Van Biezen EJPR2005

European Journal of Political Research 44: 147–174, 2005 147
On the theory and practice of party formation and

adaptation in new democracies
INGRID VAN BIEZEN

University of Birmingham, UK
Abstract. In addressing issues of party development in contemporary democracies, many

of the recent discussions confuse notions of party formation with those of party adaptation.
The contention of this article is that the conceptual confusion of these two distinct processes
undermines our understanding of party development, which is of particular importance in
the context of the more recently established democracies. Moreover, in order to contribute
to theory building on political parties more generally, it is necessary to differentiate between
the two. This article offers some theoretical contours for the study of party formation and
development, and empirically evaluates the patterns of organizational development in some
of the newer democracies in Southern and East-Central Europe. The analysis shows that
the external context of party formation has encouraged these parties to adopt an organiza-
tional style largely resembling their contemporary counterparts in the older democracies.
However, despite the resemblance between party organizations in the older liberal democ-
racies and the newly established ones, the paths of party development are best understood
as processes sui generis. The historical uniqueness of parties emerging as strong movements
of society, as opposed to agents of the state, is a path that is unlikely to be repeated in con-
temporary polities which democratize in a different institutional context.
In contemporary democracies, political parties have come to be seen as a sine

qua non for the organization of the democratic polity. They are key institu-
tions for the expression of political pluralism and constitute the key channels
for political participation and competition. The relevance of parties for
modern democracy is reflected in the recent proliferation of literature on polit-
ical parties, concentrating either on the established liberal democracies in
Western Europe or on more recently established democracies that have
emerged out of the ‘third wave’ (e.g., Biezen 2003; Dalton & Wattenberg 2000;
Diamandouros & Gunther 2001; Diamond & Gunther 2001; Gunther et al.
2002; Kostelecky¢ 2002; Luther & Müller-Rommel 2002; Szczerbiak 2001; Webb
et al. 2002).
As a result of lack of conceptual clarity or absence of consistent analytical
frameworks, research on political parties has thus far led to contradictory or
at least inconclusive conclusions on a number of counts. One of the important
questions on which the jury is still out is the extent of variation that exists
between parties, and whether patterns of party development, within and
© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

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148 ingrid van biezen
between countries and regions, are to be seen in terms of convergence or diver-

gence. As a result, current research does not permit any conclusive answers to
a number of questions. Is there is a ‘generational’ or a ‘life-cycle’ effect of party
development? Does a party’s genetic structure continue to be reflected
throughout subsequent processes of structural adaptation that lead to differ-
ent and co-existing types of party? Will some sort of a ‘period’ effect lead party
organizations to converge?
One extreme of the continuum is occupied by those who stress diversity,
while at the opposite extreme it is argued that the evidence indicates increas-
ing uniformity. While Coppedge (2001: 178) would argue that ‘each party is
unique’, for example, and Kitschelt (2001: 299) that diversity is much more
impressive than commonality, Bartolini and Mair (2001: 338), in the same
volume, contend that the increasingly standardized conditions in which parties
compete ‘call forth a new style of party, almost regardless of where these
parties are to be found or at what stage in the democratization process they
compete’.
While the degree of similarity or difference lies to some degree in the eye
of the beholder, the continuing scholarly disagreement indicates that, regard-
less of the direction in which the evidence points, there is a need for the further
development of differentiated theoretical frameworks. In this article, it is
argued that one factor that accounts for the weaknesses of theory building on
political parties is the conceptual confusion of the perspectives on party for-
mation with those of party adaptation, development and change. What ulti-
mately lies beneath the controversy over diversity or convergence is a lack of
understanding of the type of context that matters at a party’s initial forma-
tion, how internal party dynamics and the external environment account for
subsequent party development, and how period-effects impact on the genetic
structures of parties. Extrication of the body of theory on political parties into
distinct analytical frameworks of party formation and party change is imper-
ative for any assessment of which institutions matter and how.
This article addresses these issues by focusing on political parties in the
recently established democracies in Southern and East-Central Europe. It
offers some theoretical contours for the study of party formation and party
development, for which it provides three possible scenarios. It then goes on to
evaluate empirically the patterns of party organization in these newer democ-
racies and assesses whether they should be seen in terms of difference or sim-
ilarity with each other and their counterparts in the older liberal democracies.
Finally, it is argued that, despite the many similarities that may exist between
parties in the contemporary West European democracies, party formation
and party development in the newer democracies should be understood as
processes sui generis.

on the theory and practice of party formation and adaptation 149
Party formation versus party adaptation
Theory building in the area of political parties thus far has been severely con-
strained by what could be called a ‘transformation bias’. Most existing party
models are elaborated in the West European context and reflect models of
party change rather than models of party organization per se. The ‘catch-all
party’ (Kirchheimer 1966) and the ‘electoral-professional party’ (Panebianco
1988), for example, are both models signalling a process of transformation with
the classic mass party as explicit point of reference, while the more recent
‘cartel party’ (Katz & Mair 1995) likewise builds on previously existing types
of party organization. As Katz and Mair (1995: 6) assert, ‘the development of
the parties in western democracies has been reflective of a dialectical process
in which each party type generates a reaction which stimulates further devel-
opment, thus leading to yet another type of party, and to another set of reac-
tions and so on’. Logically, therefore, existing party models reflect this process
of party change, in which each model takes a previously existing one as point
of departure. While of some heuristic value, these models are difficult to apply
to the newer democracies.
Although the contemporary literature on political parties has made signif-
icant progress with regard to elaboration of models of party adaptation and
change, it has failed to confront the challenge of developing theories of party
formation that can also be applied to cases other than the Western European
parties of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. LaPalombara and
Weiner’s (1966: 12) assertion made almost forty years ago, namely that
‘[g]reater theorizing is needed [. . .], because Duverger’s attempts to trace the
early development of parties to the emergence of parliaments and electoral
systems [can] hardly be applied to most of the developing areas’, also has a
clear relevance for parties that have been established recently in democratiz-
ing Southern and Eastern Europe. In order to contribute to theory building
on political parties, however, it is imperative to avoid the transformation bias
that is inevitably associated with existing West European models of party.
What is needed is a theoretical framework that differentiates between
processes of party formation, on the one hand, and patterns of party devel-
opment, on the other.
In theory, there are, broadly speaking, at least three possible scenarios of
party formation and party development. These can be distinguished on the
basis of the relevance of the external environment at the moment of party cre-
ation, on the one hand, and the extent to which external factors, or rather inter-
nal dynamics, condition further party development, on the other. In the first
hypothetical scenario, the external environment of a party would be largely
exogenous to both party formation and development. In this case, parties

