Party organizational strength and party unity in post-communist Europe

Abstract

The existing comparative literature focuses on political institutions to explain party unity in parliament, and largely ignores the role of party characteristics in this process. This study argues that the strength of political party organization directly and independently influences the level of party unity. Organizational strength makes the party a valuable asset to individual legislators, thus increasing their willingness to be disciplined. Therefore, parties with strong organizations are likely to be more unified in parliament than those with weak organizations. I find support for this argument with data from four post-communist democracies: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Poland. Narratives suggest that the proposed causal mechanism is plausible.

Political Blackmail, Institutional Infighting, and Electoral Politics: The Fate of Governing Parties during the Great Recession (2008‐12) in Romania and Bulgaria

“…We move next to another alternative explanation of why government parties are severely punished in one case and not in the other—an explanation that relates to the strength of the opposition parties. Since parties with strong organizations are able to attract more votes than parties with weak organizations (Tavits ), it is important to understand whether the main competitors to the parties in power are equally strong in the two countries. We investigate, therefore, the other side of the same puzzle; that is, whether the electoral success of the opposition in one case and not in the other is due not to differences in the punishment of government, but rather to the stronger organizational strength of the opposition in Romania relative to the strength of the opposition in Bulgaria.…”

“…It may happen, therefore, that this electoral strength in Bulgaria and not in Romania is due to differences in the organizational strength of the parties. To assess the government and opposition parties’ organizational strength at the legislative elections of interest, we follow prior work that defines party strength as the ability of a party to contest local elections (Tavits ). We, therefore, measure the presence of GERB (government) and BSP (main opposition party) at the preceding 2011 local elections and the local presence of PDL or PDL in coalition with another party (government) and USL, PSD, or PNL (opposition) at the preceding 2012 local elections.…”

Introduction: Towards a Better Understanding of Parliamentary Unity

“…Parliamentary party unity is a central feature in contemporary parliamentary democracies. It has important effects on government's survival and stability, coalition behaviour, bargaining power of the party-in-public-office, and electoral success (Boucek, 2012;Giannetti and Benoit, 2009;Kam, 2009;Pedersen, 2010;Saalfeld, 2009;Tavits, 2012). Consequently, a better understanding of its determinants and functioning mechanisms is also crucial.…”

“…Third, explanations of parliamentary party unity were predominantly entrenched in rational-institutional approaches, while sociological explanations have often been neglected. Besides, while these studies have highlighted the impact of macro-level institutional settings and individual rational motivations (Bowler et al, 1999;Carey, 2007;Carey and Shugart, 1995;Depauw and Martin, 2009;Gherghina and Chiru, 2014;Kam, 2009;Sieberer, 2006), we know relatively little about how party-level organisational factors shape the various dimensions of parliamentary party unity (Little and Farrell, 2017;Tavits, 2012). This special section seeks to address these gaps in the literature.…”

From Loose Alliances to Professional Political Players: How Swiss Party Groups Changed

“…Although according to the respective constitutional article Swiss politicians should act free from party group pressure and disciplinary measures, we argue that Swiss party groups have become more united, disciplined, and professional. Based on the approach of discrete party change (Harmel & Janda, ; Panebianco, ; Tavits, 2012b) we argue that this process has not only been caused by the environment, in particular the increasing polarization of the Swiss party system, but that purposeful actions by the party group leaderships contributed to this change.…”