Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies

Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies brings together insights from the worlds of party politics and public administration in order to analyze the role of political parties in public appointments across contemporary Europe. Based on an extensive new data gathered through expert interviews in fifteen European countries this book offers the first systematic comparative assessment of the scale of party patronage and its role in sustaining modern party governments. Among the key findings are: First patronage appointments tend to be increasingly dominated by the party in public office rather than being used or controlled by the party organization outside parliament. Second rather than using appointments as rewards as used to be the case in more clientelistic systems in the past parties are now more likely to emphasize appointments that can help them to manage the infrastructure of government and the state. In this way patronage becomes an organizational rather than an electoral resource. Third patronage appointments are increasingly sourced from channels outside of the party thus helping to make parties look increasingly like network organizations primarily constituted by their leaders and their personal and political hinterlandsparative Politics is a series for students teachers and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: essex.ac.uk/ecprThe Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell School of Politics and International Relations University College Dublin Kenneth Carty Professor of Political Science University of British Columbia and Professor Dirk Berg-Schlosser Institute of Political Science Philipps University Marburg.