The purpose of this book is to provide a comparative analysis of liberal parties in Western Europe. It not only tries to fill a gap in the study of political parties cross-nationally, but also to highlight the important role liberal parties play in the political systems, especially in governing coalitions of Western Europe. Whilst many liberal parties are small, they have sometimes been in positions where they can exert an influence which bears little relation either to their voting base within the electorate as a whole, or their parliamentary strength. Why this is so and whether liberal parties will retain this influence in the light of changes in voting patterns and the party system, are important questions for political scientists to which this book seeks to provide answers.

The stimulus to write this book came from work David Broughton and I undertook on the German Liberal Party (FDP) in 1983. I was fortunate to attract three scholars who, under the leadership of Michael Steed, had met in December 1981 in Marburg, West Germany, as part of a large group, for the purpose of compiling a book on liberal parties. In a meeting at Essex University, in March 1985, fourteen of the twenty-one contributors to the book met to finalise a common framework for research of the thirteen country studies. The country chapters are designed to produce descriptive analyses of liberal parties in national settings: past-, present- and future-oriented. Though the country analyses give the appearance of case studies, adherence to the common framework allows for comparability on, for example, liberal parties' policies and strategies, complemented by a number of specifically written comparative chapters.