PhD Student : Fabiana Sacchetti

1
Party System Institutionalization in
Post-Communist Countries Trends and
Interpretations

• PhD Student Fabiana Sacchetti
• Course of Comparative Politics (Prof. Luciano
  Bardi)
• PhD Program in Political Systems and
  Institutional Change XXIII Cycle
• A.Y. 2008/09
• IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca

2
Institutionalization of Party System(Mainwaring
S. 1998 Party Systems in the Third Wave)

• Institutionalization (Huntington, 1996)
• Process by which an organization or a procedure
  acquires value and stability, becoming well
  established and widely known
• Institutionalization of Party Systems 4
  Dimensions
• Stability (regularity in patterns of party
  competition)
• Rootedness in society (strenght of ties between
  parties and citizens)
• Legitimacy (extent to which political actors
  believe in parties as fundamental)
• Relevance of Party Organization

3
Are Post-communist Countries Institutionalizing
a Competitive Party System?

• Two Different Theoretical Perspectives
• The Tabula Rasa Approach
• Newness of post-communist democratization
• Weak, Incohate and Fluid Party Systems
• Mair (1997) Rose (1995) Klingemann (1992)
• The Structure Approach
• Established and Competitive Party Systems and
  Strong Constituencies
• Path Dependency Theories and Studies / Surveys on
  Voters Behavior and Party Identification
• Lewis (1994) Kitschelt (1995) Miller (2000)
  Fish (1995)

4
Empirical Evidence

• Very mixed it can confirm either one or the
  other approach
• Single-case studies
• Cross-Country studies

5
Mair P.(1997) Party System Change Approaches
and Interpretations

• Party System the system of interactions
  resulting from inter-party competition
• (Sartori, 1976)
• Party System Change when a party system is
  transformed from one type of party system into
  another

6
Mair P.(1997) Party System Change Approaches
and Interpretations

• Peculiarities of Postcommunist Party Systems
• Democratization Process
• Absence of real civil society
• Triple Transition
• Establishing ex novo the principle of
  contestation
• Rokkans Four Stages (Incorporation,
  Mobilization, Activation, Politization) are
  traversed prior to the emergence of new party
  system
• Mass Politics already exists

7
Mair P.(1997) Party System Change Approaches
and Interpretations

• Electorate and Parties
• Electorate is open, volatile, uncertain, not yet
  fully participant
• Relative lack of crystallization of identities
• Elitist Parties (Top-down, Internally created)
• No challenge from Mass Parties
• Difficulties of gaining large membership can be
  offset by media access and state subsidies

8
Mair P.(1997) Party System Change Approaches
and Interpretations

• Context of Competition
• Unstable Organizational Structures (unstable
  pattern of organizational behavior, party
  splitting and merging, continued fragmentation,
  no clear boundaries between parties and interest
  groups or social movements)
• Unstable Institutional Environment
• Open Structures of Competition ? Lack of
  Systemness (more Set of Parties than Party
  Systems, Atomized Pluralism)

9
Mair P.(1997) Party System Change Approaches
and Interpretations

• Pattern of Competition
• Culture of Political Uncertainty ? Competition
  prevails
• What is at stake in the competition is very high
• (i.e constitution-building)

• Conclusions
• Unstability of Post-Communist Party Systems
  could be just a question of time, but structural
  variables make institutionalization highly
  problematic

10
Bielasiak J. (2002) Institutionalization of
Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist
States

• Institutionalization of Electoral Reforms
• Clear trend toward Proportional Representation
• Early Stabilization
• Basic changes in electoral formulas took place
  early (between the breakdown elections and the
  founding elections) and have been largely absent
  later on
• Subsequent reforms concerned more secific
  components of electoral regulations (District
  Magnitude, Assembly Size, Legal Tresholds)

11
Bielasiak J. (2002) Institutionalization of
Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist
States

• Voting Patterns
• Electoral Volatility (Pedersen Index) very high
  (Av. 28)
• WE 11.4 SE 16.3 LA 28.1
• ECE 20.5 SEE 20.3 BS 31.4 FSU 41.9
• Little change over time
• Main reason is the swing between incumbent and
  opposition parties, as a mean to register
  dissatisfaction with government policies
• Electorate is able to identify party positions on
  basic issues, but theres little attachement to
  specific parties and ideologies

12
Bielasiak J. (2002) Institutionalization of
Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist
States

• Effective Number of Electoral Parties
• Very large ENEP Multipartitism or Extreme
  Pluralism
• WE 3.7 SE 3.5 LA 4.2
• ECE 6.4 SEE 4.3 BS 6.7 FSU 6.6
• Proliferation of new parties (exc. Albania,
  Bulgaria)
• Variation over time Former Bloc decline, FSU
  oscillation
• Pedersen positive correlation between High
  Volatility and Large ENEP

• Conclusions
• Institutionalised Electoral Systems but not yet
  fully Institutionalised Party Systems (party
  fragmentation and electoral fluidity)