would share similar characteristics at birth by virtue of their ‘newness’,

and follow a similar process of development as a consequence of a largely
endogenous process of maturation and organizational institutionalization (cf.
Harmel & Svåsand 1993). This scenario is schematically represented in Figure
1, in which the various basic shapes represent different models of party (in an
admittedly somewhat oversimplified manner). It follows from this scenario
that a synchronic analysis of parties at any point in time (tn) would reveal sim-
ilarities between parties at parallel stages in their life-cycle and diversity
among parties that find themselves in different phases. If parties are seen as
developing towards a certain end-stage of institutionalization, a convergence
of parties towards that final stage is to be expected. An example of such a per-
spective is offered by Michels, for example, according to whom all parties
would eventually succumb to the iron law of oligarchy, almost regardless of
their particular origins (see also Harmel 2002: 121). When comparing parties
in the newer democracies with their counterparts in the older ones, this sce-
nario would suggest that parties have developed along similar lines in both. If
this were the case, parties in the newer democracies, regardless of the period
in which they were created or the context in which they first emerged, would
also follow a trajectory from, say, cadre and mass parties to catch-all and cartel
parties.
party A
party B
party C
t1 t2 t3 t4
Time
Figure 1. Life-cycle scenario.

A second scenario would signal a ‘generation’ rather than a ‘life-cycle’

effect. Here, the conditions in which a party first emerges would largely deter-
mine its internal structure as well as the nature and strength of its external
linkages. In addition, the original format, or a party’s genetic structure
(Panebianco 1988), would in essence continue to prevail despite subsequent
processes of internal development and external adaptation. This scenario is
shown in Figure 2. If this were to be the case, substantial differences between
parties created in different contexts and different eras of democratization are
likely to prevail, and similarity is likely to be found within contexts and
periods. Parties in the older democracies in Western Europe that emerged
during the ‘first wave’ of democratization in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries would thus share many comparable features with one
another, but bear little resemblance to those that emerged out of the ‘third
wave’ in Southern Europe in the 1970s, in Latin America in the 1980s or
in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. According to this scenario, commonalities
within, and variation between, each of these waves is likely to constitute the
norm.
As in the first scenario, any synchronic analysis at time tn, including parties
of a different generation is likely to reveal diversity. Unlike the life-cycle sce-
nario, however, an analysis over time would reveal that this would not indi-
cate parties in the newer democracies are lagging behind on their counterparts
party A
party B
party C
t1 t2 t3 t4
Time
Figure 2. Generation effect.

in the earlier established democracies because of their more recent arrival on

the stage. Rather, it would suggest that context-specific types of parties
co-exist, and that parallel patterns of development emerge across regions and
periods. The development of parties in Western Europe from mass to catch-
all and cartel parties would then be an historically unique experience that is
unlikely to be repeated in different environments and different periods of
democratization. Parties in the newer democracies would follow a different,
equally distinctive, trajectory brought about by the unprecedented nature of
more recent democratization processes.
A third scenario indicates a ‘period-effect’ on party formation and devel-
opment. In this scenario, as in the second, the external environment would
have a significant impact on the emerging types of party. However, in contrast
to the ‘generational’ model, changes in the party’s external conditions would
continue to exert a critical influence, to the point of having overall homoge-
nizing effect, compelling parties to adapt to similar types (see Figure 3). The
influence of the immediate environment would thus outweigh the relevance
of genetic origins or internal party dynamics. Even if newly created parties
would not immediately start out as near duplicates of already existing ones,
exogenous pressures would be such that they would ultimately push parties
towards convergence.
If this scenario were to be the most accurate, a large degree of similarity
between parties in similar environments would emerge in any given period,
party A
party B
party C
t1 t2 t3 t4
Time
Figure 3. Period effect.

almost regardless of the stage of the democratization process in which parties

can be found or the period in which they first started to compete. In contem-
porary democratic polities, parties in newer democracies would show signifi-
cant similarities to those in the older liberal democracies. From this scenario,
it follows that parties in the newer democracies would miss out earlier stages
of party development, such as the mass party – and other stages for that
matter – (cf. Kopecky¢ 1995) and would make what Smith (1993: 8) has called
an ‘evolutionary leap’ towards more contemporary models in Western Europe.
The available empirical evidence suggests that the first scenario is proba-
bly an implausible one. Moreover, although the argument itself may serve an
important heuristic purpose, there are good reasons to dismiss this scenario
on theoretical grounds as well, as it is arguably unlikely that the conditions in
which a party first starts to operate would have little or no impact on its inter-
nal structure. This is especially true for models that approach parties in terms
of their linkages with their external environment and attempt to locate them
in relation to their position vis-à-vis society and the state. It is rather more
likely that party formation and the nature of the emerging linkages between
parties, citizens and the state are conditioned by exogenous factors such as the
institutional context, historical legacies or the nature of the previous regime
(e.g., Kitschelt 2001). What may also shed light on the variety of parties is the
sequence of development, and particularly the timing of party formation vis-
à-vis the establishment of responsible government and the introduction of uni-
versal suffrage (Daalder 2001; see also Biezen 1998). Party formation may also
be driven by social, cultural and economic imperatives, such as the cleavage
structure of society, or contingent factors, such as access to the mass media and
availability of state subsidies.
Hence, while parties may be considered independent institutional forces
that act upon political, social and economic development or change, they
should also be regarded as in some way dependent and responding to their
environment. However, the literature has thus far been unsuccessful in
accommodating parties as responsive to their structural environment with
their capacity to operate as autonomous actors, as it has also failed to reflect
on their dual nature as both institutions and agents. The contention in this
article is that that context and conduct are necessarily interrelated and, more
specifically, the behaviour of party leaderships and party strategies cannot be
seen to be independent from the structural context in which the party is
embedded. Theories of party formation should thus rather seek a more neo-
institutionalist approach that emphasizes the fact that existing structures make
a difference for the choices that will be made, and concentrate primarily on
environmental factors external to the party as key determinants for party for-
mation. In the perspective adopted here, therefore, the basic assumption is that

