This book is a comparative study of liberal parties in Western Europe, examining the role and development of liberal parties within individual countries; their internal party structure and organization; electoral audience; coalitions and government participation; party programmes and strategies; and international and cross-national links.

A study of territorial dynamics within party organizations in multi-layered systems. This book contributes to a new approach in party research which acknowledges the importance of multi-layered institutional framing. It includes an analysis of vertical linkages and sub-state autonomy in Austrian, Belgian, British, German and Spanish parties.

This book analyses how party competition has adjusted to the success of populism in Western Europe, whether this is non-populists dealing with their populist competitors, or populists interacting with each other. The volume focuses on Western Europe in the period 2007–2018 and considers both right-wing and left-wing populist parties. It critically assesses the concept and rise of populism, and includes case studies on Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, the United Kingdom, Greece, and Italy. The authors apply an original typology of party strategic responses to political competitors, which allows them to map interactions between populist and non-populist parties in different countries. They also assess the links between ideology and policy, the goals of different populist parties, and how achieving power affects these parties. The volume provides important lessons for the study of political competition, particularly in the aftermath of a crisis and, as such, its framework can inform future research in the post-Covid-19 era. This wide-ranging study will appeal to students and scholars of political science interested in populism and political competition; and will appeal to policy makers and politicians from across the political spectrum.

Well-reputed political scientists residing and teaching in ten countries, five in Asia and five in Europe, comparatively examine the place of political parties in democracy, and provide an empirically rigorous, up-to-date, comprehensive synthesis of the organization of political parties and their links with citizens in a democracy.

In spite of the fact that Conservative, Christian democratic and Liberal parties continue to play a crucial role in the democratic politics and governance of every Western European country, they are rarely paid the attention they deserve. This cutting-edge comparative collection, combining qualitative case studies with large-N quantitative analysis, reveals a mainstream right squeezed by the need to adapt to both 'the silent revolution' that has seen the spread of postmaterialist, liberal and cosmopolitan values and the backlash against those values – the 'silent counter-revolution' that has brought with it the rise of a myriad far right parties offering populist and nativist answers to many of the continent's thorniest political problems. What explains why some mainstream right parties seem to be coping with that challenge better than others? And does the temptation to ride the populist wave rather than resist it ultimately pose a danger to liberal democracy?

This book examines the behaviour of political parties in situations where they experience conflict between two or more important objectives.

This book provides a systematic and comparative account of the rise of ‘new challenger parties’ across Western Europe. It analyses how parties that challenge the conventional party system by addressing issues neglected by existing parties can succeed and fail. Systematically comparing 229 elections since 1950 across 15 European democracies, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Benelux and Scandinavian countries, this book questions why new challenger parties are more successful in some countries than others, and analyses the conditions that determine their emergence and subsequent success or failure. As one of the first systematic and comparative examinations of new challenger parties, this book looks at both new politics parties and extreme-right parties, and the structures to aid their emergence at the time of an election. Identifying two distinctive stages of party development, the author adopts a ‘double-hurdle’ model involving, first, the chances of emergence, and second, sustained success. This framework, in combination with a wide-range of empirical data, provides for an innovative and insightful analysis of a neglected topic. New Challenger Parties in Western Europe will be of interest to students and scholars of government, comparative politics and political parties.