On the Internal Balance of Party Power

Abstract

This paper focuses on the relationship between the party central office and the party in public office in the relatively new democracies of Southern and East Central Europe. The analysis reveals that, although the party executives are strongly invaded by public office holders, it is, contrary to expectations, not the party in public office but the party central office that emerges as the most predominant of the two faces. It appears that party organizations in these new democracies are largely controlled from a small centre of power, located at the intersection of the extra-parliamentary organization and the party in public office. This phenomenon, it is argued, can probably be best explained as a device to increase party cohesion and to reduce the potentially destabilizing consequences that emerge from a context of weakly developed party loyalties and a general lack of party institutionalization.