the strategies of parties are shaped by both the institutional context and the
historical setting in which they operate (cf. Aldrich 1995). The environment in
which the party begins to operate is primarily responsible for the type of party
that emerges. Moreover, the changing environment is often, as Katz and Mair
(1995: 18) suggest, the ultimate source of party change. In other words, while
strategies of party formation and change might be contingent and subject to
choice, contingency is also subject to structural constraints (see Karl 1990).
Thus no study of party formation can afford to ignore the wider context in
which parties first emerge. The following sections will analyze in more detail
how the context of party formation has shaped the opportunities and con-
straints for strategies of political mobilization and organization in some of the
‘third wave’ democracies in Southern and East-Central Europe.1
The context of party formation
In recent processes of democratization, many parties began their organiza-

tional lives with almost no real presence on the ground. In addition, the par-
ticular path towards democracy allowed for relatively little time to expand the
extra-parliamentary party organization prior to the first democratic elections.
More generally, and in contrast with many of the externally created parties
(in particular socialist ones) in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
Western Europe, a strong membership organization was not perceived to be
an ‘organizational necessity’ (Epstein 1980). Indeed, a membership organiza-
tion was seen to provide few benefits to the party not already available from
alternative human or financial resources.
Another important point to recognize here is that many of the parties
developing in these new democracies had an institutional, rather than societal,
origin and generally did not follow the traditional West European path of
party formation by which parties were created to represent the interests of a
particular segment of society that can be defined in structural terms (see Lipset
& Rokkan 1967). Instead, party formation was often based on politicized atti-
tudinal divisions regarding the desirability, degree and direction of regime
change rather than politicized social stratification. As Schöpflin (1993: 259)
observed for the Eastern European context:
At a deeper level, the post-communist contest was not so much about

policies as about polities. The key issues centered on the nature of the
constitutional order and the rules of the political game, rather than the
allocation of resources that makes up the standard fare of politics in
established democracies.

Since they were often not created as the agents of a defined segment of society,
the social basis of party politics had to be created after the transition to democ-
racy. Hence the answer of Minister Syryjczyk of the Mazowiecki Government
in Poland to the question of whom he represented: “I represent subjects that
do not yet exist” (quoted in Staniszkis 1991: 184). Because parties lacked a
‘natural constituency’ and an ‘electorate of belonging’, they would not provide
the political articulation of pre-defined segments of the electorate. The lack of
partisan identities or stable party preferences in the unaligned electorates,
moreover, compelled the recently created parties to make a strategic choice
for expansive electoral mobilization rather than partisan mobilization. While
mass parties in the old democracies generally started out as organizations of
society demanding participation, parties in the new democracies were faced
with the challenge of enticing citizens who already have rights of participation
to exercise those rights.
The relatively time-consuming and labour-intensive strategy of partisan
mobilization by which parties create a structural and permanent anchoring of
the party within society through an active recruitment of members and the
expansion of the organization on the ground is usually only chosen when no
other feasible options are available (Kalyvas 1996). Parties in new democra-
cies were rather inclined to turn to the electorate at large, which, assisted by
the availability of modern mass media, was generally perceived as the most
effective strategy for creating alignments with the electorate and enhancing
the chances for party survival. Indeed, electoral, rather than partisan, mobi-
lization was also the strategy that began to be preferred increasingly in the
West. As it was famously articulated by Kirchheimer (1966: 184), parties
during the postwar years were ‘[a]bandoning attempts at the intellectual and
moral encadrement of the masses [and] turning more fully to the electoral
scene, trying to exchange effectiveness in depth for a wider audience and more
immediate electoral success’. As will be discussed at greater length below, the
context of party formation in recent cases of democratization provided few
incentives for the prioritizing of organizationally penetrative, as opposed to
electoralist, strategies.
Parties and society
Although most parties in the newer democracies formally adopted the model
of the party as a membership organization, thus seemingly taking their cue
from their older West European counterparts in which party structures are
based on formal membership registration and a network of local branches, the
notion of an active and committed rank-and-file typical of the classic West

European mass party is virtually non-existent. Membership organizations tend

to be small and have relatively little participatory substance. This is most
evident from the low membership figures (see below), but can also be seen
from the comparatively high levels of professionalization, for example. In the
older democracies, the diminished importance of voluntary labour is demon-
strated by the substantial increase in the number of paid employees at the
party central office during the postwar period. In the late 1980s, parties in
Western democracies recorded, on average, 6.3 paid employees for every
10,000 party members (Krouwel 1999: 91). The equivalent figure for Czech and
Hungarian parties, by contrast, amounted to 16.7 paid employees per 10,000
party members at the party central office in the late 1990s. This much higher
level of professionalization indicates that internal party activity members are
clearly of even less relevance and paid professionals of more importance than
in the older democracies.
In addition, the obligations of the membership to the party tend to be only
minimal and generally do not exceed the payment of the membership fees or
undemanding requirements such as the acceptance of the party programme
or statutes. It is only in parties with a longer organizational history, such as the
former ruling communist parties and their satellites in Eastern Europe or the
previously clandestine communist and socialist parties in Southern Europe,
that an active level of participation and some degree of commitment to the
party is sometimes required from their members. Virtually without exception,
however, these older parties are now gradually abandoning their organiza-
tional and ideological inheritance. This process can be understood as the adap-
tation of party organizations to an environment in which a substantial level of
engagement of the membership in internal party activities is no longer desir-
able, in which an active party membership is seen to be less important, and in
which the traditional role of the party member is increasingly fulfilled by party
officials and paid professionals.
What further underscores the marginal relevance of the party membership
in the context of the new democracies is the relative indifference of party elites
towards their memberships. This is reflected by a relatively acquiescent atti-
tude towards low membership levels, the absence of membership recruitment
campaigns and also, rather strikingly, in the widespread practice of fielding
independent candidates for public office under the party label. This is a preva-
lent phenomenon in post-communist politics in particular, which is partly
induced by the negative connotation associated with the institution of the
political party. For Russia, for example, Moser (1999: 148) observes that can-
didates would sometimes ‘intentionally hid[e] their ties to a party in fear that
their party affiliation would alienate potential supporters’. By expanding their
reach outside the channels of the party organization in performing their

