Politics in Europe, 5th Edition

With its thorough and systematic analyses of politics in the major European countries, this textbook works great in introductory courses. Besides explaining institutional rules and structures, the authors, who are all long-standing country experts, usefully examine how governmental decisions are actually made and what goals public policy-makers have pursued and accomplished.

Politics in Europe offers enough depth to introduce students to European countries individually and in their unique contexts while structuring chapter discussion uniformly and systematically to facilitate cross-country comparisons. This balance is difficult to find, based on my experience with other available texts on European politics.

The knowledge in the United States about Europe and vice versa is diminishing; therefore a book like Politics in Europe. is all the more important. Its updated fifth edition provides a brilliant and highly readable analysis of Europe’s major players. The book is an excellent overview of politics in Europe with its broad scope, in-depth coverage and cross-national comparison. It enables the reader to gain a thorough understanding of the context of European national politics: the political framework, the decision-making, the role of political parties and the uses of political power in each country.