State Formation, Parties and Democracy

This volume re-publishes classical studies by Hans Daalder (1928) on three major themes: the different paths towards state formation in Europe; their effect on parties and party systems and their alleged crises; and the rise and merits of the consociational democracy model. They testify to the actuality of past analyses for understanding patterns of democratization, the stability and challenges to democracy, pluralism and individual liberties, and the political role of bureaucracies in Western Europe The book throws a unique light on the development of comparative studies after World War II as seen through the eyes on an active participant. In a fascinating preface Peter Mair contrasts two scholarly generations in the field of comparative and cross-national studies.

Hans Daalder is emeritus professor of political science at Leiden University where he founded one of the eight departments which formed the ECPR in 1970. At his retirement he edited a book of four biographical and twenty-three autobiographical chapters by scholars in the field of comparative European politics on both side of the Atlantic under the title Comparative European Politics. The Story of a Profession (London 1997).