recruitment function, these parties reveal a generally poor sense of party and
show a primary concern for electoral mobilization rather than seeing the party
as a platform of membership participation or as a channel for the political inte-
gration of society. In the words of Bálint Magyar (1992), a former Minister of
Culture and Education in Hungary and, since 1998, president of the Free
Democrats (SZDSZ), the model of party as a membership organization should
be relegated as a primitive and old-fashioned phenomenon while the ideal
organizational structure of a political party should be one designed primarily
to attract the largest number of voters. Such a conception of party organiza-
tion contrasts sharply with the continuing interest in many of the West Euro-
pean parties in maintaining a large membership or preserving a strong
membership organization (e.g., Scarrow 1996).
Given this general attitude towards the membership, it is perhaps not sur-
prising that the levels of party affiliation in new democracies are generally
quite low and that parties in new democracies are characterized by relatively
weak partisan linkages with society. This can be seen from Table 1, which
reports the overall levels of party membership for two of the democracies in
southern Europe (Portugal and Spain) and two of the more recently estab-
lished democracies in East-Central Europe (Hungary and the Czech Repub-
lic), as well as the level of party membership as a percentage of the national
electorate (the M/E ratio). The evidence clearly shows that parties in these
newly established democracies do not engage citizens the way their counter-
parts in the longer established democracies once did (see Katz et al. 1992).
They also fall below the mean of almost 5 per cent recorded for European
democracies in the late 1990s and early 2000 (Mair & Biezen 2001).
A diachronic analysis of the membership levels furthermore reveals that
the membership organizations are unlikely to expand substantially beyond
their presently limited size. In fact, Hungary and Portugal have seen party
membership decline slightly in the last ten and twenty years, respectively. The
Czech Republic has recorded an even more substantial decline, with mem-
bership levels being reduced by more than half since the transition to democ-
racy. This can be largely attributed to the massive, and in fact quite predictable,
decline in the membership of the former ruling Communist Party (KS Č, now
KS ČM) and, although to a lesser extent, to that of the former satellite Chris-
tian Democratic Party (KDU- ČSL). Although the relatively large member-
ship organizations of some of the older parties may reflect a certain degree of
organizational inertia, the erosion of their memberships suggests that they are
gradually losing their organizational hold on society. Ultimately, therefore, this
type of partisan linkage with society will lose much of its relevance.
Spain is one of the few new democracies where party membership in rela-
tion to the electorate has increased significantly with time. Between 1980 and

Table 1. Party membership change, 1980–2000
1980–1981 1990–1992 1998–2000 % change
Portugal
PCP 187,018 163,506 131,504 -29.7
PS 105,537 69,351 100,000 -5.2
PSD 38,128 137,931 75,000 +96.7
CDS/PP 6,732 26,801 40,000 +494.2
Total 337,415 397,589 346,504 +2.7
M/E 4.87 4.95 3.99 -18.1
Spain
PCE 160,000 44,775 26,253 -83.6
IU 57,303 70,000 +22.2
PSOE 97,356 262,854 410,000 +321.1
AP/PP 56,319 284,323 601,731 +968.4
UCD 136,106 - - -
Total 449,781 649,255 1,107,984 +146.3
M/E 1.68 2.19 3.35 +99.4
Hungary
MSZP 59,000 39,000 -33.9
SZDSZ 24,000 16,000 -33.3
MDF 33,800 23,000 -32.0
KDNP 3,500 10,000 +185.7
FKGP 40,000 60,000 +50.0
FIDESZ-MPP 5,000 15,600 +212.0
Total 165,300 163,600 -1.0
M/E 2.11 2.03 -3.8
Czech Republic
KS ČM 354,549 136,516 -61.5
ČSSD 13,000 13,000 0.0
KDU- ČSL 100,000 62,000 -38.0
ODS 22,000 22,000 0.0
Total 489,549 236,516 -52.3
M/E 6.33 2.91 -54.0
Note: M/E = party membership as a percentage of the electorate.

Sources: Biezen (2003); Mair & Biezen (2001).

2000, membership levels almost doubled, although this rather exceptional

increase should be qualified by underlining that it started from a relatively low
base in 1980. Nevertheless, increasing membership in the Spanish case pro-
vides a rather atypical example, in particular because it is a new party (the
Partido Popular – PP) that has experienced the most dramatic increase and
now records the highest level of party membership of all Spanish parties. This
suggests that, despite the relevance of the external environment at the moment
of creation, internal party dynamics can in principle make a difference for sub-
sequent development. In the case of the PP, for example, membership recruit-
ment was adopted deliberately in the mid-1980s as a strategy for electoral
expansion.
That the organizational linkages between parties and society are generally
weakly developed can also be seen from the low extensiveness of party orga-
nizations. Newly created parties in post-communist polities in particular have
established such a small number of local branches that, on average, the reach
of party organizations does not exceed a quarter of the country.2 One of
the crucial consequences of the weak presence of party organizations on the
ground is the low profile of parties in local politics, and especially in the smaller
municipalities, which in post-communist democracies tends to be dominated
by independent candidates. A recent study of local government and elections,
for example, revealed that, in at least three of the East-Central European
countries (Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic), the vast majority of the
candidates contesting and elected in municipal elections were without party
affiliation (Horváth 2000). This low territorial implantation of party organiza-
tions leaves parties by and large remote from large sectors of society, and, con-
sequently, renders partisan linkages more generally of little relevance as a
channel to structure the relationship between parties and society.
Finally, and in addition to the weakness of the partisan linkage per se, it is
important to emphasize that the nature of the relationship between parties
and society tends to be shaped through direct rather than indirect linkages.
Very few, if any, of the parties report any formal linkages with trade unions or
with organized interest associations. Although close relationships between
parties and trade unions and other interest organizations may exist in politi-
cal practice, they tend to consist of a direct linkage rather than an indirect one
in which the union is partially incorporated within the organizational struc-
ture and acts as a transmission belt of the party. Relationships furthermore
tend to be of a pragmatic rather than ideological nature, in which neither the
union nor the party restricts contacts exclusively to one another. Only a small
minority of parties, such as the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) or the
Hungarian Christian Democrats (KDNP), maintain a strong organic linkage
with like-minded associations and movements (Biezen 1998; Enyedi 1996).

