Post-communist Party Systems Research Articles

Segmental Volatility in Ethnically Divided Societies: (Re)assessing Party System Stability in Southeast Europe

AbstractThis article examines the role of ethnicity and ethnic parties as stabilizing factors in Southeast European party systems. It compares two ethnically divided countries in Southeast Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, where ethnic identities that form the political cleavage are firm, and Montenegro, where they are malleable. Theoretically, it addresses the debate between scholars who either find stability or instability in East European post-communist party systems. The article traces the role of ethnicity in the formation and development of electoral contests and compares the two cases by utilizing measures of block volatility, based on analysis of official electoral data. We argue that party systems in ethnically diverse countries are stable at the subsystems level, but unstable within them. In BiH, firm ethnic identity stabilizes the party system by limiting competition between blocks, leading to closure. Malleable ethnic identity in Montenegro opens competition to non-ethnic parties seeking to bridge ethnic divisions, leading to more instability. We find that party system dynamics in ethnically divided new democracies depend on identity rigidity and cleavage salience, in addition to levels of heterogeneity.

Paying for appeasement: On the moderating role of public subsidies in East Central European party politics

Focusing on the relationship between the access of political parties to direct public funding and electoral support for anti-political-establishment (e.g. populist, extremist) parties (APEp), this article tries to fill an important gap in the literature. Whereas previous contributions, mostly focused on the United States or established democracies in Western Europe, have presented contradictory findings, our study of 19 new democracies in East Central Europe clearly shows that the absence of state subsidies for political parties boosts support for those with an anti-political-establishment character. More importantly, and taking into account the minimum legal payout threshold that grants parties access to public subsidies, our results show that the more restrictive the regulations and the greater the difficulties faced by parties in obtaining state help, the higher the support for APEp. Our findings have obvious implications for the development of post-Communist party systems and the future of legislative (party funding) reform in the region.

Prime ministers and party governments in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT This article is the introduction to a special issue on Prime Ministers (PMs) and party governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). It argues that the political survival of PMs in post-communist democracies depends on their interrelationships with other actors in three different arenas. The first arena encompasses the linkages between PMs and their parties. In this respect, being a party leader is a major power resource for PMs to retain their office even under critical circumstances. At the heart of the second arena is the PMs’ relationship to other parliamentary parties. In this regard, the high fragmentation and fluidity of many post-communist party systems pose enormous challenges for PMs to secure constant parliamentary support. In the third arena, PMs are confronted with state presidents. Relatively strong CEE presidents, especially in semi-presidential systems, may use their constitutional powers to interfere in the political domain of PMs and thus jeopardise the stability of party governments. For each of these interrelationships, the article provides systematic evidence for eleven CEE democracies from 1990 to 2019 and situates the findings of the volume’s contributions within a broader comparative perspective.

Institutionalization and De-institutionalization in Post-communist Party Systems

This article is part of the special cluster titled Parties and Democratic Linkage in Post-Communist Europe, guest edited by Lori Thorlakson, and will be published in the August 2018 issue of EEPS In an article written in 1995 titled “What Is Different about Postcommunist Party Systems?” Peter Mair applied the method that he called “ ex adverso extrapolation.” He matched his knowledge of the process of consolidation of party systems in the West with what was known at that time about Eastern European history, society, and the emerging post-communist party politics. Considering factors such as the existence of fluid social structures, the weakness of civil society, or the destabilizing impact of the so-called triple transition, his article predicted long-term instability for the region. In the present article, we evaluate the validity of Mair’s predictions, thereby also contributing to a lively debate in the current literature about the scale and nature of East–West differences and about the trajectories of the two regions. Going beyond the identification of cross-regional similarities and differences, we also differentiate between individual party systems, establish subgroups, and describe changes across time. Using four major dimensions (i.e., party system closure, party-level stability, electoral volatility, and fragmentation), the article finds that Mair’s predictions were largely, though not in every detail, right. Ironically, however, we also find that changes in the West tend to match over time the trajectory of the East.

Does Partisanship Hurt Electoral Accountability? Individual-Level and Aggregate-Level Comparisons of Western and Postcommunist Democracies

While the negative effect of partisanship on electoral accountability has been assumed in established Western democracies, its empirical test has been rare, especially for postcommunist democracies whose democratization processes are so distinct that their partisanship might deliver different political impacts from their Western counterparts. Through individual- and aggregate-level regressions, I find that partisanship, in general, does hurt electoral accountability at both levels. From a comparative perspective, the individual-level tests reveal that such a negative effect of partisanship has been more salient among the postcommunist voters with fewer electoral resources to rely on than among the Western voters whose abilities to hold the government accountable are stronger. At the aggregate level, however, this tendency becomes reversed as any increase in partisanship beyond its current relatively high level may induce the over-institutionalization of the Western party systems restricting electoral accountability, while it could rather help to stabilize the postcommunist party systems making it easier for voters to discern which political group is accountable for policy outcomes.

