How unstable? Volatility and the genuinely new parties in Eastern Europe

Measuring of party system stability in Eastern Europe during the first decade of democratic elections presents problems. The traditional quantitative measure - volatility - does not distinguish between the dynamics among incumbent parties and the rise of genuinely new ones. I propose a new additional measure - success of genuinely new parties - and compare it to volatility. The subsequent performance of initially successful genuinely new parties is analysed. While volatility has been remarkably high in East European countries, the genuinely new parties have, in general, not been very successful. Instability of party systems in the region stems rather from the inner dynamics of incumbent actors than from the rise of new contenders

Newness as a winning formula for new political Parties

Previous studies on new political parties have assumed that they either represent new or ignored cleavages or issues, or emerge in order to cleanse an ideology deficiently represented by an existing party. Four highly successful parties analysed in this article manifestly fail to comply with these assumptions. The article proposes a parsimonious two-dimensional typology of new parties refining the one suggested by Lucardie (2000), incorporating a new type of parties based on the project of newness. We show that the four parties analysed fall into the latter category as they fought on the ideological territory of existing parties yet did not attempt to purify an ideology. It is argued that newness has been an appealing project for new and rejuvenating parties everywhere and the experiences from new democracies should be taken seriously also by those working on established democracies

From private organizations to democratic infrastructure: Political parties and the state in Estonia

Estonia, one of the first former Soviet republics to regain independence, had to start the processes of party and state development from scratch, beginning with the development of a legal framework for political parties, establishing a regime of public party financing, and training and deploying elites in party and state administrations. In the case of the last element, a variety of career patterns has emerged as individuals have moved between political and administrative roles. The question of the neutrality of county governors and administrative department secretaries-general has been particularly contentious in what has become a close and strengthening relationship between parties and the state. This is visible in the legal status of parties, their growing reliance on public subsidies, and the substantial circulation of people between administrative and political echelons. This can partly be explained by patronage and the particular legacies of communism and state-building, but the small size of the country may have had an independent effect

Parties and Populism

Populism remains a fashionable concept in comparative politics even though its ambiguity and strong normative connotations are widely recognized. The term is also used with considerably different meanings in academic jargon and in the mass media. Many new political parties have been dubbed populist aided by the fuzziness of the definition and the absence of clear operational criteria. That has resulted in the grouping together parties of vastly different nature and varying degree of democratic credentials. Many new parties in Central and Eastern Europe have appeared in niches already occupied by old parties – the paper discusses three such cases in the Baltic states. The key factor to their success has been the project of newness that naturally incorporates a degree of anti-incumbency. The appropriateness of using a loaded term like populism can be questioned if the level of political corruption among the incumbents is objectively one of the most important problems in a country. Drawing a line between conscientious anti-corruption stance and opportunistic anti-establishment rhetoric poses problems. Equating a critical style with populism risks not only overstretching the already overstretched concept but may to a serious normative bias in favour of status quo – whatever it may mean in a given country

Patterns of party change in Central and Eastern Europe 1990-2015

While parties in many new democracies frequently split, merge, change labels, and make and break electoral alliances, comparative systematic research on how these changes are related to each other is limited. This study addresses this gap by conceptualizing change as a result of intra-party conflicts, conflicts in or consolidation of existing electoral alliances, and the formation of new alliances and mergers. We develop measures for each type of change using an original dataset that covers almost 800 party-electoral term dyads in 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe in the period between 1990 and 2015. Our findings contradict the idea of party change as a uni-dimensional phenomenon. Instead we find that exits from existing electoral alliances, their consolidation through mergers, and the formation of new alliances and mergers are moderately related to each other, but not with intra-party splits. Our findings suggest that parties and their alliances structure political competition in Central and Eastern Europe relatively well. Moreover, negative consequences of party change on representation and accountability are limited, as under the relative absence of multiple and nearly simultaneous changes in party identity the electorate should be able to follow party evolution

Patterns of Party Structural Change in Central and Eastern Europe, 1990-2015

While parties in many new democracies frequently split, merge, change labels, and make and break electoral alliances, comparative systematic research on how these changes are related to each other is limited. Literature on political parties often treats different forms of party change as manifestations of a singular and single-dimensional phenomenon of party instability. This study examines the dimensionality of party structural change in 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We apply Multiple Correspondence Analysis to an original dataset that differentiates between five types of party structural change and examines 780 party-electoral term dyads. Our findings contradict the idea of party structural change as a uni-dimensional phenomenon. Instead we distinguish between two types of change: temporary change (entry to and exit from electoral coalitions and changes in electoral labels) and permanent change (splits and mergers). A more fine-grained classification also discerns between change that brings about party system aggregation and fragmentation. These findings imply that different types of party structural change cannot be accounted for by the same factors

Party crashers? Modeling genuinely new party development paths in Western Europe

Western Europe has recently experienced the emergence of successful new parties, but while single parties or countries have been extensively studied, insufficient attention has been devoted to this phenomenon from a comparative and long-term perspective. By relying on an original dataset covering 20 countries and 344 parliamentary elections, this paper presents the first analysis of West European ‘genuinely new parties’ across time, countries, and party families. We hypothesize that the parties differ not only in terms of their short and long-term success but have a range of distinct life paths. Through a latent growth model, we provide a classification of genuinely new parties in terms of their breakthrough and subsequent performance. According to the specific trajectory followed by new parties in the first elections they contest, the model suggests five different classes of new parties in Western Europe: explosive, meteoric, contender, flat or flop. The article discusses the implications of these findings also regarding the ability of the model to produce estimates and predictions about the future electoral performances of genuinely new parties

Economy, corruption or floating voters? Explaining the breakthroughs of anti-establishment reform parties in Eastern Europe

This paper discusses a new group of parties that we term anti-establishment reform parties (AERPs), which combine moderate social and economic policies with anti-establishment appeals and a desire to change the way politics is conducted. We analyse the electoral breakthroughs of AERPs in Eastern Europe (CEE), the region where AERPs have so been most successful. Examples include the Simeon II National Movement, GERB (Bulgaria), Res Publica (Estonia), New Era (Latvia), TOP09 and Public Affairs (Czech Republic) and Positive Slovenia. We examine the conditions under which such parties broke through in nine CEE states in 1997-2012 using Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). We find five sufficient causal paths combining high or rising corruption, rising unemployment and party system instability. Rising corruption plays a key role in most pathways but, unexpectedly, AERP breakthroughs are more closely associated with economic good times than bad