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

elections and the Slovak communists who surprisingly were represented in parlament at the 2002election.Political strategies were to a large extent determined by aims of recognition and survival. As notedby John Ishiyama and András Bozóki the communist successor parties have passed their owninternal transformations. The post-communist parties adopted various strategies of adaption to thepost-communist environment, and strategies were changing over time. Seen in that perspective,party change can be considered as a rational and purposeful moves by the partis involved, inresponse to internal or external stimuli. Major changes have often been precipitated by poorelectoral performance.The take-over of governmental responsibilities came earlier than first expected. The participation ingovernment made a deideologizing, pragmatizing impact. As noticed above, the limited freedom ofmaneuvre in the economic and social policy turned the political Left closer to the political middle,however, at the same time removing those parties away from the voters and the civil societies. Atthe national elections in 1996 and 1997 in Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Poland transformationloosers and socially marginalised felt themselves deceived by the “postcommunists”. Many decidedto be “sofa-voters” or alternately vote on the right-traditionalist market sceptical populist parties.The electoral support for the neoliberals remained modest, mostly encompassing the “transitionwinners”.Being in government the policy of the Left was determined by the low freedom of maneuvre in theeconomic and social policy, marked by a specific postcommunist pathdependency. Opposite, afterthe fall of communism, the ruling socialist parties in the South European countries had to movesocieties from plan to market under extremely difficult conditions internally as well as externally,thus without carrying through the social dimension promised during the election campaigns. Alsothe left governments had to pass the “valley of tears” before – slowly – moving to economicgrowth.Ishiyama and Bozóki identify four different adaption strategies among left-wing post-communistparties: the national/populist, the orthodox communist, the modernization/reformist and the nationalcommunist. Ishiyama and Bozóki distinguish between four different types of post-communiststrategies:• Leftist-retreat involves the successor party embracing its Marxist traditions (rejecting thefree market), repudiating western influence, and adopting the status of an anti-systemopposition party. This pattern is a long way exemplified by PDS in Germany and KSCM inthe Czech Republic.• The strategy of pragmatic reform attempts to distance itself from “dogmatic Marxism” andredefining the party involved as a “European” social democratic party consisting of“experts”, “technocrats” and “pragmatists”.• The national-patriotic strategy, which unlike the pragmatic reform strategy does not involvean attempt to redefine the party as a “European” social democratic party. Rather this strategyseeks to associate the party with nationalism, a modern ideological alternative tocommunism. This strategy often involves the formation of “red and brown” coalitions or so-26