Straddling the East-West Divide: Party Organisation and Communist Legacies in East Central Europe

Toole, James

doi:10.1080/713663448

Cited by 30 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Strong parties, that is those with extensive organizations, are often considered to be necessary for democratic consolidation (Mainwaring, 1999). Yet scholars consistently argue that parties in post-communist Europe are organizationally weak and that they are likely to remain that way because parties have no incentives to build strong organizations (Kopecky, 1995; Perkins, 1996; Olson, 1998; Toole, 2003; van Biezen, 2003). Having established that party organizational strength increases party unity, this paper provides evidence of one such incentive.…”

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confidence: 99%

Party organizational strength and party unity in post-communist Europe

Tavits

2011

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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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.

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confidence: 99%

Party organizational strength and party unity in post-communist Europe

Tavits

2011

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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“…Strong parties, those with extensive organizations, are often considered to be necessary for democratic consolidation (Mainwaring 1998). However, scholars consistently argue that parties in postcommunist Europe are generally organizationally weak (van Biezen 2003; Kopecky 1995; Lewis 1996; Toole 2003). Knowing why this is the case is relevant for understanding the prospects of strengthening parties in the region.…”

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confidence: 99%

Power within Parties: The Strength of the Local Party and MP Independence in Postcommunist Europe

Tavits

2011

American J Political Sci

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This study argues that organizationally stronger local party branches are more powerful within the party than organizationally weaker branches: they can better perform the tasks central to the party, which include communication with, and mobilization of, voters. I further argue that this subunit power should be manifested in the parliamentary behavior and status of MPs: those from districts where the local party organization is strong are more likely (1) to behave independently in parliament and break party unity and (2) to hold leadership positions in parliamentary committees. I find support for these propositions in the analysis of 12 legislatures from four postcommunist democracies-Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Poland. The results remain robust against various alternative explanations.H ow is power distributed within political parties and what are the effects of the power distribution? These questions, and the internal workings of parties in general, are relatively unexplored in the otherwise voluminous literature on political parties. It is common to treat parties as unitary actors and ignore their internal diversity despite frequent calls to account for it (Laver 1998;Laver and Schofield 1998;Strom 1990). At the same time, parties' internal power distribution is important for understanding the dynamics of party behavior. Knowing which party subunits or individuals are more influential or more independent can give us clues about party policy choices, position taking, electoral campaigns and performance, interparty relations, coalition decisions, representational linkage types, restructuring attempts, and the like, i.e., the aspects of party politics that are extensively studied by political scientists but so far mostly from the unitary actor perspective. 1 This study explores the power distribution within political parties by borrowing insights from organizational theory. Literature on organizational sociology suggests that power within organizations is asymmetrically dis-

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“…The LipsetRokkan model has been applied to a remarkable range of political questions and to many regions of the world. In recent years, it has been applied by many to analyse party development in post-communist Europe (Cotta 1994;Ma´rkus 1994Ma´rkus , 1996Tworzecki 1996Tworzecki , 2002Ko¨ro¨se´nyi 1996;Rivera 1996;Mair 1997;Lewis 2000;Lindstro¨m 2001;Sitter 2001Sitter , 2002Kostelecky´2002;Zielinski 2002;Toole 2003). What makes the Lipset -Rokkan model so helpful in studying the question posed here is its strong historical basis-its insistence that contemporary party politics can have deep roots in the accumulated social changes of several centuries.…”

Section: The Model and Its Usesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…But even to the degree that the model is upheld by this study, that success cannot represent a blanket validation of the model for the study of East Central European political parties. Studies using the model to study issues that are very different than those considered here-for example, the structure of party organisations (Toole 2003) and the theoretical significance of new democratic party systems (Zielinski 2002)-have found the model less useful in 25 In the study, variation in pre-democratic regime type leads to different democratic-era party political outcomes in East Central and Western Europe because they create different challenges for developing parties. But differences in cross-regional outcomes also turn out to be less dramatic than one might think; they tend to be more of degree than of kind ( van Biezen 2003, p. 219).…”

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confidence: 95%

Straddling the East-West Divide: Party Organisation and Communist Legacies in East Central Europe

Cited by 30 publications

References 17 publications

Party organizational strength and party unity in post-communist Europe

Party organizational strength and party unity in post-communist Europe

Power within Parties: The Strength of the Local Party and MP Independence in Postcommunist Europe

The historical foundations of party politics in post-communist East Central Europe

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