STILL WATERS RUN DEEP: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies Sergiu Gherghina Department of Political Science University of Leiden [email protected] [email protected] Paper prepared for the ECPR Joint Sessions, Lisbon April 14‐19, 2009 Workshop: Internal Party Democracy Abstract: What can explain the fluctuations of electoral success for political parties? This study examines party politics in six European post‐Communist states over the last two decades to identify relationships between the internal structure of parties and their electoral support. I test whether, at party level, the decentralization of power, the size of party membership, and the stability of membership are significantly related with the electoral stability. Evidence supports the argument that political parties that provide power to their local branches have more chances to rely on stable electorates compared to the centralized parties. Results also indicate that, with a few relevant exceptions, neither the number of party members nor the stability of party membership can explain the electoral stability of political parties. Moreover, the party system and the incumbency do not influence the identified relationships. The results provide a starting point for further investigation to reveal the extent to which the formal structure of party organizations can make a difference in stabilizing electoral preferences. Sergiu Gherghina Introduction The new democracies face the crucial challenge of constructing and maintaining strong and stable representative institutions. Being the first institutional actors to emerge in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) transitions, political parties fulfill relevant functions and play significant roles in the processes of regime change, democratization, and democratic consolidation. Their importance, consistent with Bryce (1921, 119) and Schattschneider’s (1942, 1) perspective of unthinkable representative democracies without political parties, grew in unfriendly environment. Thus, political parties faced the crude soil of no multi‐party competition for half of century, the lack of democratic experience (most of these countries are unfamiliar with the system even in the inter‐war period), and adversarial attitudes and behaviors towards party politics give the lack of representation in the previous regime. These initial settings combined with an ideological confusion among the competitors in the first post‐communist elections (Grzymala‐Busse 2006) lead to a situation in which voters can hardly be expected to attach specific party identification. When accounting for the multitude and diversity of parties ranging from successor and revived (often called „historical”) to new political parties (van Biezen 2003), we have an empirical puzzle: how can parties ensure the stability of a certain amount of voters’ preferences to make sure they will succeed in consecutive legislative elections? The existence of a reliable basis of party supporters is essential for party electoral continuity. In favorable electoral times the party succeeds, but a core of loyal voters impedes drawbacks and severe loss in bad electoral times. The electoral success of the CEE political parties is marked by oscillations with high levels of electoral volatility in consecutive elections compared with the Western European countries (Rose et al. 1998, Lewis 2000; Birch 2001, Sikk 2005). A quick look at the governments of these countries indicates that there are only rare cases when the same party governs in consecutive terms and out of the few hundreds that compete in elections for almost two decades now less than one third does displays continuity in succeeding in legislative elections. Given this pronounced electoral vulnerability of political parties in the post‐
communist space, a stabilizing organizational core may be fundamental for any party that tries to be successful on the long run. The development and stability of party organizations may represent the bases for effective gates of communication with the electorate (Adams et al. 2005). This paper examines party politics in six CEE countries to determine whether, at party level, the stability of membership and decentralization of party organization (i.e. the involvement of party‐members in the internal decision‐making process) are related with the stabilization of the electorate. The central argument is that political parties that manage to stabilize their internal mechanisms and behaviours are more likely to count on stable support in elections. In this respect, this longitudinal and cross‐sectional study has as unit of analysis the party/electoral cycle and tries to answer the following question: What is the 1
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies relationship between party membership and degrees of member involvement in decision‐
making at party level and the electoral stability of the CEE parties? The first section emphasizes the specificities of the post‐Communist parties, followed by a second section that argues for an organizational approach of the electoral stability at party level The next three sections tackle the explanations of electoral volatility, conceptualizing and operationalizing the endogenous institutional factors proposed by this study and possible relationships with party electoral volatility. The next section provides the results of the analyses, whereas the conclusions open the floor for further research. Particularities of Post‐Communist Political Parties This section emphasizes two different mechanisms at work in the post‐communist space. On the one hand, the CEE parties fulfill certain similar functions with their Western European counterparts. On the other hand, they form on specific bases that do not coincide with the classical cleavages, develop in unstable political environments (valid for the first two elections), face volatile electorates, and hardly mobilize elites’ loyalties. Consequently, each CEE political party has similar tasks: to ensure the linkages between the governed and their representatives, providing the means of accountability and responsibility in the process of government, and to survive on the political scene for a longer period of time by developing its own mechanisms of stabilizing an electorate. After half a century of limited political representation, post‐Communist political parties have the chance to become instruments and channels of representation, mobilization, and