Parties between thresholds: State subsidies and party behaviour in post-communist democracies

Much has been written about what makes political parties form, persist, change and die. One factor often brought into this discussion is the availability of resources in general and of state financing of political parties in particular. However, an empirical link at the aggregate level is difficult to establish because of various issues of conceptualization, operationalization and measurement. Working at the party level and taking into consideration that state funding provides important resources that make running in elections and achieving a party’s electoral target more likely, this article provides empirical support for the claim that parties who (anticipate to be or) are being funded by the state have a higher chance of forming and surviving in an independent format in the party system. Based on a comparison of 14 post-communist party systems, the main conclusion of the article is that the survival rate for such parties exceeds the survival rate for the non-publicly funded ones in almost all cases. A second, novel and more particular, finding is that parties who find themselves outside parliament, but above the payout threshold, display higher survival rates than parties who are below it.

Poland’s Palikot Movement

Although post-communist party systems have shown signs of stabilisation in recent years, they are still susceptible to the emergence of new parties. Sikk (2012) and Sikk and Hanley (2014) have suggested that many of these challengers owe their success to a distinct winning formula, appealing to the public primarily on the basis of their ‘newness’ and antiestablishment credentials. However, to draw conclusions about the relative importance of newness in explaining the successes of these parties, it is necessary to understand the nature of their support among the electorate. Few empirical demand-side analyses of party support in the region explicitly address the newness thesis. This paper analyses support for Poland’s Palikot Movement, a party which rose to prominence in 2011 and for whom newness constituted a significant aspect of its electoral appeal. It shows that while the Palikot Movement attracted voters who disliked the other parties, support for the party was more clearly attributable to its distinct ideological profile rather than its claim to represent those dissatisfied with the actions of the political establishment.

Ethnic Minority Policies as an Ethnic Cleavage Dimension Within Post-Communist Party Systems: Case Studies of Vojvodina Hungarians and Estonian Russians

Ethnic Minority Policies as an Ethnic Cleavage Dimension Within Post-Communist Party Systems: Case Studies of Vojvodina Hungarians and Estonian Russians

Analyzing the Dynamics of Post-Communist Party Systems

he literature on the development of party systems in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe has basically revolved around four topics, three of which are represented in this issue, and maybe there is a fifth topic emerging soon, evolving out of the fourth. The first topic is whether mechanisms of accountability are at all involving politicians’ delivery of collective and large-scale club goods to large citizen constituencies, or what is commonly referred to as “programmatic politics” and “responsible partisan government.” The answer to this question has to be at least partially in the affirmative to make reading the articles assembled in this EEPS issue worth while. I assume here with the authors of this volume that this is correct, although the agenda of studying alternatives or complements to programmatic partisan appeals—such as clientelistic, targeted, narrow material inducements, a symbolic politics of charismatic leadership, or also purely descriptive identity politics—is very much alive. So I will set this general topic aside.

Party Systems and Government Stability in Central and Eastern Europe

After two decades of parliamentary democracy, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have quite different records of government stability. At the same time there continues to be turbulent fluctuation within the individual countries. To explain this variation, the authors draw on characteristics of parties and party systems for 138 governments in 12 CEE countries. The analysis is structured by two distinct logics that underlie the effect of party-related attributes on government survival: the logic of internal friction within the government and the logic of external pressure from the opposition. The authors argue that in the “difficult” contexts of postcommunist party systems, these two logics do not operate independently of each other. Instead, they suggest that standard theory needs to be revised to account for the interactions of government and opposition characteristics. Their model of these interactions not only includes standard numeric and ideological variables but also integrates specificities of the postcommunist context: the regime divide and the low degree of party-system consolidation. Quantitative and qualitative findings demonstrate that government stability in CEE is interactively determined by whole constellations of party attributes.

Party systems and cleavage structures revisited

Since Lipset and Rokkan (1967) published their seminal work on the importance of social cleavages for the ‘freezing’ of party systems more than forty years ago, much has been written on the field demonstrating or discrediting the original hypothesis. In the current article, I examine how cleavage formation and development have influenced the different levels of institutionalization in four new post-communist party systems (i.e. Visegrad). Analysing distinct hypotheses, I arrive at the conclusion that neither the number nor the type nor the strength of a cleavage is associated with the degree of party system institutionalization in East Central Europe. On the contrary, the main conclusion is that party system institutionalization in these democracies has been determined by the way cleavages are structured. In particular, the process of party system institutionalization is found to be hindered when cleavages cross-cut, while fostered in cases where they cumulate (i.e. coincide).

Moving West or Going South?: Economic Transformation and Institutionalization in Postcommunist Party Systems

Patterns of party system institutionalization have varied widely across regions. In postcommunist democracies, weak party system institutionalization exists at high levels along three dimensions—volatility of representation, party extinction, and incumbency disadvantage—despite sustained economic growth. In these cases, the effects of economic restructuring are critical to electoral outcomes. A sample of democratic elections from 1990 to 2006 shows that postcommunist countries whose reform strategies minimize increases in inequality have more institutionalized party systems.

