Publisher's Synopsis
This is a systematic analysis of small parties in Western Europe. It aims to fill a gap in the comparative study of the politics and party systems of the region.;Small parties exist in virtually all Western European countries but their individual and collective importance has remained undefined and largely ignored. Their increasing impact in recent decades has begun to challenge the traditional view that small parties do not matter. On the contrary, their political and social functions can be out of all proportion to their size.;The authors formulate five distinct approaches to the study of small parties, a conceptual definitional approach, a numerical definitional approach, a diachronic approach, a classificatory approach and a systematic approach. These are applied in different ways to national case studies including Italy, Greece, Belgium, Denmark, Great Britain and the Netherlands.
