Book Reviews
Abstract
BOOK REVIEWS The 'European Union' section includes chapters on three classic topics: Euro-elections, EP party groups and transnational party federations. Julie Smith addresses the familiar question of how European Euro-elections really are. Her finding, based on an analysis of the 1994 campaign, that parties and even voters are beginning to realize that problems such as unemployment and environmental protection can find (partial) solutions at the European level, is unexpected and therefore particularly interesting. Robert Ladrech and Simon Hix confirm the quality of their previous work on Euro-parties, giving articulated and detailed treatments of the two most important party structures at the European level: respectively parliamentary groups and federations. Both agree that the develop- ment of Euro-parties will be conditioned by the evolution of a multi-level party system in which the national and the supranational dimensions are becoming increasingly interrelated. This certainly makes the overlooking of national-transnational party links in the single-party chapters all the more regrettable. Luciano Bardi Universita di Bologna S. Ludlam and M. J. Smith, eds, Contemporary British Conservatism. London: Macmillan, 1996. 42.50 (hbk); 13.99 (pbk), xiv + 322 pp. ISBN 0 333 62948 5; 0 333 62949 3. B. Evans and A. Taylor, From Salisbury