This article presents an overview of a project designed to simulate the distribution of seats in the European Parliament after the first direct elections in 1978. First, the data base and some basic assumptions are described which pertain to electoral systems, voter behavior, and realignments in party systems. Some illustrative results of simulation runs are summarized which proceed from voter preferences as expressed in the most recent national general elections in the nine member countries of the European Community. These findings are analyzed for individual parties and parliamentary fractions as well as with the chances for forming majority coalitions in mind. Finally, the effects of some likely shifts in voting patterns are considered assuming that current national electoral systems will be applied in 1978.

Building on to the earlier work by Stein Rokkan and by Douglas Rae, Victor Hanby, and John Loosemore on the relationship of parties' vote shares and seat shares at the district level in list proportional representation (P.R.) systems, we propose sets of formulas for (1) the thresholds of representation and exclusion that a party has to cross to win its first seat, and (2) the minimum and maximum proportions of the vote required to obtain a given number of seats. The electoral systems on which we focus our analysis are the main variants of list P.R. that have been used in practice: the d'Hondt, modified Saint-Laguë, and largest remainder systems. The thresholds of representation and the minimum vote shares tend to show greater differences among systems than the thresholds of exclusion and the maximum vote shares. These differences, however, may be outweighed by two other factors: the number of seats in a district, and the number of parties presenting lists.

A content analysis of the 1965 platforms of all Belgian political parties provides a determination of the policy objectives for the next legislature so that a survey can be made of the completely, partially, and nonrealized objectives at the end of a two-legislature (1965–1968 and 1968–1971) period according to government and opposition parties, according to party strength – which was in this period congruent with the duration of participation in the government – and according to the distinction made between the parties qualifying for government and the non-elitist opposition parties. The degree of realization is established for the total number of platform planks, for the number of specific items per party, and according to the degree of importance and social repercussion of the distinct planks that could be realized. Although respectively in office for six, four, and two years, the CVP/PSC, the BSP–PSB and the PVV/PLP realized approximately the same number of planks. The nonelitist opposition party Volksunie realized a smaller but still considerable number of objectives. So did, but to a lesser extent, the other structural or antisystem opposition parties, RW, FDF and KPB–PCB. The interpretation of these results may lie in the loss of distinctiveness in the government–opposition model in a multi-party system, the elitist consensus in Belgium which is shared by the three main parties, the function of the pressure party strategy and the conducting of opposition in dynamic terms of action.

Advanced secularization in the Scandinavian countries has not resulted in the elimination of “the religious factor” from political life, rather has it led to a resurgence with the recent establishment in Sweden, Denmark and Finland of native counterparts to Norway's Christian People's Party. The article first examines the development of the characteristic religious cleavage structures of Scandinavia, from the imposed uniformity of the state churches in the early nineteenth century to the relatively open and competitive religious cultures of the twentieth century. The interrelationship between religious cleavages and political alignments is then examined and an attempt made to explain the failure of stable religious parties to emerge in the formative period of the party systems. Finally, the circumstances surrounding the later emergence of the religious parties are described and it is argued that these parties collectively constitute a new species of the genus Christian Democracy, different in kind from Fogarty's Continental and Anglo-Saxon species.

Who sets the agenda in Soviet politics? Three answers to that question are considered in this review article. According to the totalitarian model, the selection of action goals is the privilege of a relatively autonomous supreme leadership in control of hierarchically structured sub-systems. The pluralist model, by contrast, is based on the assumption that issues acquire significance through efficient pressures by mobilized group interests. While the totalitarian interpretation emphasizes the active element in the conduct of the supreme leadership, the pluralist model stresses the reactive and reflective ingredients. The bureaucratic model similarly assumes that vertical information flows can to a large extent be controlled from below, but it differs from the pluralist model in that it defines the key political conflicts as tensions among various bureaus. As a theory of fragmentation in large organizations, the bureaucratic model of the Soviet political system may have considerable relevance for the study of Western European government as well.