1st Edition
The Selection of Ministers in Europe Hiring and Firing
1. Structural and Strategic Factors Affecting the Hiring and Firing of Ministers Keith Dowding and Patrick Dumont 2. Hiring and Firing Ministers under Informal Constraints: Germany Jörn Fischer and André Kaiser 3. Cabinet Dynamics and Ministerial Careers in the French Fifth Republic Christopher Kam and Indridi Indridason 4. Choosing, Moving and Resigning at and Westminster Samuel Berlinski, Torun Dewan, Keith Dowding and Gita Subrahmanyam 5. Italy: the Difficult Road towards a more Effective Process of Ministerial Selection Luca Verzichelli 6. Cabinet Dynamics in Democratic Spain José Real-Dato and Miguel Jerez-Mir 7. Ups and Downs of Ministerial Careers in a Partitocratic Federal State Patrick Dumont, Stefaan Fiers and Régis Dandoy 8. Portugal: The Primacy of ‘Independents’ António Costa Pinto and Pedro Tavares de Almeida 9. In Tranquil Waters: Swedish Cabinet Ministers in the Post-War Era Hanna Bäck, Thomas Persson, Kåre Vernby and Helena Wockelberg 10. Constructing and Maintaining Irish Governments Eoin O’Malley 11. More Safe than Sound? Cabinet Ministers in Iceland Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson 12. Learning to Rule: Ministerial Careers in Post-Communist Democracies Katja Fettelschoss and Csaba Nikolenyi
Biography
Edited by Dowding, Keith; Dumont, Patrick
'This book is the first product of a joint cross-national project whose goal is to systematically analyse the selection and de-selection of political elites. It is clearly a highly successful first move, and lays solid foundations for the next steps in an ambitious project. The book contains invaluable background information on the structure and formation of governments, and rich data on various aspects of the hiring and firing of ministers in ten West European democracies (Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland and Iceland). It also includes a chapter on ten new post-communist democracies. The book is useful for many purposes – from information-gathering in order to prepare an informed class on cabinets and ministers to conducting research. If one is studying the government in a single country, it offers data to put the subject in a comparative perspective. If one aims at a cross-national comparison, this volume is a good starting point.'
Gideon Rahat, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
