Party systems in post-communist Central Europe: Patterns of stability and consolidation

“Subsequently, it developed viable parties that alternated regularly around two main party blocs until 2010, displaying one of the most institutionalized party systems in the region (Olson, 1998; Sikk, 2005; Lewis, 2006; Casal Bértoa and Mair, 2010).”

“…as well as the stability of democracy.3 Party institutionalization is highlighted as a means for channeling the interests of social groups, promoting actors and attitudes supportive of democracy, and facilitating credible commitments (e.g., Mainwaring and Torcal 2006; Ufen 2008; Lewis 2006).”

“The rapid changes in the vote shares of parties in Central Europe are unusual by traditional Western Europe standards (Lane and Ersson, 2007; Lewis, 2006; Millard, 2004; Tavits 2005, 2008), but they are not notably different from those of Latin America, Africa and Asia and or indeed from recent…”

“Indices that reflect the concentration of votes or the ideological distribution of political parties (Krupavicius 1999), the affiliation strategies of politicians and voters (Kreuzer and Pettai, 2003), the difference in vote share between the two largest parties (Birch, 2003), or the progressive enhancement of the pro…”

“…one of the most repeated assumptions in the democratization literature, such close relationship between institutionalization and democracy has never been proved beyond a myriad of countries (Johnson, 2002; Mainwaring, 1999; Markowski, 2001) and/or regional (Lewis, 2006; Kneuer, 2011) studies.”

“…15 years of the first free elections after the fall of communism, Estonia had not only joined the European Union and become a consolidated democracy with presentable levels of turnout and party system stability (Lewis, 2006), but it has also emerged as the global front-runner in voting technology.”

“Source: The first figure in parentheses denotes the Lewis (2006) score of party stability; the other score is that of the Laakso and Taagepera index calculated based on data from Rose and Munro (2009) for seat shares of party lists that returned deputies to the legislature.”

“…and EU accession.3 But, while the states studied here have many similarities, they also show interesting variation on a key variable for this study – the type of government – a variation which is due to differential trajectories in party system development (Kitschelt et al. 1999; Lewis 2006).”

“There has been no constant flux of new parties into the party system like in several other CEE countries, and the vote share of new parties has been relatively low (Lewis 2006; Pettai, Auers, and Ramonaitė 2011).”

“In the analyses of party politics, PI and PSI are often collapsed into a combined fuzzy syndrome (e.g., Kreuzer and Pettai 2003; Lewis 2006; Meleshevich 2007; Moser 1999; Rose and Mackie 1988; Shabad and S ł omczy ń ski 1999).”

“Political parties are important players in democratic regimes, but the system they create – both the number of parties and their ‘shape’, or relative strength – also provides useful information about the political systems in which they reside, be they stable or developing (Lewis 2006).”

“Moreover, party stability has long been regarded as low in many countries in the region (Casal Bértoa and Enyedi 2017; Lewis 2006).”

“While party system institutionalization may not be necessary for the democratic consolidation (Toka 1997; Markowski 2001) the presence of institutionalized parties seems to increase the chance of democratic consolidation (Dix 1992; McGuire 1997; Wallis 2003; Lewis 2006) and decrease the chance of democratic breakdown…”

“…displayed the most institutionalised party system in CEE, with strong elite competition and regular alternation between two main parties, and a robust institutional framework compared with other countries in the region (Casal Bértoa & Mair, 2010; Grzymala-Busse, 2007; Lewis, 2006; Sikk, 2005).”

“1999; Lewis 2006; McAllister and White 2007; Grzymała-Busse 2003; Hanley and Sikk 2016; Enyedi and Bértoa 2018), we still know comparably little about the interconnections between interest organizations and the political system.”

“…& Madlovics, 2020); political party development (Ishiyama & Kennedy, 2001); the (previous) regime type (Ishayama, 1995; Fish, 2006); the presence of identity and ethnolinguistic divisions (Wilson, 1997); as well as advances in nation-building (Wilson, 2002) and democratization (Lewis, 2006).”

“In the Czech Republic, the party system stabilized, coming to resemble its Western European counterparts (Bakke & Sitter, 2005; Lewis, 2006; Tavits, 2008).”

“In party systems that follow no established patterns of behavior and produce ad hoc governments, it could be the case that patronage is the only factor that keeps coalitions together (Lewis, 2006; O ’ Dwyer, 2006).”

“Elections are often considered to be one of the core institutions of democracy (Bunce and Wolchik 2009), and therefore it is not surprising that scholars have taken up an interest in electoral dynamics in postcommunist countries (Bakke and Sitter 2005; Lewis 2006; Olson 1998) and competitive elections taking place in…”

“…in this context that Hungary was often lauded for the “institutionalization” of its party system given the peaceful handovers between alternating governments of the two main party blocs (Grzymala-Busse 2007; Lewis 2006; Sikk 2005), at least until Viktor Orbán’s “constitutional revolution” in 2010.”

“These weak political parties have, in turn, led to high electoral volatility (Tavits, 2005, 2008b; Lewis, 2006; Epperly, 2011), with many parties competing in only one or two elections (Sikk, 2005).”

“In a comparative perspective, the party was unique also in its communication, because the politicians dominantly communicated via the internet and new social media.(19) The dominant themes of this new party were economic questions, but to encourage more votes the party also opened “hidden” questions that were covered…”

“In the 1990s, CEE party systems were also more fragmented and less ideologically cohesive due to rapid transitions from au-thoritarianism to democracy, and the subsequent economic and social transitions (cf., Casal B´ertoa, 2012; Coman, 2015; Grotz and Weber, 2016; Lewis, 2006; Toole, 2000).”

“Fifth, all three countries have been characterized by frequent changes of their party systems with occasional periods of relative stability (e.g. Grotz and Weber 2012; Lewis 2006; Toole 2000).”

“En relación con los miembros de la UE que se ubican geográficamente en Escandinavia (Suecia, Dinamarca y Finlandia), alrededor del 95% de la opinión pública expresa su confianza hacia las instituciones políticas de sus países (Lewis, 2006, p. 87).”

“…partipolitiska turbulensen i »Öst»1 visar inga tecken på avmattning och skiljer sig därmed markant från utvecklingen i »Väst», som under lång tid kännetecknats av stabilitet och kontinuitet (se till exempel Lewis, 2006; Mair, 1997; Bågenholm & Johansson Heinö, 2013; Haughton & Deegan-Krause, 2015).”

“…1998; Nölke and Vliegenthart 2009) and the evolution of party systems (e.g. Enyedi and Bértoa 2018; Hanley and Sikk 2016; Kitschelt et al. 1999; Lewis 2006) in the post-communist region, we have only recently gained a greater understanding of post-communist interest group politics (see e.g.…”

“There are data about electoral volatility, party system fractionalisation (Bielasiak, 2002), the Index of party stabilisation (Lewis, 2006) or the age of political parties or party membership (Enyedi & Casal Bértoa, 2018) used.”

“Although opposition parties have most commonly used this instrument in CEE (in 71 percent of cabinets), ICs have also been initiated by cabinet parties, either jointly (15 percent of cabinets) or only by a fraction of them (32 percent of cabinets).”