interest articulation and aggregation. In the CEE transitions, political parties are vital not only for the functioning of the democratic system, but also for legitimating the new regime, creating of positive public attitudes towards the democratic institutions – considered the most appropriate forms of government (Morlino 1998, 26). In this respect, the CEE political parties managed to explain citizens that democracy is the only game in town, playing a role in the bottom‐up democratization. However, given the specificities detailed below, they are not able to provide simplifying choices for voters and generate symbols of identification and loyalty (Key 1964; Dalton and Wattenberg 2000, 5) In their relationship with the state, the CEE parties had the task to promote free and fair elections (especially after the Round Table Talks) by ensuring the durability of political pluralism, to create constitutions and guarantee mechanisms of executive power control, and to legitimize the democratic system (Pridham and Lewis 1996, 5). All these resulted from their initial existence prior to any legislature, constitutions, and decision of separation of powers. Overall, the CEE parties provided the general framework for economic change, political transition, and rule of law (van Biezen 2003, 5). As an illustrative example, Kopecký (1995, 516) argues that the Czech post‐communist designers perceived parties as core 2
Sergiu Gherghina foundations of the democratic system. As many political parties originate within the state, they develop relevant relationships with the government: recruitment of candidates for public office, politicization of institutions at local level, and searching for various means of influencing the state (Kopecký and Mair 2003). The dynamics of the symbiosis between political parties and the state follows similar trends in established and new democracies (van Biezen and Kopecký 2007). Parties have access to public money and, in return, the state intervention in the internal life of parties increases. CEE countries have constantly faced extensive regulation of party activity and behavior through public law and the constitutional texts. The close ties with the state (more intense than those with the civil society) and the use of public resources and channels for internal use do not guarantee parties a safer life on the political scene. Comparative studies provide evidence for high levels, both in relative and absolute figures, of electoral instability of parties in post‐communist Europe. On the one hand, by comparing the figures provided by Bartolini and Mair (1990) for Western European states with the electoral results of various CEE countries. Krupavicius (1999), Tavits (2005), and Sikk (2005) point at significantly higher levels of electoral instability in the CEE countries. This evidence goes against the claims that post‐communist party systems and parties have a tendency towards consolidation and stabilization (Agh 1998). On the other hand, the high levels of volatility in absolute terms do not allow even the large political parties to maintain a large core of voters over longer periods of time. Thus, despite their cartelization tendencies (Szczerbiak 2001) and extensive development towards mass parties, the successor parties do not manage to secure continuous winning positions, often alternating the government and opposition periods. Such a situation has three main structural and institutional roots explored by previous research. First, parties were formed differently than in the Western European countries (Kitschelt 1995). Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage structure (1967) as the basis for party creation can hardly be identified in the CEE countries as a whole. Most of the CEE parties do not have societal, but rather institutional origins. Parties cannot be explained in the terms of the classic theory of cleavages and representation of interests as they were created on the basis of attitudes towards institutional aspects and regime change (van Biezen 2003, 159). That explains why in these countries more than one anti‐communist party emerged, with similar societal targets, but nuances in attitudes towards the previous regime. Moreover, weak cleavage structures are due to the ideological egalitarian communism that leveled out social stratification (van Biezen 2003, 35‐36), tried to eliminate disparities between urban and rural areas, and isolated the Church. Instead, party formation for the CEE parties can be divided in two phases. The first was represented by forums, unions, fronts, alliances that grouped the opposition forces or the followers of the communist 3
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies parties. The second phase was represented by the split of these entities and the creation of new parties for the new elections. The particular context of competition represents the second particularity of the CEE parties. Emerged in an environment with strong anti‐party feelings due to the previous single party system, post‐communist parties faced an initial problem of legitimacy. The new political elites are not motivated by organizational loyalties or commitments and lacking party experience they try to solve problems by creating separate parties. These new parties lack legitimacy, the institutionalization of both the mother and new party are affected, and the same goes for their political and ideological identity. The party system is weakened and fragmented by the occurrence of many small parties, with basically no stable norms and conventions in the patterns of competition (Mair 1997). Moreover, the structure of competition is uncertain due to various shifts in its actors’ composition. Connected with these two factors, partisanship is heavily reduced, the CEE parties featuring fast changes of party affiliation both at member and elite level (Lewis 2001; Tavits 2005; Spirova 2007). These parties confront more open and more available electorates in terms of party allegiance than the ones in Western European countries. Thus, the electorate is more volatile and uncertain (Mair 1997, 182), attaching low or no ideological/party label to their votes. In this context, the absence of stability in the electorate is connected with organizational loyalties where we observe a high tendency of the party elites to exit the party. The combined effect of the latter is a general confusion of the voters that cannot match on the long run party, elites and