They provide an exception to a general organizational pattern, however, in

which an exclusive commitment to a particular fraternal interest association
is normally absent.
The autonomous relation between parties and organized interests cannot
be attributed exclusively to the weak development of civil society; it is also
the result of a predisposition against a particular (indirect) model of party
organization. This is a product of the context of a contemporary democratiz-
ing regime in which parties are generally not born out of politicized social
interests and in which the external environment and the sequence of organi-
zational development leaves them few incentives to develop a close and for-
malized linkage to organized interest movements (cf. Waller et al. 1994). The
environment can be seen to exert similar pressures on many of the older
parties, to the point that their historical linkages with organized interests
have now begun to unravel. Where strong linkages existed historically, they
have become much looser with time. The organizational and programmatic
commitment between parties and unions has been abandoned quite decisively
in the case of the former ruling communist parties and their allied trade
unions, while in the Southern European context both the Spanish Communist
Party (PCE) and the Socialist Party (PSOE) have gradually disentangled
themselves from their traditionally affiliated unions (Biezen 1998; Gillespie
1990).
All of the arguments cited above – the weak position of party members
vis-à-vis paid professionals, the indifference towards a large and active mem-
bership, the low levels of party affiliation, the limited reach of party organi-
zations, and the weakness of the linkages between parties and organized
interests – suggest that parties in new democracies lack the capacity and
resources to build up mass organizations. In this sense, the tendency towards
a declining importance of the partisan linkage observed for the established
Western European democracies, where ‘parties are weakening as elite-mass
linkages’ (Andeweg 1996: 158), is also visible (and even more forcefully so) in
the context of these newer democracies. It appears to be an electoral rather
than partisan linkage that almost exclusively shapes the relationship between
parties and society, while the role of parties in providing the linkage between
society and the state is becoming increasingly irrelevant (cf. Katz 1990).
Another factor is also at play here that is crucial to the development of
organizational styles and derives from the wider context within which party
linkages can be facilitated: the possibility for public funding of party activity.
As will be shown below, the widespread availability of state funding can be
seen to offer parties additional opportunities to bypass the creation of struc-
tural partisan linkages with society.

Encouraging étatisation through public funding
For modern parties in the established Western democracies, the introduction

of state subventions to parties has encouraged important changes in the way
in which parties organize. Most importantly, the increasing availability of state
subventions has served to strengthen the orientation of parties towards the
state while it has, at the same time, contributed to their shifting away from
society (Katz & Mair 1995). Even more so than in the established European
democracies, public funding plays a pivotal role in the financing of parties in
many of the newer democracies, if only because direct state support was often
introduced at an early stage of the democratization process and, for many
newly emerging parties, in the initial phase of party formation. Although the
introduction of state support often occurred without much debate on the role
public money should play in the financing of democratic politics (e.g., Castillo
1989: 179), state funding has reinforced the organizational styles already
encouraged by the context in which parties first developed and decisively
strengthened party-state relations from the outset (see Lewis 1998).
In the mid-1970s, the Southern European countries were the first of the
‘third wave’ democracies to introduce public funding of parties on a relatively
large scale, an example which has since been followed by many of the post-
communist democracies established in the early 1990s. In a comparative study
of the practice of political finance in 17 Eastern Europe countries, Ikstens
et al. (2002) find that three-quarters of the post-communist polities provide
direct public subsidies to political parties and candidates, while all of them
offer indirect state subsidies. Given that state support was introduced when
most parties were still in an initial stage of party formation and therefore
usually lacked alternative organizational resources, public funding was always
likely to play a critical role. Indeed, the state appears to be the predominant
player in party financing in many of the post-communist countries in Europe
as well as in their Southern European counterparts. To the major Portuguese
and Spanish parties, for example, the state contributes on average some 75
to 85 per cent of their total income (Biezen 2000a). In most of the post-
communist democracies in Eastern Europe, the role of the state in party
financing tends to be of equal significance (Lewis 1998; Szczerbiak 2001).
Table 2 shows the relative importance of the state for the financing of
parties and election campaigns in some of the newer democracies in Southern
and East-Central Europe. The figures here are expressed as a percentage of
the total party income and present the averages per party over a number of
years.3 They also distinguish between three broader categories of monetary
income: the state (including subsidies for election campaigns and routine

162
Table 2. Financing parties in new democracies
Country Party and percentage Mean
Portugal (1995–2002)a PCP PS PSD CDS-PP

State subventions 18.5 30.5 34.0 29.4 28.1
Private fundraising 13.9 47.9 62.5 28.5 38.2
Other 67.6 21.6 3.7 42.1 33.8
Spain (1988–1997)b PCE/IU PSOE AP/PP

State subventions 70.8 77.0 81.5 76.4
Private fundraising 13.4 15.3 15.0 14.6
Other 15.9 7.6 3.5 9.0
Hungary (1990–1996) MSZP SZDSZ MDF KDNP FKGP FIDESZ
State subventions 39.2 78.2 28.8 78.4 87.7 22.5 55.8
ingrid van biezen
Private fundraising 7.7 12.8 5.8 8.3 7.0 0.6 7.0

Other 53.2 9.0 65.6 13.4 5.3 76.8 37.2
Czech Republic (1995–1996) ODS ODA KDU- ČSL ČSSD KS ČM
State subventions 59.5 47.9 41.4 58.3 31.3 47.7
Private fundraising 30.2 42.7 21.5 3.1 34.2 26.3
Other 10.4 9.5 37.1 39.6 34.6 26.2
Notes: sources of income (percentage of total income); a election campaigns only; b excluding election campaigns.
Sources: see Biezen 2003.
operational activities), private or voluntary fundraising (including member-

