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This thesis consists of an introduction and four self-contained papers, designated I-IV, which extend previous research on national political parties and voters in Western Europe. More specifically, the issues addressed are parties' positions and voters' opinions on European integration and their dynamic interactions, i.e. the extent to which parties' influence voters' opinions, voters influence parties, and the conditions under which they influence each other. All four papers make contributions to both the content of the research field and methodology (statistical techniques) applied. Paper I re-examines and evaluates several hypotheses regarding the way national political parties position themselves with respect to European integration. Based on analysis of panel data on references to Europe in the election manifestos of political parties in 16 West European countries between 1970 and 2003, I present evidence that their stances on European integration have been largely determined by their ideology, here measured by the locations of the parties within party families and their general orientation along the left/right ideological continuum. The results indicate that the influence of ideology has diminished over time and parties have adopted more favourable positions towards the European project, but it is too early to ignore the connection between left/right and pro/anti integration, since many marginal parties are still taking oppositional stances that are strongly related to their ideological commitments. In Paper II, I discuss how configurational comparative methods (i.e. Qualitative Comparative Analysis, QCA) and statistical methods can be combined to provide tests for the sufficiency of any given set of combination of causal conditions. The potential utility of the mixed-method approach for analyzing political phenomena is demonstrated by applying it to cross-national data regarding party-based Euroscepti¬cism in Western Europe. The findings show that oppositional stances to European integration are mainly restricted to non-governmental ideological fringe parties on both the left and right. Further, radical left parties with Eurosceptical positions are largely restricted to countries with social democratic (i.e. Nordic) welfare state regimes. The empirical example presented in this paper demonstrates that configurational methods can be successfully combined with related statistical methods. Paper III examines and evaluates the link between electorates' opinions and national political parties' positions on European integration, i.e. the extent to which political parties lead and/or follow public opinion on this issue. Applying a method for causal modelling to panel data concerning political parties' positions and voters' opinions in 15 countries from 1973 to 2003, I find (contrary to previous investigations of this relationship) that there is little empirical support for an electoral connection or reciprocal causation between party positions and electorates' opinion regarding European integration. Parties have an influence on voter opinions, but they are largely unresponsive to changes in voter opinion. In Paper IV, I examine when parties do (and do not) influence voters' opinions about EU policy issues. According to previous research, whether parties are able to persuade their constituents to adopt their standpoints depends on several conditions: characteristics and preferences of individual voters, intra-party factors, inter-party factors and several factors that affect the salience of EU issues at the domestic level. Applying hierarchical linear models to data concerning voters' opinions and political parties' positions in 14 West European countries, I present findings regarding the conditions under which parties are actually able to influence voters' opinions concerning European integration.

The aim of this article is to examine which factors robustly influence cabinet duration in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). In this respect the article investigates the role political institutions (including vote of no-confidence procedures), parliamentary and cabinet attributes, and various contextual factors have on cabinet stability. By using a type of sensitivity analysis (i.e. Extreme Bounds Analysis) on a panel of about 180 cabinets in CEE, it is possible to examine which factors consistently predict the probability of government survival. It is found that only a few factors are robust to alternative model specifications, namely: government type, fragmentation in parliament, the level of unemployment, and restrictive no-confidence votes procedures which make it more difficult for the opposition to bring down a government. Thus, the results indicate that cabinet duration in CEE is not primarily affected by sui generis factors to the region, but by factors of more general relevance.

When do Liberal parties get into government, and under which circumstances? With which partners do they generally form government? When getting into office, which ministerial portfolios do they usually obtain? In most European democracies, Liberal parties are represented in parliament and have been in office at some point in time. They also seem to have an above-average ability to secure a place in government and to obtain ministerial portfolios. This chapter takes a comparative approach and examines the patterns of government participation among Liberal parties, and their success in getting both the Prime Ministership and other important ministerial portfolios. ; Representative democracy in Europe

To what extent are incumbent governments affected by the state of the economy when it comes to premature dissolution? This article investigates this research question using a data set on parties and governments for 18 West European countries for the period 1945–2013. In addition to investigating the general effect of the state of the economy on government termination, we hypothesize that macroeconomic conditions affect cabinet termination in different ways depending on the type of government that is in power. Using Cox proportional hazards models to estimate how different government types are impacted by the same changes in the economy, our results indicate that economic changes do matter, but that they mainly affect coalition governments. Our results also indicate that there is a difference between minority and majority governments when it comes to the type of termination. Minority coalition governments resolve to early elections, not replacements, presumably because a minority government does not survive defection. Majority coalition governments, in contrast, show sensitivity towards both types of terminations.

Few political parties are willing to lead the public debate on how the European Union should develop and parties rarely publicly discuss issues on the EU agenda. This is probably one of the most important democratic problems in the contemporary EU. When and why parties are willing (or not willing) to discuss European cooperation is therefore an essential issue in which political science should engage. Previous research has shown that parties that are internally divided on EU issues downplay these issues in order to avoid internal disputes. At the same time, parties that have severe intraparty conflicts over the issue are unable to contain the debate. Thus, parties that are unified in their position on EU issues and parties that are heavily split speak about the EU, but others do not. Also, earlier research has shown that political parties downplay issues in response to internal divisions among their supporters. It is argued in this article that the focus should not be solely on intraparty conflict or whether or not a party's voters are hesitant or disunited, but rather on how these factors interact in order to better understand how parties act strategically regarding EU issues. Using a new dataset that relies on quantitative content analysis of quality newspapers during the national election campaigns in the period 1983–2010 in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden, it is found that parties that have a high degree of internal dissent on European issues, while at the same time having an equally divided electorate, are the parties that are most present in the public debate. Hence, it is the interaction between these two important factors that explains much of the variation in the amount of attention paid to European issues in national election campaigns. ; Representative Democracy in Europe ; The Politicization of Europe - A comparative study of six West European countries, 1970-2010