The Nationalisation of Post-Communist Party Systems

Party nationalisation, defined as the homogeneity of party strength across a country, has recently become a major issue in research. Even though territory is a salient political question in the post-communist countries in Europe, party nationalisation in these countries has been neglected by the literature so far. This article presents data on party nationalisation for 20 countries over the period 1990–2007. It shows that the nationalisation of party systems in post-communist democracies is closely related to the territorial structure of social divisions, except for cases where the electoral systems provide for a high degree of nationalisation, or where super-presidentialism inhibits the creation of strong nationalised parties.

Assessing the Impact of Campaign Finance on Party System Institutionalization

There are numerous advantages to institutionalized party systems; yet the instability in post-communist party systems has been well documented. Thus, it is increasingly important to understand how parties become institutionalized. Scholars have examined various dynamics of campaign finance’s effect on politics; however, despite this increased attention, several important theoretical and empirical questions remain. In this article, we investigate campaign finance, institutional, and economic explanations for post-communist party development. We test the impact of campaign finance restrictions and public fund availability on several measures of party institutionalization. The results of our analysis are important for outlining the role of public financing and restrictions on structuring party development.

Do expert surveys produce consistent estimates of party stances on European integration? Comparing expert surveys in the difficult case of Central and Eastern Europe

Expert surveys have been subject to a number of criticisms concerning their ability to produce accurate estimates of party positions. Such criticisms have particular prima facie credibility in new post-Communist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, where party development is regarded as weak. This paper compares data from two expert surveys independently conducted between 2002 and 2004. We find, contrary to expectations, that there is a remarkable overlap in positions assigned to parties. This suggests the usefulness of expert surveys even in the ‘most difficult’ case of post-Communist party systems. It also suggests that parties in these countries have developed effective means of communicating their positions on major issues.

Nation, State, Europe and national revival in Hungarian party politics: the case of the millennial commemorations

POST-COMMUNIST TRANSFORMATION CONFRONTS all countries involved with questions of state redefinition. The strains that can be generated by these questions have been most evident, and most examined, in states newly emerged from the Czechoslovak, Soviet or Yugoslav federations and/or those with significant ethnic minorities. However, even in relatively old and ethnically homogeneous states, these issues cannot be tackled without engaging varying understandings of the national identity and the relationship between state and nation.! This article investigates the conceptions of the nature and purpose of the state presented by party political elites in one such state, Hungary. Hungary's relative ethnic homogeneity means that there has been no significant practical contestation about which national group the post-communist state is 'of and for', in Brubaker's terms.2 That is, questions have not arisen about public language use, for example (as between the language of the state's titular nationality and another, minority, national group), as has occurred in several other post-communist countries with larger and less assimilated minorities. Similarly, Hungary's well-established status has obviated any need to excavate a little-known national past to legitimate the state's existence. As then Prime Minister Viktor Orbtin commented in 1999, Hungarians could 'forget the word, invent Hungary. Hungary was invented quite well enough a thousand years ago, by St Stephen himself'.3 However, a 'national question' has consistently been identified as the single dominant dimension of the country's post-communist party competition.4 Partly, this dimension comprises familiar left-right differences over secularism and progressivism versus religiosity and cultural and social traditionalism. However, in the Hungarian context, as in many others, these differences also encompass divergent understandings of the national identity and of the nature and value of nationhood in general." In this respect, elite political competition since 1990 in part continues a central debate of modem Hungarian political and intellectual life, about what the Hungarian nation is and what its relationship to the Hungarian state should be.6 Prior to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon this debate indeed partly concerned the relationship between Hungarians, groups by then identified as being of other nationalities, and the Hungarian state. Since the

Patterns of political instability: Affiliation patterns of politicians and voters in post-communist Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

In contrast to established party systems, the transformation of post-communist party systems is not only shaped by shifts in electoral preferences, but also by the changing organizational loyalties of politicians. Post-communist politicians pursue a wide range of organizational strategies such as party fusions, fissions, start-ups, and interparty switching. By focusing on the interaction between these organizational strategies and voters’ electoral preferences, we argue that the seeming instability of post-communist party systems actually reveals distinct patterns of political change. The article develops an analytical framework, which incorporates politician-driven interparty mobility and voter-induced electoral change. It uses this framework to show that the apparently inchoate party systems of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania actually follow definable modes of transformation.

Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslav Markowski, Gábor Tóka: Post-Communist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation

Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldova, Radoslav Markowski, Gábor Tóka: Post-Communist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation

Post-Communist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation. Herbert Kitschelt , Zdenka Mansfeldova , Radoslaw Markowski , Gabor Toka

<i>Post-Communist Party Systems. Competition, Representation, and Inter-Party Cooperation</i>. Herbert Kitschelt , Zdenka Mansfeldova , Radoslaw Markowski , Gabor Toka

Book Review: Post-communist party systems: competition, representation, and inter-party cooperation

Book Review: Post-communist party systems: competition, representation, and inter-party cooperation