PhD Student : Fabiana Sacchetti Course of “Comparative Politics” (Prof. Luciano Bardi)

1. Party System Institutionalization in Post-Communist Countries: Trends and Interpretations PhD Student : Fabiana Sacchetti Course of “Comparative Politics” (Prof. Luciano Bardi) PhD Program in “Political Systems and Institutional Change” XXIII Cycle A.Y. 2008/09 IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca

2. Institutionalization of Party System(Mainwaring S. 1998 “Party Systems in the Third Wave”) • Institutionalization(Huntington, 1996) “Process by which an organization or a procedure acquires value and stability, becoming well established and widely known” • Institutionalization of Party Systems: 4 Dimensions • Stability (regularity in patterns of party competition) • Rootedness in society (strenght of ties between parties and citizens) • Legitimacy(extent to which political actors believe in parties as fundamental) • Relevance of Party Organization

3. Are Post-communist Countries Institutionalizing a Competitive Party System? • Two Different Theoretical Perspectives • The “Tabula Rasa” Approach • Newness of post-communist democratization • Weak, Incohate and Fluid Party Systems • Mair (1997); Rose (1995); Klingemann (1992) • The “Structure” Approach • Established and Competitive Party Systems and Strong Constituencies • Path Dependency Theories and Studies / Surveys on Voters’ Behavior and Party Identification • Lewis (1994); Kitschelt (1995); Miller (2000); Fish (1995)

4. Empirical Evidence • Very mixed: it can confirm either one or the other approach • Single-case studies • Cross-Country studies

5. Mair P.(1997) “Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations” • Party System: the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition (Sartori, 1976) • Party System Change: when a party system is transformed from one type of party system into another

6. Mair P.(1997) “Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations” Peculiarities of Postcommunist Party Systems • Democratization Process • Absence of real civil society • “Triple Transition” • Establishing ex novo the principle of contestation • Rokkan’s Four Stages (Incorporation, Mobilization, Activation, Politization) are traversed prior to the emergence of new party system • Mass Politics already exists

7. Mair P.(1997) “Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations” • Electorate and Parties • Electorate is open, volatile, uncertain, not yet fully participant • Relative lack of crystallization of identities • Elitist Parties (Top-down, Internally created) No challenge from Mass Parties Difficulties of gaining large membership can be offset by media access and state subsidies

8. Mair P.(1997) “Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations” • Context of Competition • Unstable Organizational Structures (unstable pattern of organizational behavior, party splitting and merging, continued fragmentation, no clear boundaries between parties and interest groups or social movements) • Unstable Institutional Environment • Open Structures of Competition → Lack of “Systemness” (more “Set of Parties” than “Party Systems”, “Atomized Pluralism”)

9. Mair P.(1997) “Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations” • Pattern of Competition • Culture of Political Uncertainty → Competition prevails • What is at stake in the competition is very high (i.e constitution-building) Conclusions Unstability of Post-Communist Party Systems could be just a question of time, but structural variables make institutionalization highly problematic

10. Bielasiak J. (2002) “Institutionalization of Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist States” • Institutionalization of Electoral Reforms • Clear trend toward Proportional Representation • Early Stabilization • Basic changes in electoral formulas took place early (between the breakdown elections and the founding elections) and have been largely absent later on • Subsequent reforms concerned more secific components of electoral regulations (District Magnitude, Assembly Size, Legal Tresholds)

11. Bielasiak J. (2002) “Institutionalization of Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist States” • Voting Patterns • Electoral Volatility (Pedersen Index) : very high (Av. 28%) WE 11.4; SE 16.3; LA 28.1 ECE 20.5; SEE 20.3; BS 31.4; FSU 41.9 • Little change over time • Main reason is the swing between incumbent and opposition parties, as a mean to register dissatisfaction with government policies • Electorate is able to identify party positions on basic issues, but there’s little attachement to specific partiesand ideologies

12. Bielasiak J. (2002) “Institutionalization of Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist States” • Effective Number of Electoral Parties • Very large ENEP: “Multipartitism” or “Extreme Pluralism” WE 3.7; SE 3.5; LA 4.2 ECE 6.4; SEE 4.3; BS 6.7; FSU 6.6 • Proliferation of new parties (exc. Albania, Bulgaria) • Variation over time: Former Bloc decline, FSU oscillation • Pedersen: positive correlation between High Volatility and Large ENEP Conclusions Institutionalised Electoral Systems but not yet fully Institutionalised Party Systems (party fragmentation and electoral fluidity)