ship fees, individual and corporate donations), and other sources (which may
include bank loans, revenues from real estate or unspecified income). Even
though the sometimes large category of ‘other’ sources of income makes
a more detailed analysis virtually impossible,4 the evidence presented here
clearly demonstrates the unequivocal importance of state support to political
parties. State subventions amount to almost 30 per cent of total party income
in the case of Portugal, about half of annual party income in post-communist
Hungary and the Czech Republic, and over three-quarters in the case of Spain
(for a breakdown and more detailed analysis, see Biezen 2003: Chapter 8).
Moreover, with the exception of Portugal, the state has assumed the role of
most important financial contributor to party activity.5 In general, the picture
that emerges for all these new democracies is that, although the relevance
of private and voluntary fundraising has not entirely been relegated to the
margins, these types of contributions are clearly of less significance than public
subsidies. For many parties, the financial dependence on public subventions is
such that the state is often (at least formally) the single most important finan-
cial contributor to party activity, while some parties are virtually entirely
dependent on public money.
Given the generally low levels of party affiliation, membership subscrip-
tions have always constituted a practically irrelevant source of revenue. Only
for a few parties does the membership organization continue to be of impor-
tance in financial terms. All of these are parties with a longstanding organiza-
tional history, however, that have preserved the legacy of relatively large
membership organizations. These include the Portuguese Communist Party
(PCP) and the former ruling Communist Party in what is now the Czech
Republic (KS ČM). The general tendency, however, is one that indicates the
relative unimportance of the membership organization for party financing,
with the financial contribution of membership subscriptions reaching levels
approximating zero in extreme cases such as that of the (former) Young
Democrats (FIDESZ) in Hungary.
The findings in Table 2 indicate that state subventions in these four new
democracies, on average, constitute 52 per cent of the total party income. In
financial terms, parties in new democracies thus appear even more firmly
entrenched in the state than parties in the long-established democracies,
where the average share of public funds to the total income of Western Euro-
pean parties in the late 1980s amounted to only some 35 per cent (Krouwel
1999: 82). Given that the figures presented in Table 2 exclude the financing of
routine organizational activity in Portugal, as well as the financing of election
campaigns in Spain, the evidence presented here is in fact likely to underesti-
mate the overall importance of state funding. In terms of their strong linkage

with the state, therefore, these Southern and East-Central European parties
clearly reflect the tendency observed by Katz and Mair (1995) for Western
Europe, by which state subventions become a principal resource for parties
in a modern democracy and by which parties increasingly become part of
the state apparatus rather than the being the representative agents of civil
society. Even though the advent of public subsidies may imply that other
sources of income have become entirely irrelevant (cf. Pierre et al. 2000), the
relevance of state subventions is extraordinary and may indeed, as Katz (2002:
115) has argued ‘represent a fundamental change in the character of the party,
furthering its transformation from a private association into a semi-public
entity’.
While the introduction of public funding in Western Europe contributed
significantly to parties’ shifting orientation from society towards the state, in
the newer democracies the linkage with the state came immediately in the
wake of democratization, resulting in no such shift occurring and leaving
parties entrenched in the state from the very outset. The parties’ early finan-
cial dependence on the state also appears to have removed a key incentive to
establish a more structural financial linkage with civil society. Notwithstand-
ing its continuing importance for some of the older parties, the membership
organization has generally lost virtually all relevance in financial terms. In the
four recently established democracies analyzed here, the share of membership
fees to the total party income, on average, amounts to between 5 and 10 per
cent. This figure again stands out in sharp contrast to parties in the older West
European democracies, where, despite a distinct decline from the beginning
of the 1950s onwards, almost 30 per cent of income still originated from mem-
bership fees by the late 1980s (Krouwel 1999: 76). Hence, parties in both East-
Central and Southern Europe present unequivocal evidence of the pace by
which tendencies observed for the long-established democracies tend to be
reinforced in the context of a new democracy.
The extensive availability of and dependence on public funds has not only
created strong party–state linkages, but also further centralized the locus of
power within the party (cf. Nassmacher 1989; Panebianco 1988). More specif-
ically, increasing dependence on the state as the predominant financier
coupled with the allocation of state subventions to the party central office has
resulted in a corresponding concentration of power within the party. Hence,
in terms of internal organizational dynamics, the extreme financial depen-
dence on the state has further encouraged the oligarchization of parties.
Parties in new democracies, therefore, are primarily elitist organizations,
although ones in which the locus of power is to be found within the extra-
parliamentary executive rather than in the party in public office (see below).

The balance of power
Parties developing in early democratizing Western Europe gradually passed

through the consecutive stages of legitimation, incorporation, representation
and executive power (Rokkan 1970). While traversing these four stages
marked a long-term process of organizational development, party formation
in newer democracies occurred rapidly and in the aftermath of democratiza-
tion and politicization (Mair 1997). Furthermore, newly emerging parties were
created from within the party in public office, or would acquire parliamentary
representation (and often also government responsibility) almost immediately
after their formation. In contrast to many of their West European counter-
parts, therefore, few of the newly created parties in ‘third wave’ democracies
can be seen as ‘externally created’. In many cases, they appeared confined to
a parliamentary (and sometimes governmental) existence, as well as lacking
an established organizational structure extending much beyond these offices.
Because parties in the newer democracies were usually created by a small
group of prominent elites at the national level, party structures would largely
develop from the top-down. This is in sharp contrast to most of the externally
created parties in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Western
Europe, in particular socialist and religious ones, where mass mobilization
preceded the creation of national party organizations (e.g., Bartolini 2000;
Kalyvas 1996) and were thus largely built from the bottom up.
The impact of their internal creation and top-down development is
reflected in the high levels of centralization and in the fact that many party
organizations are concentrated around their party leaderships. Indeed, many
parties stand out for having concentrated power at the highest echelons of the
party in the hands of a small elite, to the point that they reveal strong oli-
garchic tendencies (Machos 1999). The ultimate authority on financial deci-
sions, for example, usually rests with the national executives, signalling a high
degree of centralization which, given the centralized allocation of state sub-
ventions, is further enhanced by the importance of public funding. Candidate
selection procedures tend to be highly centralized as well. Even in parties
where the selection process is formally carried out according to a bottom-up
procedure, the national executive often enjoys – in practice and by party
statute – the ultimate authority to veto candidates or to decide on their rank
order on the party lists. Moreover, the influence of the national executive on
the selection of candidates also frequently extends to the selection of public
officeholders on the local and regional levels. Even in parties where the role
of the membership might be seen as more meaningful because it is given a
direct voice in the selection of the party leader, as in the case of the Spanish

