Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies (Comparative Politics)

Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies brings together insights from the worlds of party politics and public administration in order to analyze the role of political parties in public appointments across contemporary Europe. Based on an extensive new data gathered through expert interviews in fifteen European countries, this book offers the first systematic comparative assessment of the scale of party patronage and its role in sustaining modern party governments. Among the key findings are: First, patronage appointments tend to be increasingly dominated by the party in public office rather than being used or controlled by the party organization outside parliament. Second, rather than using appointments as rewards, as used to be the case in more clientelistic systems in the past, parties are now more likely to emphasize appointments that can help them to manage the infrastructure of government and the state. In this way patronage becomes an organizational rather than an electoral resource. Third, patronage appointments are increasingly sourced from channels outside of the party, thus helping to make parties look increasingly like network organizations, primarily constituted by their leaders and their personal and political hinterlands.

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.essex.ac.uk/ecpr

The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia, and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser, Institute of Political Science, Philipps University, Marburg.

Petr Kopecky has published extensively in the fields of comparative politics, party politics and democratization. His books include Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak Republics (Ashgate 2001), Uncivil Society? Contentious Politics in Eastern Europe (co-edited, Routledge 2003), Political Parties and the State in Post-Communist Europe (edited, Routledge 2007). He is a co-editor of the journal East European Politics. He is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University, Netherlands.

The late Peter Mair was Professor of Comparative Politics and Director of Graduate Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He was co-editor of the journal West European Politics, and an Honorary Professor in European Politics at Leiden University. He was a former winner of the Stein Rokkan Prize and co-director of the Observatory on Political Parties and Representation, based at the EUI in Florence.

Maria Spirova has published on issues related to party development, minority policy, ethnic politics, and Europeanization in the post-communist world. She is the author of Political Parties in Post Communist Societies: Formation, Persistence and Change (Palgrave McMillan, 2007). She is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics and International Relations in the Department of Political Science at Leiden University, Netherlands.