13
Meleshevich A. (2004) Political
Institutionalization of Party Systems in
Post-Soviet Countries

• Political Institutionalization of a Party System
• Two Dimensions
• Autonomy (external dimension)
• degree to which parties and party systems
  fulfill their functions and act autonomously from
  other social institutions capacity to have an
  even support across the country and not simply
  express interests of a particular social group
• Stability (internal dimension)
• degree of regularity in the patterns of
  interaction between its elements

14
Meleshevich A. (2004) Political
Institutionalization of Party Systems in
Post-Soviet Countries

• Autonomy
• a) Percentage of seats held by independents and
  num. of candidates in electoral lists without
  previous political career
• b) Role of parties in cabinet formation
• c) Strenght and uniformity of party
  identification among regions
• Stability
• a) Percentage of vote share in an election taken
  by paries that partecipated in any previous
  election (old parties volatility index)
• b) Pedersen Index of Electoral Volatility

15
Birch S.(2001) Electoral Systems and Party
System Stability in Postcommunist Europe

• Inter-electoral Volatility multidimensional
  concept
• (1) changes in party support from individual
  voters
• (2) changes in composition of the electorate
• (3) changes in the range of parties (mergers,
  splits, party foundations, etc)
• Party Replacement measures the turnover of
  parties, the degree of penetration of new players
  in to the party system (sum of the vote shares
  won by parties at t1 that had not contested at
  t)

16
Birch S.(2001) Electoral Systems and Party
System Stability in Postcommunist Europe

• Comparison between these two indicators
• Inter-electoral Volatility (very high levels)
• Party Replacement (very high levels)
• Basic preferences of electorates have remained
  stable most of the change is due to elite-level
  fluidity
• Most party systems in Post-Comm. Europe are
  uncoupled or floating, responding more to élite
  changes in configurations of alliances than to
  shifts in electoral base
• Not lack of sistemacity in political competition,
  but simply a different kind of competition

17
Miller et al. (2000) Emerging Party Systems in
Post-Soviet Societies Fact or Fiction?

• High levels of 3 Indicators in Post-Soviet
  Countries
• 1) Partisan Identification of voters
• 2) Consistency between identification and voting
• 3) Correpondence between policy preferences of
  national élites and their voters

• Popular support for parties in post communist
  countries doesnt reflect deep seated social
  cleavages it arises from information and
  knowledge regarding policy orientations rather
  than from socialization
• Post-soviet party systems are beginning to
  provide a real means of representation and
  communication between masses and élites

18
Bibliography

• Bardi L. and Mair P. The Parameters of Party
  Systems
• (Party Politics, Vol. 12 No.2, 2008)
• Bielasiak J. The Institutionalization of
  Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist
  States
• (Comparative Politics, Vol. 34 No.2, Jan 2002)
• Birch S. Electoral Systems and Party System
  Stability in Post Communist Europe
• (Paper presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of
  the American Political Science Association, Aug
  2001)
• Mainwaring S. Democratization in the Third Wave
  
• (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 9 No.3, 1998)

19
Bibliography

• Mair P. Party System Change Approaches and
  Interpretations
• (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997)
• Meleshevich A. and Lockman C. Political
  Institutionalization of Party Systems in
  Post-Soviet Transitions
• (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
  Midwest Political Science Association, Apr 2004)
• Miller A.H. and others Emerging Party Systems in
  Post-Soviet Societies Fact or Fiction?
• (The Journal of Politics, Vol. 62 No.2, May
  2000)
• Sartori G. Parties and Party Systems
• (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976)

20
Useful Additional Bibliography

• Bielasiak J. Party competition in emerging
  democracies representation and effectiveness in
  post-communism and beyond (Democratization
  Vol.12 No.3, 2005)
• Fish M.S. Democracy Begin to Emerge (Current
  History, 1995)
• Fish M.S. The Advent of Multipartitism in
  Russia, 1993-95 (Post-Soviet Affair, Vol 11 N.4,
  1995)
• Huntington S.P. Political Order in Changing
  Societies (Yale University Press, New Heaven,
  1998)

21
Useful Additional Bibliography

• Kitschelt H. Formation of Party Systems in East
  Central Europe (Politics and Society, Vol.20
  No.1, 1992)
• Kitschelt H. Formation of Party Cleavages in
  Post-communist Democracies Teheoretical
  Proposition (Party Politics, Vol.1 N.4, 1995)
• Kitschelt H., Mansfeldova Z., et al. Post-
  Communist party Systems (Cambridge University
  Press, Cambridge, 1999)
• Klingemann H.D. And Wettenberg M. Decaying vs
  Developing Party Systems (British Journal of
  Political Science, Vol.22, 1992)

22
Useful Additional Bibliography

• Lewis P. Democratization and Party Development
  in Eastern Europe (Democratization, Vol.1 No.3,
  1994)
• Linz J.J. And Stepan A. Problems of Democratic
  Transition and Consolidation Southern Europe,
  South America and Post-Communist Europe (John
  Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996)
• Lipset S.M. and Rokkan S. Party Systems and
  Voters Alignement Cross National Perspectives
  (Free Press, New York, 1967)
• Rose R, and Munro N. Elections and Parties in
  New Democracies (CQ Press, Washington, 2003)