Socialist Party (PSOE), the party leadership retains such a strong role in the
selection of candidates that the extent to which the primaries have actually
increased the influence of the membership is questionable (Hopkin 2001).
The predominant position of the party leaderships is further encouraged
by two factors that derive from the wider context in which these parties
operate – namely the small and weakly institutionalized membership organi-
zations and the pervasiveness of television. More specifically, the combined
impact of both these factors has contributed significantly to a highly person-
alized style of politics (Pasquino 2001). While a high degree of personaliza-
tion is virtually inevitable in a context where the identity of many of the newly
created parties has yet to crystallize beyond the personal appeal of the party
leader (cf. Sartori 1968), the persistent weakness of the party organizations
has enabled party leaders to continue to monopolize the public image of their
parties beyond the early stages of the transition.
The predominance of the party leaderships is reflected in highly personal-
ized networks around the party presidents and in the fact that personalist
features tend to dominate internal party conflicts. Indeed, a high level of intra-
party instability encouraged by the particular political style of the party leader
is typical for new parties in a new democracy.6 This stands in sharp contrast to
the established liberal democracies, where the number of splits and mergers
has generally been relatively limited (Mair 1990), and further underlines the
weaker party loyalties and lower levels of party institutionalization in newer
democracies. The personalization of party politics is further suggested by pres-
identialized party structures that are often codified in the party statutes by the
formal institutionalization of the party presidency as a ‘unipersonal’ and priv-
ileged party office with decision-making authority in key areas.
In many parties, selection of the members of the party executive, control
over the party apparatus, employment of party personnel, financial manage-
ment of the party or selection of candidates for public office largely hinge upon
the authority of the party leader, to the point that their party organizations
can be classified as ‘presidential-authoritarian’ or as ‘president-oriented oli-
garchies’ (Machos 1999). More generally, the prevailing model of party orga-
nization in the new democracies is hierarchical and top-down, with little room
for a membership organization of any importance, with a predominant party
leadership and a tendency towards personalization. A illustrative example in
this respect is provided by the radical transformation of the former youth
movement FIDESZ (now FIDESZ-MPP) in Hungary from a collegial to a
personal leadership with extensive prerogatives, and from a grassroots move-
ment to an ‘extremely oligarchic’ and highly professionalized party structure
designed for winning office (Balász & Enyedi 1996). This represents a shift
towards what symbolizes the predominant leadership style and type of party

organization. It also clearly underlines that pressures to increase the electoral

orientation are difficult to withstand and a participatory orientation is rela-
tively easily sacrificed when confronted by the need for organizational effi-
ciency and electoral expansion.
A final observation on the internal balance of power concerns the position
of the party in public office, and its relationship with the party executive in
particular. Given a sequence of party development by which the party in
public office emerges first, and given that it is this face of the party that initi-
ates and controls subsequent organizational development, we would anticipate
that, rather than acting as the agent of the extra-parliamentary party or the
party on the ground, the party in public office maintains its early privileged
position and continues to occupy a predominant position within the overall
party organization. Indeed, the tendency for members of national executives
and public officeholders to accumulate political mandates produces an overall
picture of party executives being strongly invaded by public officeholders.
However, party statutes, as well as political practice, signal a remarkably pow-
erful position for the party executive to the point that the party in public office
should actually be seen as subordinate to the extra-parliamentary executive.
Rather than having acquired an autonomous status vis-à-vis the extra-parlia-
mentary party, let alone that of the predominant body, the party in public office
should in fact be seen as the least privileged face of party organization. This
is indicated by the distribution of financial and human resources (e.g., the dis-
tribution of state subventions to the advantage of the extra-parliamentary
party) as well as its much higher level of professionalization in comparison to
the parliamentary party. Parties in new democracies thus counter the trend
recently observed for many Western European countries where the party in
public office has generally been the main beneficiary of the changing rela-
tionship between the different faces of the party organization (Katz & Mair
1993; Heidar & Koole 2000). Models of party formation and organizational
adaptation established for the older democracies are thus apparently of
limited value as the internal creation of parties appears to have little relevance
for the overall power balance between the extra-parliamentary party and the
party in public office. Nor has their birth in an environment of generous public
funding and widely available mass media tipped the scales in favour of the
party in public office.
What should be at the core of any explanation of the tendency to
strengthen the position of the party executive at the expense of the party in
public office for parties in the recently established democracies is the desire
to increase party cohesion and so reduce the potentially destabilizing conse-
quences of emerging intra-party conflicts that are an inevitable by-product of
the context of weakly developed party loyalties and a generalized lack of party

institutionalization (see Biezen 2000b). From this perspective, the incorpora-

tion of large numbers of public officeholders into the party executive and the
simultaneously strong position of the party executive should be interpreted as
a disciplinary device intended to increase the cohesion of the party in public
office (cf. Deschouwer 1994). By ensuring the supremacy of the rules and
directives of the party over the autonomy of the fraction and the MPs’
constitutionally enshrined free mandate, parties intend to counteract the
potential lack of parliamentary unity and establish a degree of cohesion
that otherwise could not be easily achieved in a context of weakly developed
party loyalties. Furthermore, consolidating its position within the party exec-
utive provides the party leadership with a relatively stable organizational base
that can best withstand the volatile environment of a newly emerging democ-
racy. This is a particularly valuable asset in a climate of frequent party
ruptures.
A cohesion-seeking perspective also explains why in virtually all parties
the process of selection of candidates for public office is highly centralized and
concentrated around the party leadership. For parliamentary cohesion, and
ultimately government stability, some pre-existing loyalty to the party should
exist while, conversely, the lack of ‘built-in partisanship’ may enhance parlia-
mentary indiscipline (Bowler et al. 1999; Gallagher 1988). In the context of a
newly established democracy where party attachments are generally weakly
developed, therefore, parties have developed alternative mechanisms to
reduce possible dissenting behaviour among their parliamentary representa-
tives. Controlling the recruitment process of future public officeholders from
above is one of the means by which they compensate for the weakness of reser-
voirs of party loyalty through ‘enforced discipline’ (cf. Sartori 1994: 191). The
high level of accumulation of mandates has facilitated the concentration of
power to such an extent that it is concentrated in the hands of only a few
persons and party organizations are controlled from a small centre of power
located at the interstices of the party executive and the party in public office
(Biezen 2000b).
Conclusion
While they differ from their contemporary counterparts in the older democ-
racies with respect to the balance of power between the party in public office
and the party executive, in many other respects parties in the new democra-
cies analyzed in detail here provide a model by which the organizational styles
that characterize parties in contemporary West Europe are even more force-
fully present. This can be seen from the weak partisan and strong electoral

