Kristoffer Kolltveit is a professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Oslo, Norway. His research interests include political and administrative elites, media impact in the central administration, cabinet decision-making and bureaucracy.Richard Shaw is Professor of Politics at Massey University, New Zealand. His research interests focus on different facets of the advent of ministerial advisors in parliamentary democracies, and on political-administrative relations in comparative contexts.

• Part I: Setting the scene.- Chapter 1. In the beginning: The story of a concept (Kristoffer Kolltveit and Richard Shaw).- Chapter 2. Core executive studies in the wild (Richard Shaw and Kristoffer Kolltveit).- Chapter 3. Court politics: From metaphor to theory (R.A.W. Rhodes).- Part II: Core executives in Westminster contexts.- Chapter 4. Court politics in an age of austerity: David Cameron’s court, 2010–2016 (R.A.W. Rhodes).- Chapter 5. Ireland’s core executive at one hundred years of self-government: Navigating coalition, crisis and complexity(Bernadette Connaughton).- Chapter 6. New Zealand: The core within the core (Richard Shaw and Rose Cole).- Part III: Core executives in Continental countries.- Chapter 7. On a wildgoose chase? The (core) executive in Germany (Anna Hundehege and Thurid Hustedt).- Chapter 8. The Netherlands: How weak prime ministers gain influence (Erik-Jan van Dorp and R.A.W. Rhodes).- Part IV: Core executives in Scandinavia.- Chapter 9. The Swedish executive: Centralising from afar (Erik Brinde, Thurid Hustedt and Heidi HoulbergSalomonsen).- Chapter 10. The Danish core executive: From ‘duopoly’ to ‘monopoly’? (Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Amalie Trangbæk).- Chapter 11. The Norwegian core executive: Baronial courts and inner circles? (Kristoffer Kolltveit and Jostein Askim).- Part V: Conclusion.- Chapter 12. Continuity and change: Explaining developments and looking to the future (Kristoffer Kolltveit and Richard Shaw).