The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies: A Comparative Study

The collection includes essays on Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Norway and the United Kingdom which have important differences in their party systems, their degree of democratization, the role assigned to party leaders and their methods of leadership selection. Each country examination provides significant data relating to party rules and norms of leadership selection, leadership tenures and leadership contests. The book concludes with a chapter that merges the country data analyses to provide a truly comparative examination of the theoretical questions underlying the volume.

This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of legislative studies, elections, democracy, political parties, party systems, political elites and comparative politics.