linkages, the reduced relevance of party members, the predominance of pro-

fessionals and party leaderships, the importance of public funding and the
parties’ assimilation with the state (Beyme 1996; Katz & Mair 1995). We do
not witness unique types of party in these newer democracies, however, at least
not to the extent that they should be perceived as fundamentally different
from existing models in the established democracies. Any existing variation
between parties in old and new democracies can best be interpreted as dif-
ferences in degree rather than in kind.
What this suggests in terms of the scenarios of party formation and devel-
opment outlined above is that the institutional context and the period in which
parties in the new democracies emerged have encouraged them to converge
towards their counterparts in the West. However, it should also be apparent
that the patterns of party formation and the paths of party development in old
and new democracies are fundamentally different and are best understood as
processes sui generis. In other words, despite the many similarities between
parties in old and new democracies that exist today, they have arrived at this
stage by setting off from two entirely different points of departure. At the risk
of oversimplification, the process for mass parties in the old democracies might
be summarized as ‘a movement from society towards the state’. In many of
the European polities that constitute part of the ‘third wave’, in contrast,
parties can be seen to originate as parties of the state. Where they have sub-
sequently expanded their organizations beyond the confines of state institu-
tions, they have often reached out only minimally towards society.
Underlining the distinction between these two patterns should contribute
to a better understanding of processes of party formation and organizational
development more generally. It also helps to avoid the transformation bias as
well as the teleological connotations that are almost inevitably inherent in
attempts to interpret party development in new democracies in terms of ‘evo-
lutionary leaps’ towards the models existing in the older liberal democracies.
Although parties in old and new democracies may be seen to converge, and
together can be seen to represent a mode of party organization that is clearly
different from early post-democratizing Western Europe, it might be the
parties in the West European polities that are developing towards the stan-
dard currently set by the new democracies, rather than the other way around
(cf. Padgett 1996). In this sense, therefore, our perspective not only reveals
what is different about party formation and organizational development in
new democracies, but also highlights what has been distinctive about the tra-
jectories in Western Europe itself. It underlines the uniqueness of the emer-
gence of parties as strong movements of society, as opposed to agents of the
state, a path that is unlikely to be repeated in a different period and a differ-
ent institutional context of party formation.

Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the
American Political Science Association in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2003.
Attendance at the conference was supported by a travel grant from the British
Academy, which is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank the panel
participants, the two anonymous referees as well as Giovanni Capoccia,
Jeremy Jennings, Petr Kopeck y¢ and Peter Mair for their valuable comments.
The usual disclaimer applies.
Notes
1. This research is part of a larger comparative analysis on party formation and organiza-
tional development in the new democracies of Southern and East-Central Europe (see
Biezen 2003), from which, unless otherwise indicated, the empirical evidence presented
here is drawn.
2. This figure excludes parties with some degree of organizational continuity, such as the
Czech KS ČM and KDU- ČSL, which have preserved a notable legacy in the form of a
relatively sizeable organization on the ground.
3. Including only parties for which time-series data are available.
4. In some cases, the sale of party property (particularly real estate) may account for part
of their ‘other’ sources of income. In the early 1990s, for example, the Hungarian Demo-
cratic Forum (MDF) and FIDESZ were involved in the illicit sales of their party head-
quarters, which had been donated state property to newly emerging parties at the time
of the transition.
5. For the Portuguese case, it should be noted that the figures presented here refer to elec-
tion campaigns only and that the dependence on public money for the financing of the
routine operational activities of political parties is, with the exception of the Communist
Party, equivalent to that of their Spanish counterparts (see Biezen 2000a). Furthermore,
even for the financing of elections, the role of the state in Portugal appears to be of
increasing importance. A comparison of the 1995 and 2002 elections clearly shows an
increase in importance of state subventions (from 10 to 46.1%), while private contribu-
tions declined from 50.1 to 26.4%.
6. Unlike relatively familiar Southern European cases such as the disintegration of the
Spanish UCD only a few years after its creation (see Hopkin 1999), examples of party
ruptures in East-Central Europe in which the person of the party leader played an impor-
tant, if not crucial role, are relatively ill-documented. However, examples are neither
less infrequent nor insignificant, and include the collapse and ultimate disappearance
from the parliamentary scene of the Hungarian Christian Democrats (KDNP), the virtual
breakdown of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF), the schism within the Czech
Civic Democratic Party (ODS) that resulted in the establishment of the Freedom
Union (US), or the disputes that continue to plague the Hungarian Smallholder’s Party
(FKGP).

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European Journal of Political Research 44: 147–174, 2005 147

On the theory and practice of party formation and

INGRID VAN BIEZEN

Abstract. In addressing issues of party development in contemporary democracies, many

In contemporary democracies, political parties have come to be seen as a sine

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

between countries and regions, are to be seen in terms of convergence or diver-

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Party formation versus party adaptation

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

would share similar characteristics at birth by virtue of their ‘newness’,

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

A second scenario would signal a ‘generation’ rather than a ‘life-cycle’

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

in the earlier established democracies because of their more recent arrival on

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

almost regardless of the stage of the democratization process in which parties

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

The context of party formation

In recent processes of democratization, many parties began their organiza-

At a deeper level, the post-communist contest was not so much about

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Parties and society

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

European mass party is virtually non-existent. Membership organizations tend

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Table 1. Party membership change, 1980–2000

1980–1981 1990–1992 1998–2000 % change

Note: M/E = party membership as a percentage of the electorate.

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

2000, membership levels almost doubled, although this rather exceptional

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

They provide an exception to a general organizational pattern, however, in

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Encouraging étatisation through public funding

For modern parties in the established Western democracies, the introduction

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Table 2. Financing parties in new democracies

Country Party and percentage Mean

Portugal (1995–2002)a PCP PS PSD CDS-PP

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Private fundraising 7.7 12.8 5.8 8.3 7.0 0.6 7.0

operational activities), private or voluntary fundraising (including member-

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

The balance of power

Parties developing in early democratizing Western Europe gradually passed

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

organization. It also clearly underlines that pressures to increase the electoral

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

institutionalization (see Biezen 2000b). From this perspective, the incorpora-

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

linkages, the reduced relevance of party members, the predominance of pro-

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Kostelecky¢ , T. (2002). Political parties after communism: Developments in East-Central

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005

Sartori, G. (1994). Comparative constitutional engineering: An inquiry into structures, incen-

© European Consortium for Political Research 2005