Political Parties and the Study of Political Development: New Insights from the Postcommunist Democracies

This article reviews the literature on postcommunist parties, which, by applying old Westernbased theories to a new and very different context, makes two important contributions to comparative politics. First, the literature stresses the importance of long-term and short-term historical legacies for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inWorld Politics Vol. 56; no. 4; pp. 608 - 633
Main Authors Kreuzer, Marcus, Pettai, Vello
Format Journal Article Book Review
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.07.2004
Johns Hopkins University Press
Subjects
Central Europe
Communism
Communist Parties
Comparative politics
Democratic regimes
Eastern Europe
General theories
Institutionalization
International relations
Kostelecky, Tomas
Moser, Robert G
Nonfiction
Political attitude formation
Political Development
Political Parties
Politics
Post-communist societies
Postcommunist Societies
Review Article
Tworzecki, Hubert
World politics
Central Europe
Russia
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Summary:This article reviews the literature on postcommunist parties, which, by applying old Westernbased theories to a new and very different context, makes two important contributions to comparative politics. First, the literature stresses the importance of long-term and short-term historical legacies for the institutionalization of parties and electoral alignments; in trying to incorporate such legacies, it offers refinements to works on path dependency and political development. Second, the literature highlights the underinstitutionalization of postcommunist parties and thereby offers new insights—particularly on the party switching of electoral candidates—for studying the formation and consolidation of political parties.
Bibliography:ElsterJon, OffeClaus, and PreussUlrich Klaus. Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 350 pp.
We would like to thank the three anonymous World Politics referees for their thoughtful suggestions and acknowledge research support from the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, no. 0182573.
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ISSN:0043-8871
1086-3338
DOI:10.1353/wp.2005.0006