Party Formation, Persistence, and Change: Theoretical Framework, Methodology, and Data

Abstract

During the last two decades, political parties in post-communist political systems have formed, disbanded, merged, and split. In the process, one-party systems have evolved into multiparty systems. However, the experiences of individual East European states have been quite diverse in this respect. Some of them have witnessed the appearance and maintenance of relatively stable political parties while others have seen a substantial degree of fluctuation in the number of parties. The diversity of these countries’ experiences raises three basic questions. First, why, given the post-communist political and institutional context, do parties form? Second, why, once formed, do they persist more or less intact or undergo significant change? And third, how do the institutional, legal, and political characteristics of the post-communist political systems influence this evolutionary process?