Democratic Representation in Europe Diversity, Change, and Convergence

by Cotta, Maurizio; Best, Heinrich

• ISBN13: 9780199234202
• ISBN10: 0199234205
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Democratic Representation in Europe: Diversity, Change and convergence explores representation as a core element of democracies in the modern era. Over the past 150 years parliamentary representation has developed into a main link between polity and society, and parliamentary representativeshave come to form the nucleus of political elites. The twenty authors of the 16 chapters follow a comparative and empirical approach by exploiting the unique longitudinal data-base of the EURELITE project, which has gathered standardized evidence about the structures of parliamentary representationin 11 European countries and their development over time; in many countries over 160 years. Following on from an earlier book by the same editors (Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000.) which focused on trends in single European countries, Democratic Representation in Europe pursues atrans-national approach by comparing the mechanisms and modes of parliamentary recruitment and career formation between the main party families and various categories of the population in European societies. Such cross-national analyses, which include a longitudinal account of female representationthroughout modern European parliamentary history, have not been attempted before. The book concludes with longitudinal in-depth analyses of cleavage representation in European parliamentary history and of the impact of the institutional factor on political elites' transformations.Democratic Representation in Europe contributes to a better understanding of relations between social and political change, and of the importance of institutional factors in shaping the political elites of European democracies. In so doing it can help substantiate theoretical debates in the socialand political sciences on issues such as historical institutionalism and path dependency.

