Development of Parties and Party Systems in ... - lah@sam.sdu.dk

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In the late 1990’s elections mostly expressed ”politically motivated government blame”, no longerthey were referenda for or against the old systems, more expressing ”politically motivated systemblame”.In the second stage, moving to more ”ordinary politics”, the political parties acquired more powerwithout necessarily becoming more legitimate. The elections in the late 1990s evidenced thatinstitutional design, campaign strategies, organizational resources, and the mood of the electoratesubstantially matter regarding the final outcome of national electionsA relatively unimportant rolewas played by party membership. Instead, the crucial role has been played by party leaders. Thusthe new parties were more likely to resemble Kirchheimer’s catch-all, Panebianco’s electoralprofessionaland Katz and Mair’s cartel party than Duverger’s mass party model (Szczerbiak,2001:101).In the third and fourth stage the political parties were forced to pay more attention to the externalframes focusing more on long-term policies and strategies. A polical learning took place and moreattention had to be paid to formulation of the rigt strategies and programmatic work. The freedomof maneuvre in the economic and social policy was still limited, but the politicians seemed to havelearned how to compete over operating styles, tactically modulated principles, postmodern issuesrather than programmatic substance (Innes, 2002:88). The true constraints, under which the partieshad to operate, became more apparent. If that happens, separation of parties from civil societiesmight be less striking. However, not all the political parties were able to move that optimal laterstage.The parties and party systems were still marked by transition anomie, too weak partyinstitutionalization and lack of a system opholding and a stabilizing middle class (“the missingmiddle”), but the attention of most voters moved more explicitly from the political to the economicsphere. The freedom of manoeuvre in the economic policy was narrow due to externalconditionalities and lack of economic ressources. Also misuse of political power (“party-ism”) wasstriking due to short-term political horizons and path-dependency. In the third and fourth stage thepolitical parties might become better institutionalised, but in most cases in the shape of theestablishment of centralised top-down led professional electoral cartel parties and fragile electionalliances forced upon the parties due to high thesholds for getting seats in parliament. This suggeststhat the changes over time have been non-linear, at different times signifying unification of forces,fragmentarisation, in some cases formation of a common identity and in several cases “wars in thetop”.In most cases the party-coalitions, e.g. AWS in Poland and SDK in Slovakia were fragileconstructions, neither sufficiently institutionalised nor based on a common identity and partyculturebecause each party inside the alliance cared about its own identity. Thus we were mostlydealing with negative election alliances, only kept together by the common enemy (i.e.”postcommunists”).In some cases party alliances were purely tactical aiming at minimizing the waste ofvotes at the elections. The ultimate goal was to establish a new common right wing governmentafter election victory and transform the election alliances to new standard parties or functionalparty-federations. Opposite the Polish Right, after 10 years the left wing party alliance SLD inPoland succeeded in transforming itself into a disciplined standard party having until thenconstituted an alliance of 20-30 different groups on the left side of the political spectrum. As weshall see in the following, the right wing election alliance AWS in Poland was not able to solve the16
most important institutional and policy and programme problems and had to pay a heavy price forthat at the 2001 election.In the later stages the social links between the state and the parties were reinforced. Thus mostparties and party federations tended to become post-communist catch all and cartel parties. As carteltype parties they were primarily focusing on state power, aiming to appeal to so broad sections ofsociety as possible. At the same time bad governance, misuse of power, clietelism, politicalcapitalism and corruption tended to weaken the position of political parties in general, not leastparties in government position.Gradually the Central European party systems moved closer to the classical European party systemmodels consisting of a centre-left versus centre-right bipolar system, in some cases a tripolar multipartysystem mainly based on socio-economic cleavages (Ágh, 1998:111). The neoliberal discourselost its original appeal. Elections became more retrospective and only few government passed thetest. The embryonic characteristics became less striking, but the intake of new party membersremained low. Furthermore, from the mid 1990s the election campaigns tended to be conducted inmore professionally in spite of the fact that the links between political parties and civil societiesremained rather weak. Nevertheless, the parties became more “outward-looking”. Interest groupsgained more influence, in some cases delaying political and economic reforms, e.g. privatizationand restructuring of public finances. Some political groups tried to adhere to the old