Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Representation and Elections

  • Chapter
Elections, Parties and Representation in Post-Communist Europe

Abstract

The concept of representation has remained central to democracy but it is neither easy nor uncontested. Historically several different notions of representation have coexisted in different political systems. For two centuries debates have continued in Western Europe over what is being represented, who should be doing the representing, and how they should do it. Much of Eastern Europe joined these debates in the inter-war years; after 1989 it joined them once again. The Soviet concept of representation, transmitted to Eastern Europe after the Second World War, was less heterogeneous but not without its own contradictions. It remained a minor but persistent influence.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. A.H. Birch, Representation, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1972, p. 29.

    Google Scholar 

  2. J.S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (1861), New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958, p. 174.

    Google Scholar 

  3. George Sanford, Democratic Government in Poland. Constitutional Politics since 1989, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, pp. 8–9.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Alistair Cole and Peter Campbell, French Electoral Systems and Elections since 1789, Aldershot: Gower, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hanna Pitkin, The Concept of Representation, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967, p. 186.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Edmund Burke, ‘Speech to the Electors of Bristol’ in B.W. Hill, ed., Edmund Burke, Government Politics and Society, London: Fontana, 1975, pp. 156–8.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Edmund Burke, Letter to Sir Hector Langriche (1797), quoted in A.H. Birch, Representative and Responsible Government, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1964, p. 24.

    Google Scholar 

  8. David Judge, Representation. Theory and Practice in Britain, London: Routledge, 1999, p. 26.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Robert McKenzie and Allan Silver, Angels in Marble. Working Class Conservatives in Urban England, London: Heinemann, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  10. F.J.C. Hearnshaw, Conservativism in England (London, 1933), pp. 293–4.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Samuel Beer, Modern British Politics. A Study of Parties and Pressure Groups, London: Faber and Faber, 1965, p. 102.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gordon Smith, Politics in Western Europe. A Comparative Analysis, London: Heinemann Educational Books, 1976 (2nd edn), p. 42.

    Google Scholar 

  13. See Karl Marx, ‘The Communist Manifesto’ in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, New York: W.W. Norton, 1972, pp. 331–62.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Stanley Henig and John Pinder, eds, European Political Parties, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1969, p. 43.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Margareta Holmstedt and Tove-Lise Schou, ‘Sweden and Denmark 1945–1982: Election Programmes in the Scandinavian Setting’ in Ian Budge, David Robertson, and Derek Hearl, Ideology, Strategy and Party Change: Spatial Analyses of Post-War Election Programmes in 19 Democracies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, p. 180.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Susanne Miller and Heinrich Potthoff, A History of German Social Democracy from 1848 to the Present, Leamington Spa: Berg, 1986, pp. 236–92.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties. Their Organisation and Activity in the Modem State (1951), New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1963, pp. 64–6.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Philip Williams, Politics in Post-War France. Parties and the Constitution in the Fourth Republic, London: Longmans, 1954, pp. 107–10.

    Google Scholar 

  19. S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, ‘Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction’ in S.M. Lipset and S. Rokkan, eds, Party Systems and Voter Alignments, New York: Free Press, 1967, pp. 1–64.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalism in Germany, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000, p. 132.

    Google Scholar 

  21. George Bernstein, Liberalism and Liberal Politics in Edwardian England, London: Allen & Unwin, 1986, p. 4.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Ian Budge, Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Judith Bara, and Eric Tanenbaum with others, Mapping Policy Preferences. Estimates for Parties, Electors and Governments 1945–1998, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Philip E. Converse and Roy Pierce, Political Representation in France, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1986, pp. 499–501.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  24. Robertson, and Hearl, Ideology, Strategy and Party Change; also Richard Rose, Do Parties Make a Difference?, London: Macmillan, 1980, pp. 54–5.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Otto Kirchheimer, ‘The Transformation of Western European Party Systems’ in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Wiener, eds, Political Parties and Political Development, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966, p. 184.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Hans-Jürgen Puhle, ‘Still the Age of Catch-allism? Volksparteien and Parteienstaat in Crisis and Re-equilibration’ in Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero and Juan J. Linz, Political Parties. Old Concepts and New Challenges, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 68–9.

    Google Scholar 

  27. Alan Ware, Political Parties and Party Systems, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 228–9; Puhle, p. 68.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organisation and Power, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, pp. 264–6.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Ferdinand Müller-Rommel, ed., New Politics in Western Europe. The Rise and the Success of Green Parties and Alternative Lists, Boulder: Westview Press, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Michael O’Neill, Green Parties and Political Change in Contemporary Europe, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997.

    Google Scholar 

  31. Cas Mudde, ‘Right-wing extremism analyzed: A comparative analysis of the ideologies of three alleged right-wing extremist parties (NPD, NDP, CP’86)’, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 27, 1995, p. 207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Piero Ignazi, ‘The Silent Counter-revolution. Hypotheses on the Emergence of Extreme Right Parties in Europe’, European Journal of Political Research, vol. 22, 1992, pp. 11–13.

