Suchergebnisse

"The main purpose of this introductory chapter is to give an initial systematic overview of the information that is treated in the individual country studies. The authors do not attempt to anticipate the exhaustive comparative analysis now made possible by the free availability of relevant historical data on elections and electoral systems in Europe. In contrast to many publications on European elections and parties, where the East and the West are treated separately, and small and so-called micro states are often ignored, Elections in Europe comprise all European countries, from Albania to Vatican City, irrespective of their individual size, in alphabetical order. They do not deny that a grouping of 45 European states would have made sense. Among comparative scholars, a subregional approach is widespread. For example, Southern European countries are regularly treated as a distinct group-or area with common features; the same goes for the Central and Eastern European countries. Especially for comparative research, political scientists would certainly find some more criteria to systematize the large set of countries: regime type (authoritarian, democratic), state structure (centralist, federalist), form of government (parliamentarism, presidentialism), type of democracy (majoritarian, consensus), level of development (agrarian, industrialist), etc. For systematic reasons, the authors preferred an alphabetical order." (excerpt)