Overview

The Routledge Handbook of Local Elections and Voting in Europe represents the standard reference text and practical resource for everybody who analyzes issues such as local electoral systems, voting behavior, or political representation in Europe. It provides comprehensive and expert coverage of 40 European countries – organized along the respective local state traditions – and in addressing a wide range of important questions related to local elections and voting, it broadens the scope of existing analyses quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Finally, it affords a more theoretically grounded typology of local elections and voting. Each country chapter is written by a leading expert and follows a rigorous conceptual framework for cross-national comparisons, providing an overview of the local government system, details on the place of local elections within the multilevel political system, specific features of the electoral system, analysis of the main electoral outcomes in recent decades, and, finally, reflective discussion. Representative democracy is as widespread at the local as at the national level, and as the significance of local authorities in Europe has increased in recent decades, local elections represent a crucial area of study. The Routledge Handbook of Local Elections and Voting in Europe is an authoritative and essential reference text for scholars and students interested in local electoral politics and, more broadly, European studies, public administration, and political science.

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9781032194882

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Reviews

"'This is a formidable book. The book provides a golden opportunity to learn about how democracy works at the local level. Forty great chapters about electoral systems, electoral participation, party politicization, and descriptive representation in 40 different countries, plus an enlightening introduction and conclusion in which the similarities and amazing variety of patterns are clearly highlighted. This is an absolute must read if you study local politics, and it is fun to read for everyone. You will learn a lot and you will want to study local elections because there are so many intriguing facts and patterns to make sense of'. André Blais, University of Montreal, Canada 'This comprehensive volume on local elections and voting in Europe is truly impressive. It offers a well-conceived theoretical two-dimensional structure which allows the many authors to provide comparable insights on the 40 countries covered, whether large or small, well-known or completely new to the scholarly community. The study of local elections has previously often suffered from a focus on only a few selected jurisdictions, but now presentations and data-access for a huge variety of countries are made available so that a new generation of local election studies can further enrich election studies in general. The editors’ effort is very commendable and there is no doubt that this volume is the new must-read for all comparativists working with elections at the local level. But there is also no doubt that even people who still prefer to focus on one country only can also benefit considerably from it'. Jørgen Elklit, Aarhus University, Denmark 'Elections have been called ""feasts of democracy"". Without any doubt local governments across the globe are the main venue for such democratic feasts. It is therefore hard to believe that local polls have long been a blank spot on the map of our knowledge of democratic elections. This volume – produced by the fine-fleur of international experts in this emerging field of research – makes a giant step forward in charting this largely unknown territory'. Bas Denters, University of Twente, The Netherlands"

Author Information

Adam Gendźwiłł is Assistant Professor in the Department of Local Development and Policy at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Ulrik Kjaer is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. Kristof Steyvers is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ghent University, Belgium.

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