This book brings together leading scholars in the field of electoral studies and political representation to examine the democratization of the recruitment of political representatives in Western Europe. The study deals with long-term changes in parliamentary recruitment and patterns of political careers in eleven European countries from the middle of the 19th century until 2000. The book provides the first ever truly comparative study of parliamentary representation in Europe.

• Elite Transformation and Modes of Representation since the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Some Theoretical Considerations


• The Incremental Transformation of the Danish Legislative Elite: The Party System as Prime Mover


• Professional and Expert Representation: Recruitment of the Parliamentary Elite in Finland since 1863


• Detours to Modernity: Long Term Trends of Parliamentary Recruitment in Republican France 1848-1999


• Challenges, Failures and Final Success: The Winding Path of German Parliamentary Leadership Groups toward a Structurally Integrated Elite 1848-1999


• Belated Professionalisation of Parliamentary Elites: Hungary 1848-1997


• Parliamentary Elite Transformations along the Discontinuous Road of Democratisation: Italy 1861-1999


• Representatives of the Dutch People: The Smooth Transformation of the Parliamentary Elite in a Consociational Democracy


• Democratisation and Parliamentary Elite Recruitment in Norway 1848-1996


• Political Recruitment and Elite Transformation in Modern Portugal 1870-1999: The Late Arrival of Mass Representation


• Spanish Diputados: From the 1876 Restoration to Consolidated Democracy


• Continuity and Change: Legislative Recruitment in the United Kingdom 1868-1999


• Between Professionalisation and Democratisation: A Synoptic View on the Making of the European Representative

Heinrich Best is Professor, Institute for Sociology, Fredrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany
Maurizio Cotta is Professor of Sociology, University of Sienna