movement line,but in the longer run the majority of the electorate seemed to prefer parties characterized by strongleadership, professionalism, clear, long-term and consistent political programmes and goodperformance in the media. Thus party institutionalisation seemed to matter also in the case of theCEEC’s.The economic recession brought the parties of power under heavy pressure. However, neithermacroeconomic progress was any guarantee of success. Socialist led governments in Poland andHungary lost elections in spite of good macroeconomic performance. The establishment of partyalliancewas most obvious for “outsider parties” without prospects for parliamentary representationby “going alone”. Later the access to the political scene became more difficult as the cost ofentrance for new parties became higher due to the financial constraints and the modest access to themedia. A defreezing of the old “we-them” polarization took place, but to a different extent og withdifferent speed. From the outset the political culture seemmed to be the most consensual in case ofHungary.In conclusion, we can say that party and party system development can partly be explained by thelegacy of the past and social and economic i.e. structural factors, and partly by the dynamics of thetransitions themselves, e.g. the political style of the political leaders, the way of governance, thepolitical crafting, the institutional set-up and the changes on policy and programme level. Thesignificance of each variable has varied from country to country and over time. Political craftingand entrepreneurship made a strong impact in the first stage of extraordinary politics due to thepower vacuum and the great political capital.Short term factors, not great visions and political utopia’s tended to determine the outcomes of thefelections. The parties were changing, marked several “fissions” and “fusions”, but the voterpreferences seemed to be rather stabile and long-term. The quality of governance seemed to becomedecisive determining the outcome of the elections. The judgments from the voters over the partiesremained merciless, even after moving away from “the valleys of tear”. The elections wwere17
Page 3: “This provisional situation chara
Page 6 and 7: marketisation and privatisationshor
Page 8 and 9: purposes, are channels for “expre
Page 10 and 11: the significance of strategic choic
Page 12 and 13: presidentialism gave rise to “flo
Page 14 and 15: antipolitics and reinforcement of a
Page 18 and 19: determined primarily by “politica
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Page 22 and 23: which attitudes to state regulation
Page 24 and 25: Anti-communism has been defined in
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Page 28 and 29: Cartel agreementsbetter representat
Page 30 and 31: Basically the absence of clear cons
Page 32 and 33: After 1989 different types of polit
Page 34 and 35: complex project for transition unde
Page 36 and 37: window of opportunity in spite of s
Page 38 and 39: analyses of party institutionalizat
Page 40 and 41: political messages and slogans. Thu
Page 42 and 43: well established party culture may
Page 44 and 45: expected, much due to the many spli
Page 46 and 47: Furthermore, the polarisation on el
Page 48 and 49: Finally, Solidarity can also be con
Page 50 and 51: whole, on the one side an authorita
Page 52 and 53: The economic recession and the grav
Page 54 and 55: election defeat more cooperation an
Page 56 and 57: The formation of AWS can be conside
Page 58 and 59: group. RS AWS constituted the Chris
Page 60 and 61: According to the original plans the
Page 62 and 63: values. According to Rybicki, as so
Page 64 and 65: AWS should fight against all types
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2001 parliamentary election, howeve
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and workers voted ZChN. At the 1993
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The League has been considered as a
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establishment like than LPR’s. Th
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jobs in rural areas, especially sma
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industrial policy. According to the
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pressurizing the government to give
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democrats, thereby locating itself
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To conclude, the Freedom Union (UW)
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Polish middle class. Thus, in Janua
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such as KSCM and KSS in The Czech R
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The SLD leaders were mainly recruit
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the falling popular support for pri
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innovation was formation of the pol
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place after talks with each applica
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Has the Left any freedom of manoeuv
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medicine, changes in the labour cod
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The Labour Union (UP), Democratic U
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Nevertheless, before that had taken
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