13. Meleshevich A. (2004) “Political Institutionalization of Party Systems in Post-Soviet Countries” Political Institutionalization of a Party System: Two Dimensions • Autonomy (external dimension) degree to which parties and party systems fulfill their functions and act autonomously from other social institutions; capacity to have an even support across the country and not simply express interests of a particular social group • Stability (internal dimension) degree of regularity in the patterns of interaction between its elements

14. Meleshevich A. (2004) “Political Institutionalization of Party Systems in Post-Soviet Countries” • Autonomy a) Percentage of seats held by independents and num. of candidates in electoral lists without previous political career b) Role of parties in cabinet formation c) Strenght and uniformity of party identification among regions • Stability a) Percentage of vote share in an election taken by paries that partecipated in any previous election (old parties volatility index) b) Pedersen Index of Electoral Volatility

15. Birch S.(2001) “Electoral Systems and Party System Stability in Postcommunist Europe” • Inter-electoral Volatility: multidimensional concept (1) changes in party support from individual voters (2) changes in composition of the electorate (3) changes in the range of parties (mergers, splits, party foundations, etc) • Party Replacement: measures the turnover of parties, the degree of penetration of new players in to the party system (sum of the vote shares won by parties at t+1 that had not contested at t)

16. Birch S.(2001) “Electoral Systems and Party System Stability in Postcommunist Europe” • Comparison between these two indicators: Inter-electoral Volatility (very high levels) Party Replacement (very high levels) • Basic preferences of electorates have remained stable: most of the change is due to elite-level fluidity • Most party systems in Post-Comm. Europe are uncoupled or floating, responding more to élite changes in configurations of alliances than to shifts in electoral base • Not lack of sistemacity in political competition, but simply a different kind of competition

17. Miller et al. (2000) “Emerging Party Systems in Post-Soviet Societies: Fact or Fiction?” • High levels of 3 Indicators in Post-Soviet Countries 1) Partisan Identification of voters 2) Consistency between identification and voting 3) Correpondence between policy preferences of national élites and their voters • Popular support for parties in post communist countries doesn’t reflect deep seated social cleavages; it arises from information and knowledge regarding policy orientations rather than from socialization • Post-soviet party systems are beginning to provide a real means of representation and communication between masses and élites

18. Bibliography • Bardi L. and Mair P. “The Parameters of Party Systems” (Party Politics, Vol. 12 No.2, 2008) • Bielasiak J. “The Institutionalization of Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist States” (Comparative Politics, Vol. 34 No.2, Jan 2002) • Birch S. “Electoral Systems and Party System Stability in Post Communist Europe” (Paper presented at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Aug 2001) • Mainwaring S. “Democratization in the Third Wave” (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 9 No.3, 1998)

19. Bibliography • Mair P. “Party System Change: Approaches and Interpretations” (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997) • Meleshevich A. and Lockman C. “Political Institutionalization of Party Systems in Post-Soviet Transitions” (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Apr 2004) • Miller A.H. and others “Emerging Party Systems in Post-Soviet Societies: Fact or Fiction?” (The Journal of Politics, Vol. 62 No.2, May 2000) • Sartori G. “Parties and Party Systems” (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976)

20. Useful Additional Bibliography • Bielasiak J. “Party competition in emerging democracies: representation and effectiveness in post-communism and beyond” (Democratization Vol.12 No.3, 2005) • Fish M.S. “Democracy Begin to Emerge”(Current History, 1995) • Fish M.S. “The Advent of Multipartitism in Russia, 1993-95” (Post-Soviet Affair, Vol 11 N.4, 1995) • Huntington S.P. “Political Order in Changing Societies” (Yale University Press, New Heaven, 1998)

21. Useful Additional Bibliography • Kitschelt H.“Formation of Party Systems in East Central Europe”(Politics and Society, Vol.20No.1, 1992) • Kitschelt H. “Formation of Party Cleavages in Post-communist Democracies: Teheoretical Proposition” (Party Politics, Vol.1 N.4, 1995) • Kitschelt H., Mansfeldova Z., et al. “Post- Communist party Systems” (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999) • Klingemann H.D. And Wettenberg M. “Decaying vs Developing Party Systems” (British Journal of Political Science, Vol.22, 1992)

22. Useful Additional Bibliography • Lewis P. “Democratization and Party Development in Eastern Europe” (Democratization, Vol.1 No.3, 1994) • Linz J.J. And Stepan A. “Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe” (John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1996) • Lipset S.M. and Rokkan S. “Party Systems and Voters Alignement: Cross National Perspectives” (Free Press, New York, 1967) • Rose R, and Munro N. “Elections and Parties in New Democracies” (CQ Press, Washington, 2003)