Book Description

"The Routledge Handbook of Local Elections and Voting in Europe represents the standard reference text and practical resource for everybody who analyses issues as local electoral systems, voting behavior or political representation in Europe. It provides comprehensive and expert coverage of 40 European countries - organized along the respective local state traditions - and in addressing a wide range of important questions related to local elections and voting, broadens the scope of existing analyses quantitatively as well as qualitatively. Finally, it affords a more theoretically grounded typology of local elections and voting. Each country chapter is written by a leading expert and follows a rigorous conceptual framework for cross-national comparisons, providing an overview of the local government system, details on the place of local elections within the multi-level political system, specific features of the electoral system, analysis of the main electoral outcomes in the recent decades and finally reflective discussion. Representative democracy is as widespread at the local as at the national level, and as the significance of local authorities in Europe increased in the recent decades, local elections represent a crucial area of study. The Routledge Handbook of Local Elections and Voting in Europe is an authoritative and essential reference text for scholars and students interested in local electoral politics, and more broadly European studies, public administration and political science"--