratic Party of the Left; the Northern League) and the (missed) opening of their leader selectorate. This book highlights the critical importance of studying party leader selection rules against the backdrop of allegedly declining parties and rising party leaders and concludes by placing its findings in a broader discussion about the future of Western European party leaders. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political parties and party systems, leadership, political elites, elections, democracy, and more widely of Western European politics and comparative politics.

This book explores the varying ways in which political parties in Europe make arguably their most important decisions: the selection of their leaders. The choice shapes the representation of a party externally. It also influences the management of internal conflict, because there will always be some disagreement about the party’s direction. The rules of selection will naturally affect the outcome. Yet there is more to it than rules. Sometimes the process is open and fiercely contested. Sometimes the field of potential leaders is filtered even before the decision reaches the selectorate – the organ that, according to party statutes, formally makes the appointment. The selectorate might have only a single candidate to ratify, a so-called ‘coronation’. The book presents a framework for analysing both the formal and informal sides of leader selection, and hones the framework through its application in a series of case studies from nine European countries.

This book explores the ways in which political parties, in contemporary parliamentary democracies, choose their leaders and then subsequently hold them accountable. The authors provide a comprehensive examination of party leadership selection and accountability both through examination of parties and countries in different institutional settings and through a holistic analysis of the role of party leaders and the methods through which they assume, and exit, the office. The collection includes essays on Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Norway and the United Kingdom which have important differences in their party systems, their degree of democratization, the role assigned to party leaders and their methods of leadership selection. Each country examination provides significant data relating to party rules and norms of leadership selection, leadership tenures and leadership contests. The book concludes with a chapter that merges the country data analyses to provide a truly comparative examination of the theoretical questions underlying the volume. This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of legislative studies, elections, democracy, political parties, party systems, political elites and comparative politics.

This book explores the varying ways in which political parties in Europe make arguably their most important decisions: the selection of their leaders. The choice shapes the representation of a party externally. It also influences the management of internal conflict, because there will always be some disagreement about the party's direction. The rules of selection will naturally affect the outcome. Yet there is more to it than rules. Sometimes the process is open and fiercely contested. Sometimes the field of potential leaders is filtered even before the decision reaches the selectorate - the organ that, according to party statutes, formally makes the appointment. The selectorate might have only a single candidate to ratify, a so-called 'coronation'. The book presents a framework for analysing both the formal and informal sides of leader selection, and hones the framework through its application in a series of case studies from nine European countries. Nicholas Aylott is Associate Professor of Political Science at Södertörn University, Sweden. He specialises in comparative politics, with a particular focus on political parties. He is co-author of Parties in Multi-Level Polities: The Nordic Countries Compared (2013) and has published in such journals as the European Journal of Political Research and Party Politics. Niklas Bolin is Associate Professor of Political Science at Mid Sweden University, Sweden. His main research interests are parties and elections, particularly organisation, leadership, intra-party democracy, radical right parties and green parties. He has published in journals including Party Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies and West European Politics.

This book presents a systematic account of the relationship between political parties and deliberative democracy. It shows which parties prefer deliberation, how intra-party deliberation takes place in practice beyond theoretical models and general descriptions, and how political elites and party members perceive deliberative democracy. Specifically, the book answers how party characteristics influence the use of deliberation by political parties, why intra-party deliberation differs in its use and functioning across parties, and how politicians and party members see deliberation. This book is of key interest to scholars and students of party politics, deliberative democracy, democratic innovations, political theory, and, more broadly, comparative politics.

"The Lisbon Treaty states that national Parliaments shall contribute to a better functioning of the EU. Can they really do it and therefore enrich the European democracy? How far can they extend their original sovereignty without distorting political responsibilities that should be geared upon the European Parliament? The authors analyze the experience of the Italian Parliament under the light of these crucial questions and their exhaustive answers are greatly helpful to the readers of all over Europe." Giuliano Amato, Judge of the Italian Constitutional Court. This important new collection explores the role of the Italian Parliament in the Euro-national parliamentary system as an example of an increased role for national parliaments within the composite European constitutional order. It illustrates how parliamentary interactions within the European Union are highly systematic, with integrated procedures and mutual interdependence between the various institutions and stakeholders. The book argues that this dynamic is vital for both the functioning and the future equilibrium of democracy in the EU. This is significant, particularly given the challenges posed to democracy within the EU institutions and the Member States. Notwithstanding its peculiarities (a symmetrical bicameral system in which both Houses are directly elected, hold the same powers and are linked through a confidence relationship with the government), the Italian Parliament deserves specific attention as a lively active player of the European polity. The grid for its analysis proposed by this collection may also be applied to other national parliaments, so contributing to the development of comparative research in this field.

This book provides a cross-country study of the consequences of the expansion of intra-party democracy, the trend towards more inclusive methods of selection for party candidates and leaders, and the impact of these on political elites in terms of sociopolitical profile and patterns of careers. It explores the link between political organizations and political elites, by studying the role of parties in parliamentary and political selection and its impact on the political leadership appointed. Putting an emphasis on primary elections, it analyses the party elites that emerge from those selection processes and those democratized organizational settings. It focuses not only on the analysis of the processes through which party elites are selected and the consequences at the level of the party but also at the level of party elites themselves, i.e. what impact party primaries have on the characteristics parties’ candidates and leaders. The book offers a theoretical, comparative, and empirical account of the internal electoral processes of parties and their impact on political recruitment. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political elites, political parties and party systems, electoral politics, democracy, populism, and leadership, and more broadly to comparative politics.

Political science research, especially in recent times, has recognized the centrality of party and executive leaders and their individual characteristics. The attention has been mostly directed towards individual leadership. However, one-chief leadership is not the only existing model of party governance, and some recent developments seem to have put forms of collective leadership into the spotlight. Two parties that have recently achieved remarkable electoral results, the Italian Five Star Movement and the German Alliance 90/The Greens, can be considered examples of alternative models of leadership. This book calls for a deep and systematic analysis of cases of parties in which powers and responsibilities appear to be shared among different individuals rather than being concentrated in the hands of just one leader. Drawing on the literature of organization and management theory, the book fills a gap in the literature of political science by developing a theoretical framework that may provide researchers with the tools for proceeding with the analysis of cases of party collective leadership. To illustrate their approach, the authors have selected three cases – the German Greens, Alternative for Germany, and the Five Star Movement in Italy – that show significant variation across types of collective leadership. The outcome of the empirical analysis contributes to a better knowledge of the nature and functioning of party leadership as well as raises questions that could be further addressed in future research.

The Presidentialization of Politics shows that the politics of democratic societies is moving towards a presidentialized working mode, even in the absence of formal institutional changes. These developments can be explained by a combination of long-term structural changes in modern politics and societies' contingent factors which fluctuate over time. While these contingent, short-term factors relate to the personalities of office holders, the overall political agenda, and the majority situation in parliament, there are several structural factors which are relatively uniform across modern nations. First, the internationalization of modern politics (which is particularly pronounced within the European Union) has led to an 'executive bias' of the political process which has strengthened the role of political top elites vis-à-vis their parliamentary groups and/or their parties. Their predominance has been amplified further by the vastly expanded steering capacities of state machineries which have severely reduced the scope of effective parliamentary control. At the same time, the declining stability of political alignments has increased the proportion of citizens whose voting decisions are not constrained by long-standing party loyalties. In conjunction with the mediatization of politics, this has increased the capacity of political leaders to by-pass their party machines and to appeal directly to voters. As a result, three interrelated processes have led to a political process increasingly moulded by the inherent logic of presidentialism: increasing leadership power and autonomy within the political executive; increasing leadership power and autonomy within political parties; and increasingly leadership-centred electoral processes. The book presents evidence for this process of presidentialization for 14 modern democracies (including the US and Canada). While there are substantial cross-national differences, the overall thesis holds: modern democracies are increasingly following a presidential logic of governance through which leadership is becoming more central and more powerful, but also increasingly dependent on successful immediate appeal to the mass public. Implications for democratic theory are considered.