1. There has been an increase in the part played by the parliaments of Western European countries in the legislative scrutiny and even initiation, but the overall role of these parliaments in this context remains relatively small. See for example P. Norton (1990). On the other hand, the personal links between parliaments and governments are close in most Western European countries, although only in a few Western European countries, such as Britain, do ministers have to belong to parliament
2. in some countries, notably France, the Netherlands, and Norway, they have on the contrary to resign their seats on joining the government. The point is, however, that, whatever the legal requirement, most ministers in cabinet-parliamentary systems proceed from the legislature and have links with the legislature. For a detailed examination of the situation in contemporary Western Europe, see L. de Winter (1991), pp. 44-69.
3. This was the view expressed by R. H. S. Crossman in the Preface which he wrote to the Fontana edition of Bagehot’s English Constitution (1966). For a more balanced view, see J. P. Mackintosh (1977), pp. 75-84. The extent to which Western European cabinet systems can be regarded as ‘prime ministerial’ will be examined specifically in Chapter 10.
4. See for instance the first two volumes of the series entitled The Future of Party Government edited by R. Wildenmann, Visions and Realities of Party Government (F. G. Castles and R. Wildenmann, eds., 1986) and Party Governments: European and American Experiences (R. S. Katz, ed., 1987) published by De Gruyter (Berlin) as part of the European University Institute Series.
5. The concept of consociational democracy was originally developed by A. Lijphart (1968), in order to account for what had been a number of characteristics of Dutch politics. This concept remains of considerable importance even if there are some doubts as to whether Dutch politics continue to fit the model. The concept of ‘adversary politics’ was developed by S. E. Finer and a number of colleagues in S. E. Finer (1975), in order to make a case for proportional representation; but the idea can be regarded as applying as a matter of principle to single-party government, although not all single-party governments behave in an ‘adversarial’ manner with respect to the other parties.