Correction: Fairness and stability in deposit-refund systems in the Czech Republic

Fairness and stability in deposit-refund systems in the Czech Republic

The stabilization of party systems in new democracies is commonly assumed to be a lengthy process. Applying Peter Mair's government-formation-based model of party system development to the three young East Central European democracies of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, the article shows that party systems can stabilize much more quickly than expected. In an analysis of emerging party system patterns, the Hungarian and Czech party systems are found to be far more stable than the Polish, and already nearly as stable as more mature party systems. Examining differences in the three cases, the article makes two primary conclusions about the process of stabilization in new party systems. First, it suggests that stabilization is the product of both electoral system design and consequent patterns of elite behavior. Second, it argues that stabilization not only occurs in spite of on-going volatility in party-voter alignments, but actually serves to reduce it.

This article analyses the development of competitive party politics in post‐communist East Central Europe from a comparative perspective. The central concerns are party system stabilisation and change in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and implications for comparative theory. Starting from Lipset and Rokkan's ‘cleavage model’, the article assesses the relevance of their key variables for party politics in the 1990s. Although there are considerable similarities (particularly in termsof choice of electoral systems), the cleavages, relationships between voters and parties, and the very nature of parties all differ considerably from the early Twentieth Century West European cases. Party strategy emerges as the key variable in explaining patterns of party system stability and change. Variations result from: (i) the prevalence of catch‐all type strategies; (ii) interest representation strategies; and (iii) the presence of parties that have staked out positions on the flanks of the system. The conclusions concerning the central role of party strategy are not confined to East Central Europe, but are also pertinent to the study of party system change in Western Europe.