Party Systems and Economic Policy Change in Postcommunist Democracies<BR> Ideological Consensus and Institutional Competition

Abstract

Much attention has been devoted to the development of party systems in postcommunist democracies. Most of this work has focused on the maturation or institutionalization of the party systems, that is, on the process of generating a more institutionally fixed and well-organized set of parties with more stable support bases.' This article looks at policy consequences of party system development. Although case studies of policy consequences examine both institutional and ideological characteristics of party systems, the quantitative studies tend to focus on more easily measurable institutional characteristics. This analysis supplements standard institutional measures of postcommunist party system attributes with a set of appropriate ideological variables. The construction of quantitative measures of ideological characteristics goes beyond the binary distinction between left and right governments or parties, because it is called for theoretically to isolate different levels of opposition to the policy changes of interest. These institutional and ideological data are collected for all of the postcommunist democracies. This approach is motivated by the explanatory limitations of purely institutional measures of party system characteristics. While such organizational factors may be important, they must be supplemented with measures that capture different levels of ideological support and opposition.2 For example, two or more smaller, ideologically similar parties may act like one larger, ideologically comparable party.3 It is important to map the strength of such ideological groups. This mapping makes it possible to consider institutionalized party characteristics, not as an undifferentiated combination of ideological and institutional divisions, but as institutional residuals that remain after controlling for underlying ideological divisions. Haggard and McCubbins hypothesize that, even after controlling for ideological divisions, purely institutional divisions may hamper policy change and may make policy preferences more accountable to narrow private interests.4 Here, democratic process explanations of postcommunist market reform efforts are examined. In the postcommunist world, and in contrast to what has often occurred in