Post-Communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation, and Inner-Party Cooperation

by Radoslaw Markowski, Gabor Toka, Herbert Kitschelt, et al.

Book Overview

Post-Communist Party Systems examines democratic party competition in four post-communist polities in the mid-1990s: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Legacies of pre-communist rule turn out to play as much a role in accounting for differences as the institutional differences incorporated in the new democratic rules of the game. The book demonstrates various developments within the four countries with regard to different voter appeal...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 052165890X
• ISBN13: 9780521658904
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 476 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Empirical research in democracy

Kitschelt et al. produced an impressive comparative analysis of postsocialist party systems in four Eastern European countries (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria). The book specifically focuses on such problems as political representation, programmatic competition, etc., and provides the necessary theoretical framework as well as abundant data. Ultimately, the authors try to assess the impact of different political configurations on the quality of democracy. What requires a special commendation, is the great number of diagrams and tables, thoroughly commented in the text but still providing the reader with the freedom of his own interpretation. The employed methodology includes political elite and electorate surveys, factor analytical and regression techniques, as well as a few indexes whose meaning sometimes is not very obvious. Although all analyses are based on people's opinions and perception, the authors contrast this data with a number of objective economic indicators. Most data is of 1993-1998, but the recent political changes are also mentioned. Overall, this book is an interesting, thought-provoking reading and a must for students of political and social transformation in the Central and Eastern Europe.