    Google Scholar 

  33. Paul Hainsworth, ‘Introduction. The Cutting Edge: The Extreme Right in Post-War Western Europe and the USA’ in Paul Hainsworth, ed., The Extreme Right in Europe and the USA, London: Pinter Publishers, 1992, p. 10.

    Google Scholar 

  34. Cas Mudde, ‘The Paradox of the Anti-Party Party. Insights from the Extreme Right’, Party Politics, vol. 2, no. 2, April 1996, pp. 265–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Leonard Weinburg, ‘Introduction’ in Peter H. Merkel and Leonard Weinberg, Encounters with the Contemporary Radical Right, Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview Press, 1993, p. 8.

    Google Scholar 

  36. Hans-George Betz, ‘The New Politics of Resentment: Radical Right-wing Populist Parties in Western Europe’, Comparative Politics, vol. 25, no. 3, July 1993, pp. 416–18.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Oliver Marchant, ‘Austria and the “Fourth Way”’, Capital and Class, Issue 73, winter 2000, pp. 714.

    Google Scholar 

  38. Steven B. Wolinetz, ‘Beyond the Catch-All Party: Approaches to the Study of Parties and Party Organisation in Contemporary Democracies’ in Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero and Juan J. Linz, Political Parties. Old Concepts and New Challenges, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 149–64.

    Google Scholar 

  39. Andrew Heywood, Political Ideas and Concepts, London: Macmillan, 1994, pp. 182–4.

    Google Scholar 

  40. A.H. Birch, Representation, pp. 55–60; Iain McLean, ‘Forms of Representation and Systems of Voting’ in David Held, ed., Political Theory Today, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991, pp. 172–96.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Pippa Norris and Joni Lovenduski, ‘Women Candidates for Parliament — Transforming the Agenda?’, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 19, no. 1, January, 1989, p. 107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Anne Phillips, Engendering Democracy, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991, p. 63.

    Google Scholar 

  43. Georgina Waylen, ‘Women and Democratization: Conceptualizing Gender Relations in Transition Politics’, World Politics, vol. 46, no. 3, 1994, pp. 327–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Pippa Norris, ‘Women Politicians: Transforming Westminster’, Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 49, no. 1, 1996, p. 91.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. David Dollar, Raymond Fisman, and Roberta Gatti, ‘Are women really the “fairer” sex? Corruption and women in government’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organisation, vol. 46, 2001, pp. 423–9.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Anna G. Jónasdóttir, ‘On the Concept of Interest, Women’s Interests, and the Limitations of Interest Theory’ in Kathleen B. Jones and Anna G. Jónasdóttir, eds, The Political Interests of Gender. Developing Theory and Research with a Feminist Face, London, Newbury Park and New Delhi: Sage, 1985, pp. 33–65.

    Google Scholar 

  47. Norris, ‘Women Politicians’; Martha Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

  48. See Neil Harding, Lenin’s Political Thought, London: Macmillan, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  49. cf. G.V. Plekhanov, quoted in Tony Cliff, Lenin, London: Pluto Press, 1975, vol. 1, p. 106.

    Google Scholar 

  50. cf. Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, in Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader, New York, W.W. Norton, 1972, pp. 554.

    Google Scholar 

  51. J. Arch Getty, ‘State and Society under Stalin: Constitutions and Elections in the 1930s’, Slavic Review, vol. 50, no. 1, 1991, pp. 26–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Robert K. Furtak, ed., Elections in Socialist States, New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990.

    Google Scholar 

  53. L.G. Churchward, Contemporary Soviet Government, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968, p. 112.

    Google Scholar 

  54. R.J. Hill, ‘Continuity and Change in USSR Supreme Soviet Elections’, British Journal of Political Science, vol. 11, no. 1, 1972, pp. 47–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. William F. Robinson, The Pattern of Reform in Hungary: A Political, Economic and Cultural Analysis, London: Praeger, 1973, p. 208.

    Google Scholar 

  56. Hans-Georg Heinrich, Hungary, Politics and Economics, London: Frances Pinter, 1986, p. 66.

    Google Scholar 

  57. Zoltan Barany, ‘Elections in Hungary’ in Robert Furtak, ed., Elections in Socialist States, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, p. 73.

    Google Scholar 

  58. Barnabas Racz, ‘Political Participation and Developed Socialism: the Hungarian Elections of 1985’, Soviet Studies, vol. XXXIX, no. 1, 1987, especially pp. 42–5.

    Google Scholar 

  59. Rudolf Tőkés, Hungary’s Negotiated Revolution. Economic Reform, Social Change and Political Succession, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 268.

    Google Scholar 

  60. Barnabas Racz, ‘The Parliamentary Infrastructure and Political Reforms in Hungary’, Soviet Studies, vol. XLI, no. 1, 1989, pp. 39–66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Gabriella Ilonszki, ‘Legislative Recruitment: Personnel and Institutional Development in Hungary, 1990–94 in Gábor Tóka, ed., The 1990 Election to the Hungarian National Assembly. Analyses, Documents and Data, Berlin: Sigma, 1995, pp. 90–1.

