European Party Politics in Times of Crisis

This comprehensive study of party competition in Europe since 2008 aids understanding of the recent, often dramatic, changes taking place in European politics. It addresses how the multiple crises that Europe faces have affected the intensity and structure of party competition, and whether we are seeing a wave of 'critical elections' which will reshape European politics for years to come. The geographical scope of the book covers fifteen European countries, including cases from North-Western Europe (Austria, Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland), Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain), and Central-Eastern Europe (Hungary, Latvia, Poland, and Romania). Using original data from a large-scale content analysis of mass media, and the debates among parties in election campaigns, this book provides clear graphical presentations of the results, appealing to a wide readership of students, scholars, journalists, practitioners, and the politically interested public.

Swen Hutter is Lichtenberg-Professor in Political Sociology at Freie Universität Berlin, and Vice Director of the Center for Civil Society Research, a joint initiative of Freie Universität and the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung. Hutter is the author of Protesting Culture and Economics in Western Europe (2014) and co-editor of Politicising Europe (Cambridge, 2016).

Hanspeter Kriesi holds the Stein Rokkan Chair in Comparative Politics at the European University Institute, Florence. He was the director of a Swiss national research programme on 'Challenges to democracy in the 21st century' from 2005–12. Currently, he is the principal investigator of the ERC project 'Political Conflict in Europe in the Shadow of the Great Recession'.