Maurizio Cotta is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for the Study of Political Change at the University of Siena. He was Co-director of the Scientific Network, 'European Political Elites in Comparison: the long road to convergence' (EURELITE) funded by the European Science Foundation and is currently coordinator of the European 6th Framework programme Integrated Project "INTUNE Integrated and United: A quest for Citizenship in an ever closer Europe " He has written extensively on parliaments, executives, and on Italian politics. He has co-edited Il gigante dai piedi di argilla. La crisi del regime partitocratico in Italia (1996), Party and Goverment (1996), The Nature of Party Goverment (2000), Parliamentary representatives in Europe 1848-2000 (2000), L'Europa in Italia (2005).
Heinrich Best is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Jena. He is also Director of the multidisciplinary collaborative Research Centre, 'Societal Developments after the End of State Socialism: Discontinuity, Tradition and the Emergence of New Structures' funded by the German Science Foundation, and was Co-director of the Scientific Network, 'European Political Elites in Comparison: the long road to convergence' (EURELITE) funded by the European Science Foundation. Professor Best's publication list entails 27 books and 105 journal and book contributions as primary author and editor. His recent publications include "Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000 " (OUP 2000); Elites in Transition: Elite Research in Central and Eastern Europe (1997); Functional Elites in the GDR: Theoretical controversies and empirical evidence (2003).

• 1: Maurizio Cotta and Heinrich Best: Parliamentary representatives from early democratisation to the age of consolidated democracy


• Part I: Dimensions of variation


• 2: Michael Rush: The decline of the nobility


• 3: Maurizio Cotta and Pedro Tavares de Almeida: From servants of the state to elected representatives


• 4: Verona Christmas and Ulrik Kiaer: Why so few and why so slow?


• 5: Daniel Gaxie and Laurent Godmer: Cultural capital and political selection


• 6: Stefaan Fiers and Ineke Secker: A career through the party


• 7: Mogens N. Pedersen, Ulrik Kjaer and Kjell A. Eliassen: The geographical dimension of parliamentary recruitment


• Part II: Variations across party families


• 8: Valerie Cromwell and Luca Verzichelli: The changing nature and role of European conservative parties in parliamentary institutions


• 9: Ilka Ruostetsari: Restructuring of the European political centre: withering Liberals and persisting Agrarian party families


• 10: Luca Verzichelli: Christian Democratic parliamentarians: from a century of multifaceted recruitment to the convergence within a larger family ?


• 11: Gabriella Ilonski: Socialist and Communist members of parliament: distinctiveness, convergence, variance


• 12: Juan J. Linz, Carmen Ortega and Miguel Jerez: The extreme right


• 13: Filippo Tronconi and Luca Verzichelli: Parliamentary elites of new European party families: Unsuccessful challenges or chaotic signs of change?


• Part III: Comprehensive analyses


• 14: Heinrich Best: Cleavage representation in European parliamentary history


• 15: Maurizio Cotta, Luca Verzichelli: Paths of institutional development and elite transformations


• Conclusions


• References

This book contributes to a better understanding of relations between social and political change, and the importance of institutional factors in shaping the political elites of European democracies. It helps to substantiate theoretical debates in the social and political sciences on issues such as historical institutionalism and path dependency.