Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
We are likely to learn much more by exploring the systems of understudied nations rather than by replicating studies about cases we already know much about
This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of political parties and party systems in each of the democratic European microstates, which tend to be relatively more democratic and stable than other party systems. Looking at party system development and institutionalization, the book examines what has caused the stability of microstates' party systems in the first place and to extract important lessons of how politics work in other low-scale political contexts, for instance, at the sub-national level. With chapters provided by leading experts in the field, the book contributes towards scaling down the level of analysis in comparative studies in social sciences that remain state-centred. It concludes with a discussion on the need to bring in microstates in the study of party politics in general.
This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of party systems and political parties, microstates, elections and democracy, European politics and more broadly to comparative politics.
Synopsis
This book represents the first comprehensive study of the evolution of parties and party systems in all nine democratic European states with less than one million inhabitants.
As small political units have for long been considered to be most conducive to stable democracy, this volume analyses the actual role of political parties and partisan competition in the operation of modern democracy in those European microstates. Drawing on the crucial contribution of leading country experts in the field, it provides rich, systematic contextualized knowledge on these lesser-known cases. It further contributes to the mainstreaming of small state research in social science studies by comparing the experience of party politics in European microstates with that of larger countries in the same region of the world.
This volume will be of key interest to scholars and students of party systems and political parties, elections and democracy, small states, European politics and more broadly of comparative politics.