Author Biography

Maurizio Cotta is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Change at the University of Siena. He was Co-director of the Scientific Network, 'European Political Elites in Comparison: the long road to convergence' (EURELITE) funded by the European Science Foundation and is currently coordinator of the European 6th Framework programme Integrated Project INTUNE Integrated and United: A quest for Citizenship in an ever closer Europe. He has written extensively on parliaments, executives, and on Italian politics. He has co-edited Il gigante dai piedi di argilla. La crisi del regime partitocratico in Italia (1996), Party and Government (1996), The Nature of Party Government (2000), Parliamentary representatives in Europe 1848-2000 (2000), L'Europa in Italia (2005).
Heinrich Best is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Jena. He is also Director of the multidisciplinary collaborative Research Centre, 'Societal Developments after the End of State Socialism: Discontinuity, Tradition and the Emergence of New Structures' funded by the German Science Foundation, and was Co-director of the Scientific Network, 'European Political Elites in Comparison: the long road to convergence' (EURELITE) funded by the European Science Foundation. Professor Best's publication list entails 27 books and 105 journal and book contributions as primary author and editor. His recent publications include Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000 (OUP 2000); Elites in Transition: Elite Research in Central and Eastern Europe (1997); Functional Elites in the GDR: Theoretical Controversies and Empirical Evidence (2003).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. x
List of Tables	p. xv
Notes on Contributors	p. xviii
Preface	p. xxii
Parliamentary Representatives from Early Democratization to the Age of Consolidated Democracy: National Variations and International Convergence in a Long-term Perspective	p. 1
A long-term perspective on the democratization of Europe: political representation and the great change of European societies	p. 1
Research bases	p. 5
Theoretical perspectives	p. 7
Previous findings: variations and common trends in the long-term change of European parliamentary recruitment and careers	p. 13
Mapping differences and similarities: research questions and guidelines for this book	p. 16
Searching for explanations	p. 22
The plan of the book, chapters, and their contents	p. 23
Dimensions of Variation
The Decline of the Nobility	p. 29
Introduction	p. 29
The pre-democratic role of the nobility	p. 33
The nobility and democratization	p. 38
Conclusion	p. 48
From Servants of the State to Elected Representatives: Public Sector Background among Members of Parliament	p. 51
Preliminary remarks	p. 51
Two perspectives for understanding the weight of the etatiste background among parliamentary elites	p. 53
The variables and data in the DATACUBE	p. 56
An historical trend	p. 57
Components of the public service	p. 59
Variations across countries	p. 61
Variations across parties	p. 68
Concluding remarks	p. 74
Why so Few and Why so Slow? Women as Parliamentary Representatives in Europe from a Longitudinal Perspective	p. 77
Introduction	p. 77
The concept of gender parity	p. 78
Research findings from the literature	p. 79
Hypotheses and methods	p. 84
Data analysis	p. 86
Conclusion: why so slow, and why so few? Gender parity in the European Parliaments	p. 101
Cultural Capital and Political Selection: Educational Backgrounds of Parliamentarians	p. 106
Historical transformations of educational backgrounds of parliamentarians	p. 109
The causes of the elevation of parliamentarians' education level	p. 123
Consequences: towards new forms of political professionalization and new channels of representation	p. 131
A Career through the Party: The Recruitment of Party Politicians in Parliament	p. 136
Introduction	p. 136
Parties and 'party politicians'	p. 137
Recruitment of party officials	p. 139
Recruitment of party functionaries	p. 143
The role of the parties	p. 145
Concluding analysis and discussion	p. 152
The Geographical Dimension of Parliamentary Recruitment-among Native Sons and Parachutists	p. 160
Geography and recruitment	p. 160
A conceptual framework	p. 163
A micro approach	p. 166
A quick tour of Western Europe	p. 168
The longitudinal perspective	p. 175
A two-country exploration: Denmark and Norway	p. 180
Propositions for future research	p. 187
Variations across Party Families
The Changing Nature and Role of European Conservative Parties in Parliamentary Institutions from 1848 to the Twenty-first Century	p. 193
Questions, expectations, and rationale of the chapter	p. 193
The fortunes of conservative parties within European parliaments	p. 196
The original profile of conservative parliamentary recruitment	p. 198
Conservative politicians in the age of 'catch-all parties': towards a 'centre-right' pattern of recruitment?	p. 205
The recent 'neoconservative' elite	p. 210
Conclusions	p. 214
Restructuring of the European Political Centre: Withering Liberal and Persisting Agrarian Party Families	p. 217
The liberal party family	p. 219
The agrarian party family	p. 223
Transformation of the agrarian parties into centre parties	p. 226
Hypotheses	p. 227
Education	p. 229
Occupation	p. 233
Political experience	p. 241
Female representation	p. 248
Conclusions	p. 248
Christian Democratic Parliamentarians: From a Century of Multifaceted Recruitment to the Convergence within a 'Larger Family'?	p. 253
Introduction: research questions and structure of the chapter	p. 253
The emergence of a Christian Democratic parliamentary elite: When and how?	p. 255
Parliamentary recruitment of the European Christian democratic parties: long-term trends	p. 265
Recent developments: new types of Christian Democratic representation?	p. 276
Conclusion: from the multifaceted recruitment patterns of an historical party family to converging but 'less Christian Democratic' elites	p. 280
Socialist and Communist Members of Parliament: Distinctiveness, Convergence, and Variance	p. 284
Framework and hypotheses	p. 284
The beginning-how to be distinctive	p. 288
Socialists, communists, and the others	p. 292
Variations within the party family	p. 309
Conclusions	p. 313
The Extreme Right	p. 316
Introduction: extremisms on the right	p. 316
From the late nineteenth century to the Second World War	p. 322
Post-war extremists and neo-fascists	p. 339
Conclusions	p. 350
Parliamentary Elites of New European Party Families: Unsuccessful Challenges or Chaotic Signs of Change?	p. 353
Anarchists, alternatives, beginners? 'New politics' representative elites after 1970	p. 353
The impact of three 'new' party families within parliamentary representation in European countries	p. 356
How to deal with data on new parties: the small 'N' problem and the significance of 'challengers' MPs	p. 358
Working hypotheses and data exploration	p. 360
Towards a tentative interpretation	p. 380
Final remarks	p. 387
Comprehensive Analyses
Cleavage Representation in European Parliamentary History	p. 393
The cleavage concept and elite theory	p. 393
Research concepts and methods	p. 397
Elite structure and cleavage development: France in comparative perspective	p. 401
Strategies and dynamics of cleavage representations: a comprehensive view	p. 413
Paths of Institutional Development and Elite Transformations	p. 417
Democratization and the transformation of parliamentary elites	p. 417
Searching for explanations: some preliminary hypotheses	p. 420
The dependent variables	p. 424
The independent variables	p. 429
What empirical evidence for our hypotheses?	p. 440
Between discontinuity and adaptation: the effects of regime changes on the European parliamentary elites of the late twentieth century	p. 459
Conclusions	p. 470
Conclusions	p. 474
References	p. 483
Index	p. 509
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