The Communist Successor Parties of Central and Eastern Europe by A. Bozóki J. T. Ishiyama (review)

Abstract

388 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 important role in the formation of political parties in the other half of the common state, the future of Czechoslovakiawas central to political debate in the federalstate in the I990- 1992 period. To ignore that factor is to leave out a centralpiece of thejigsaw. Nevertheless, it would be churlish to focus too much attention on these criticisms. Van Biezen has produced an excellent book, full of thoughtful insights furnishedwith a wealth of empirical detail which will be of interest notjust to area studiesexperts,but to a widerpolitical science audience. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies TIMHAUGHTON European Research Institute University ofBirmingham Bozoki, A. and Ishiyama,J. T. (eds). TheCommunist Successor Partiesof Central and EasternEurope.M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, 2002. xvii + 50I PP. Tables. Notes. Appendices. Bibliography.Index. ?75.50. EVERsince the collapse of Communism in Europe John Ishiyama has been making a thorough study of the successors of Communism's ruling parties. Now Andras Bozoki and he have produced what is likely to be the standard comparative work on the topic. The team of authors is extremely strong. Whilst the material and arguments that they bring may be familiarto many readers,the value of the workis in the synthesis. The editors set out to find answersto three questions. First,to what extent did the Communistlegacy impact on the adaptationstrategiesof the successor parties? Second, to what extent did the dynamics of the transition process affect the competition that they faced? And third, to what extent was adaptation affected by electoral performance? This gives the symposium a framework,which works. The comments that follow addressthe question of perspective alwaysa problem in a workwrittenby a number of authors. In many a symposium there is a problem of not seeing the wood for the trees. Here, I suspect, the problem is ratherone of knowing what constitutes the wood. A clear category of 'Communist party' was given us by the Comintern, by a sphere of Soviet dominance, and by a recognizable style of politics which enabled the category to embrace parties that lay (and lie) beyond that dominance. The category of 'Communist successorparty' is far less clear;we knowwhat a party is, but notions of Communist and succession are now muddy, to say the least. The category still has value, if only to attest one of the constants of politics the astonishingability of politicalparties to endure through time as organizations, surviving major upheavals and doctrinal turnabouts. But so varied are both the origins of the Communist successorparties and their experiences since the collapse of Communist rule in Europe, that any study of their present state can only be a map, plotting their diversityratherthan examining a categorical core. Clues can be sought to their current success or lack of it, and those clues can be ranked in importance (the book goes a good way down this track, with organization emerging as a favouredclue), but they remain multiple and refractory. REVIEWS 389 Another favouredclue presented may conceal problems.In historicalterms those partiespassed, as itwere, througha funnel constitutedby the Comintern and the Cold War. They entered the funnel from widely disparate starting points and, once emerging from the funnel, they began to diverge again. Herbert Kitschelt, in this work and elsewhere, has built on this idea (though not the funnel image itself). But not even he or not in thisbook develops the full implications of this. One implication concerns the term 'successor party' itself. Except in a very simple and analytically barren sense, the Communist Partyof Bohemia and Moravia is no more a successorof the prewar , and then Cold WarCPCz than today'sGerman Social-Democratic Party is a successorof the SPD of Engels's day. It is the same party (apartfrom the loss of the Slovakelement, which does not affectthis argument)and let not the defenders of the organization thesisgainsay this, since it makes theirpoint. It is history and geopolitics that in fact created two of the three types nationalist-patriotic and pragmatic reform parties that the book derives from a studyof the post-Communist 'succession'period. And it is a sensitivity to history that suggeststhat the label given for the book's third type -leftist retreat, embracing the Communist Party of Bohemia and...