Party System Institutionalization and Government Formation in new Democracies

Abstract

Party systems provide the essential structure of the coalition bargaining environment. Stability in party systems ensures the presence of regularities that can be observed in government formation, but most empirical research focuses on established democracies. In new democracies, party systems are less institutionalized, which means that interactions between parties can be unpredictable and has significant implications for coalition formation. This article presents the first study of coalition formation in new democracies that employs an empirical design comparable to that of the leading research on Western Europe. The author uses a new data set of potential coalitions in Central and Eastern Europe to examine three explanations for government formation that arise when party systems are weakly institutionalized. The results show first that incumbency is a disadvantage for governments in new democracies when formation occurs postelection. This disadvantage is due to high levels of electoral volatility caused by policy failure and clientelistic practices. Incumbents are advantaged when formation takes place midterm, as weak party system institutionalization leads to an inchoate pattern of interaction between opposition parties, which therefore fail to provide a viable alternative. Second, the presence of former dominant parties influences government formation by stifling the development of programmatic competition. Instead, programmatic competition is subjugated to contestation based on historical enmities. And third, established parties collude to exclude new parties from coalition formation—a possible indicator that a party system is becoming more institutionalized. The article provides new insights into the importance of routinized and stable political practices and institutions.

Party Responsiveness to Public Opinion in Young Democracies

“…The left–right dimension then provides a useful heuristic that helps citizens to orient themselves in politics even without knowing parties’ positions on most issues. The left–right framework is therefore often used to summarise voters’ and parties’ policy preferences in cross-national comparative work, including that on post-communist democracies (Dalton et al, 2011; Kitschelt et al, 1999; Savage, 2016). We employ the same approach here.…”

“…Policy and ideological proximity has limited effects on the formation of government coalitions in post-communist democracies. In the early years of democratic regimes, this was a result of the regime divide between communist successor and other parties (Grzymala-Busse, 2001), but the same pattern has persisted in later years (Savage, 2016). The limited role of policy concerns in government formation means that, from an individual party’s perspective, adopting non-centrist positions that are generally in line with the preferences of its supporters (Rohrschneider and Whitefield, 2012) does not reduce its chances of entering government.…”

“…The trade-off between office- and vote-seeking strategies is particularly alleviated by the frequent entry of electorally successful but less programmatic new parties that attract the disappointed and less ideological voters. Specifically, as new parties often enter government coalitions (Savage, 2016), thus providing coalition partners for the more programmatic established parties, the latter need to make fewer policy concessions to acquire governmental office.…”

Religion, partisanship and preferences for redistribution

“…3 Despite being labelled right-wing, these parties often adopt left-wing economic policies. As a result, the structure of party competition in CEE differs from that found in Western Europe (Savage, 2016). In both regions, the twodimensional space of competition can be conceptualized using an economic left-right dimension and a values dimension that runs from traditional to liberal values (Marks, Hooghe, Nelson, & Edwards, 2007).…”

The ‘new’ wave of populist right-wing parties in Central and Eastern Europe: Explaining electoral support for the Conservative People’s Party of Estonia

“…The electoral breakthrough of EKRE came at the 2015 parliamentary election and took many by surprise. Whereas party systems in CEE are remarkably unstable and volatile (Powell and Tucker 2014;Savage 2016), Estonian party system was quite consolidated by 2015, with the number parliamentary parties having decreased to just four after the 2011 election. Moreover, extreme right-wing movements had been electorally unsuccessful in the country for decades, despite the presence of factors often linked to their success (Auers and Kasekamp 2009), and EKRE itself only managed to gain 1.3% of the popular vote at the 2013 local elections.…”