This book, consisting of an introductory and concluding chapter by the editors and 13 case studies by country specialists, subjects the fashionable thesis of the growing presidentialization of the chief executive office to systematic comparative review. The countries studied are mainly in Western Europe but also include Israel, Canada, and the United States. Authors address a common set of questions within the context of each country, shaped by an initial conceptual examination of what constitutes presidentialization. This is distinguished from the simple existence of a presidential or semipresidential constitutional regime. While both favor presidentialism, in the sense of the power and autonomy of the head of government, this can fluctuate over time, as it can within the classic parliamentary systems. This distinction between presidentialization as a process and the constitutional provisions for a presidential or parliamentary system is a useful feature of the book. Given the potential confusion between these regime types and the dynamic process that is the book's focus, it is perhaps unfortunate that another name could not have been found for the processes favoring executive autonomy and power. However, given that popular and journalistic discussions have already found a name for them, it is perhaps inevitable that they should be termed presidentialization in spite of the potential ambiguities of the term.

In their illuminating and succinct introductory chapter, Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb make a clear distinction between process and regime, pointing out that the extent of effective presidentialization can fluctuate under presidential regimes as well as under parliamentary ones—though with institutional factors favoring it, it will always tend to be higher in the former than the latter. Their Figure 1.1 (p. 6) is particularly useful as a foundation for this discussion.

Three dimensions of presidentialization are identified: executive, party, and electoral. In all of these, the ability of heads of governments to free themselves from constraints on their actions and to accumulate more resources to support themselves is the key factor. The developments driving these processes are the internationalization of politics, the growth of the state, the emergence of television, and the erosion of the traditional social cleavages—freeing voters to respond to personal appeals.

With these bases for coordinated inquiry established, the country chapters examine such trends as increasingly centralized control of policymaking by the chief executive, claims to a personal rather than a party mandate from elections and also from the ordinary members of their party (over the heads of activists), and candidate-centred electoral processes. Generally they come to the conclusion that such trends are clearly apparent, even in so-called consensus democracies and even in systems where they have always been evident, such as the United States.

The design of the book—with quite detailed guidelines producing a common framework of discussion for the particular cases, but all of the specialists applying them with detailed knowledge of “their” country—is a considerable strength. It deflects any criticisms that might be made about facile generalizations or an “ideal type” approach. Each author struggles with the complexities of national politics under which general trends tend to get buried, but is obliged to uncover these trends under the remit from the editors. The result is a much clearer focus on what often comes out in such volumes as a fuzzy process, long on assertions but short on consistent evidence and riddled with inconsistencies. The book admirably seeks to avoid these weaknesses and, to a large extent, succeeds.

If this reviewer remains somewhat unconvinced of the long-term implications of the presidentialization argument, it is for two reasons that stem from the nature of the evidence, rather than from any particular weaknesses of the discussion. The first is the crucial question of how we know whether the trends the analyses uncover are not within the limits of normal fluctuation in these political systems, rather than constituting the kind of fundamental and inevitable change that the thesis of presidentialization implies. Linked to this is the question of whether historical precedents for “presidential” behavior cannot be found before 1960, which is the general starting date for the inquiry. These points are strengthened by the stress in some of the country chapters, notably Spain, Sweden, and the UK, but also that of Mauro Calise on Italy, on the short-term contingent factors producing presidential behavior. Did not Andreotti or Moro, for example, make themselves largely independent of their factionalized party structure before modern developments took place? And is not dyarchy rather than sole leadership evident in some of the most recent governments (Andrea Fischer and Gerhard Schröder, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown), not to say a predominance of the Cabinet under figures like John Major in nineties Britain?

In terms of policy autonomy, too, one can think of major decisions—going into or waging war, developing the nuclear deterrent—made by past prime ministers or presidents on their own or with a small coterie of advisors, long before the 1960s. The development of a mass press around 1900 had similar effects to the emergence of television in midcentury, while Gladstone's, de Valera's or Bismarck's election campaigns were dominated by a single personality. Is it not all situational? Or if structural changes are promoting chief executive power now, have they not been doing so for a long time?

This absence of a specific historical benchmark is a weakness, but as stressed above, it stems more from the general thesis being examined than from the book itself. Providing detailed analysis of other periods for comparison would have doubled its size. So the authors can certainly be forgiven and indeed praised for providing such detailed analyses of current trends. These certainly do make the point that general developments are for now strengthening the position of the chief executive in a variety of countries and under a diversity of formal constitutions. Along the way, the authors provide a wealth of detailed information on governmental developments in advanced industrial democracies, which will be useful to country specialists and comparativists alike. With its additional and very topical clarification of the presidentialization thesis itself, this book is a stimulating read and a very worthwhile purchase for libraries and specialized courses, as well as a distinguished contribution to its own field of research.