Parliamentary party groups in European democracies: Political parties behind closed doors

Book abstract:

The opening chapter of the book examines the role of parliamentary party groups (PPGs) in representative democracy and this is followed in chapter one by justification of why PPGs should be further studied with the presentation of five other arguments. These are: electoral accountability, the formation and policy-making of governments, system legitimacy, opening the political process for public scrutiny, and understanding the democratic process.

The two introductory chapters are followed by a series of case studies of thirteen European countries. These include the major European countries of France, Germany and the United Kingdom as well as at least one country from regions containing smaller European countries: thus the Netherlands and Belgium for the Benelux region; Denmark, Sweden and Finland for the Scandinavian area; and Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the Central and Eastern Europe region. A notable omission is the lack of a case study of a country from the Mediterranean region.

A final case study analyses the role of PPGs in the European Parliament, where PPGs tend to take on a different form and role to those in national parliaments.

In the concluding chapter, the case studies are compared across two different factors: the internal organisation and working of PPGs; and the relationship between PPGs and the external party and the government.