Parties, regime and cleavages: explaining party system institutionalisation in East Central Europe

Abstract

Party system institutionalisation has traditionally been viewed as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the healthy functioning of democracy; yet the question of why some of these competitive party systems managed to institutionalise at the end of the second decade of party politics while others have not has not received the necessary attention. In order to begin to fill this gap, this article tackles the above-cited issue by trying to discover what have been the ‘causal mechanisms’ explaining the different levels of institutionalisation observed in East Central European party systems. In order to do so, and contrary to the predominant literature, it constitutes a serious attempt to bring together both institutional and sociological approaches.

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