    Google Scholar 

  62. This section is based on April Carter, Democratic Reform in Yugoslavia. The Changing Role of the Party, London: Frances Pinter, 1982, pp. 132–56.

    Google Scholar 

  63. Wolfgang Höpken, ‘Elections in Yugoslavia’ in Robert Furtak, ed., Elections in Socialist States, New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990, pp. 118–42.

    Google Scholar 

  64. W. Hahn, ‘Electoral “Choice” in the Soviet Bloc’, Problems of Communism, vol. 36, no. 2, March–April 1987, pp. 29–39.

    Google Scholar 

  65. Alex Pravda, ‘Elections in Communist Party States’ in Stephen White and Daniel Nelson, eds, Communist Politics. A Reader, London: Macmillan, 1986, pp. 27–54.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  66. Victor Zaslavsky and Robert J. Brym, ‘The Functions of Elections in the USSR’, Soviet Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, 1978, pp. 362–71.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979, pp. 137–44.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Danica Fink Hafner, ‘Political Modernization in Slovenia in the 1980s and the Early 1990s’, The Journal of Communist Studies, vol. 8, no. 4, December 1992, pp. 211–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. A. Bibic, ‘The Emergence of Pluralism in Slovenia’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 26, no. 4, December 1993, pp. 367–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Sabrina Ramet, ‘Slovenia’s Road to Democracy’, Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 45, no. 5, 1993, pp. 869–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Frances Millard, The Anatomy of the New Poland. Post-Communist Politics in Its First Phase, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1994, p. 45.

    Google Scholar 

  72. The fullest study of the Round Table is András Bozóki, The Roundtable Talks of 1989. The Genesis of Hungarian Democracy, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  73. Jana Reschová, ‘Nová politika s novými l’ud’mi: Federálne zhromaždenie v roku 1990’, Sociologicky Časopis, vol. 28, no. 2, 1992, pp. 223–4.

    Google Scholar 

  74. Martyn Rady, Romania in Turmoil, London: I.B. Tauris, 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  75. Nestor Radesh, Romania: The Entangled Revolution, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1991.

    Google Scholar 

  76. Albert P. Melone, ‘Bulgaria’s National Roundtable Talks and the Politics of Accommodation’, International Political Science Review, vol. 15, no. 3, 1994, pp. 257–73.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Bernard Grofman, Evald Mikkel, and Rein Taagepera, ‘Electoral System Changes in Estonia, 1989–1993’, Journal of Baltic Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, 1999, pp. 235–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Sarah Birch, Frances Millard, Marina Popescu, and Kieran Williams, Embodying Democracy. Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe, Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  79. Robertas Pogorelis, ‘Votes and Parties in the Mixed Electoral System in Lithuania’, draft PhD thesis, University of Essex, March 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  80. Anna Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 6.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  81. Patrick O’Neil, Revolution from Within. The Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party and the Collapse of Communism, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1998.

    Google Scholar 

  82. Millard, The Anatomy of the New Poland, 1994, pp. 1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  83. Ole Nørgaard, Lars Johannsen, and Anette Pedersen, ‘The Baltic Republics. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: The Development of Multi-party Systems’ in Bogdan Szajkowski, ed., Political Parties of Eastern Europe, Russia and the Successor States, Harlow: Longman Information and Reference, 1994, p. 51.

    Google Scholar 

  84. Emil Giatzidis, An Introduction to Post-communist Bulgaria. Political, Economic and Social Transformations, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002, p. 49.

    Google Scholar 

  85. Vladimir Tismaneanu, ‘The Tragicomedy of Romanian Communism’, East European Politics and Societies, vol. 3, no. 2, spring 1989, pp. 329–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  86. Anatol Lieven, The Baltic Revolution, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  87. Andrejs Plakans, ‘Democratization and Political Participation in Postcommunist Societies: The Case of Latvia’ in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott, eds, The Consolidation of Democracy in East-Central Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 294–300.

    Google Scholar 

  88. Gábor Tóka, ‘Seats and Votes: Consequences of the Hungarian Electoral Law’ in Gábor Tóka, ed., The 1990 Election to the Hungarian National Assembly. Analyses, Documents and Data, Berlin: Sigma, 1995, pp. 63–5.

    Google Scholar 

  89. Stephen Ashley, ‘Bulgaria’, Electoral Studies, vol. 9, no. 4, 1990, pp. 312–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  90. Tom Gallagher, ‘Romania: The Disputed Election of 1990’, Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 44, no. 1,1991, pp. 79–93.

    Google Scholar 

  91. Dobrinka Kostova, ‘Parliamentary Elections in Bulgaria, October 1991’, The Journal of Communist Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 1992, pp. 196–203.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Government, University of Essex, UK

    Frances Millard (Professor)

Authors
  1. Frances Millard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2004 Frances Millard

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Millard, F. (2004). Representation and Elections. In: Elections, Parties and Representation in Post-Communist Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230000865_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation