How Parties Organize

Reviews / Votes

`[This book] is a collection of 14 essays by 16 of today's leading scholars on political parties in western democracies. Sandwiched between a general introduction and a final chapter on European transnational parties are 12 country-specific analyses... Though one could infer from the book's title that the emphasis is on recent change to the exclusion of early party and party system development, the fact is that there is much to learn here about the context - including the historical context - of party development in each country more generally. Indeed, for some of the countries, these may be the best succinct descriptions of the party systems and their development that are currently available in English.... Those seeking a careful, thorough analysis of the changes in parties of one of the systems covered here will be well satisfied by this book' - Party Politics



`A ground-breaking research study, composed of twelve country studies plus an introductory chapter and an overview on the development of transnational party federations in Western Europe. What is provided in the individual chapters, each written by a leading authority, is not another set of "offical data" on party organizations in the country examined but a thorough insight into the highly complex relationship between different sections of a party, parties and citizens as well as parties and the state.... the volume maintains a remarkably high degree of coheremc which is, not least, the merit of Peter Mair's excellent introduction' - Political Studies





`Most people in the know will already be aware of this book, the latest publication to emerge from the mammoth Katz/Mair research programme on political parties. In a very real sense, therefore, any review is as much a commentary on the research programme as a whole as on any one of its publications. There can be no doubt that the Katz/Mair project is a very important undertaking, at the heart of European political science. The reasons for this have in part to do with the intellectual quality of the output, and in part to do with the professional logistics of organizing such an undertaking.... Following the opening chapter is a series of country-specific analyses that put some empirical flesh on these theoretical bones. The authors of each are members of the research project, acknowledged experts in their field, and provide very sound analyses. The fact that the authors have been working to a common brief for some time now means that the chapters fit together much better than those in most edited volumes.... The net result is a very useful collection of chapters that anyone writing on party politics will value. The very scale of the Katz/Mair project adds to its importance... this ambitious programme, by virtue of the fact that it has co-ordinated so many people's activities over such a long time, is likely to be the only show in town for some time to come. Others may write about party organization, of course, but taking on, or replicating, the Katz/Mair research team would be a very daunting prospect indeed. In effect, this group is putting together primary data on party organizations that will be the raw material for work in this field for quite a few years to come. This is yet another reason why How Parties Organize simply cannot be ignored' - Irish Political Studies