label, resulting in increased volatility. As a consequence of these features, I argue in the following sections that those parties that set stable relationships with their members and voters through their organization will be able to maintain a relative stable core of voters. The Empirical Dilemma Figures reveal relevant cross‐national and longitudinal differences both at party systems and party level within the CEE space (Sikk 2005; Tavits 2005; Gherghina 2007). None of the explanations provided at party system (Cox 1997; Lijphart 1999; Roberts and Wibbels 1999; van Biezen 2003; Bakke and Sitter 2005; Tavits 2005) holds at party level as within the same country and system parties develop differently and reach various degrees of electoral stability. Consequently, other possible explanations should be provided to account for the latter variations. The party organization, through its decision‐process leveling and membership dynamics, may help stabilizing the electorate by creating two major interconnected linkages between the party and the electorate. First, party organization complements leader’s communication with the electorate in providing incentives to the voters to stabilize their preference. Parties connect with voters 4
Sergiu Gherghina using mostly two types of linkages – at elite and organizational level. Whereas the first targets the linkage with voters mainly through direct communication initiated by leaders or visible party members (i.e. MPs, ministers, mayors), the latter implies organizational channels as intermediaries (including party members) for the connection. Both kinds of linkages are built on the same logical mechanism: an exchange of voter mobilization for policy responsiveness (Poguntke 2002, 44‐46). Given the institutional roots of parties (instead of societal as described above) and the necessity to compete before developing appropriate organizations, post‐communist political parties are supposed to rely more on the direct communication of the elites in public office with the voters (van Biezen 2000, 397). This may explain why certain parliamentary parties gain votes in consecutive elections, but fail to account why parties that are never in public office get there, why parliamentary parties once highly successful fail to reach the legislature in subsequent elections or the large amounts of variation within the parliamentary parties. Searching for other communication mechanisms that may compensate these shortcomings, the relevance and activity of the party on the ground compared to that of the party in public office in central office (Katz and Mair 1994) should receive more attention. No doubt that parties’ success in the early transition came at no great expense for their organizations (van Biezen 2000, 396), but their survival on the political scene depends on developing societal connections. Summing up, political parties should ensure coherent messages, continuous and stable presence on the political arena, homogenous actions, and long‐term perspectives for representation. Assuming that party members develop networks within society, they are the plausible means to bring the party messages and features closer to the voter. The stability of the electorate increases while perceiving the continuity and stability of the party and it is crucial to have this perception set once the party gets closer to the people. It does so through decentralization and party membership, the two major concepts of this paper, developed in the following section. Second, party organization is the most stable component of a political party and every change taking place at its level has consequences. In the context of a CEE volatile and uncertain electorate, with floating elites, and a context of competition where the number of actors often changes (Mair 1997), parties with a stable and developed organization have an advantage in front of the newcomers, displaying solid bases on which they can attract voters. Changes at organizational level (e.g. leaders’ migration, the change in power centralization, mergers and splits) are often visible and are often reflected in elections: voters may support or oppose changes. The political party controls these changes and has proactive and reactive (i.e. adaptation) strategies, the latter taking place whenever the dynamics does not follow the expected and predicted trend. Most of the structural and institutional changes (Katz and Mair 1992; 1994; Dalton and Wattenberg 2000, 4) fall into 5
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies the second category and come as an effect of the environment: the electoral market (Kirchheimer 1966), the electoral system and democratic experience (Rae 1971; Harmel and Janda 1982;), and electoral laws (Sartori 1997; 2005). However, the relationship is not univocal as political parties are in the position to influence the institutional settings in which they operate. Katz and Mair (1995, 22) argue that once in government parties practically become the state, having the capacity to influence the rules of the game and, thus, the environment. Given the organizational complexity, the strategies of parties to ensure a stable support in consecutive elections may fall in both categories: whenever the current type of organization and membership approach supplies consistent shares of votes across time it is kept and improved (proactive), otherwise changed (reactive). Linking this mechanism with the one presented in the previous paragraph, the party seeks to stabilize its connection with the voters through intense communication within the electorate and through an adaptation process that shows relative responsiveness to voters’ needs. Organizational Explanations for Party Level Volatility Based on the assumption that citizens’ preferences although manipulable on the short term have the tendency to be highly stable on the long term (Bartolini and Mair 1990), political parties tend to institutionalize in order to meet the expectations of a potentially stable electorate. Continuity and solidification on established bases appear may become goals of parties that want to keep a hard core of voters in every election. Dramatic changes are risky as they destabilize voters’ perceptions on the party and the communication process between party and citizen is strongly affected (Colomer 2001, 136). The following section discuss three organizational factors that may influence the electoral volatility: decentralization of power, party membership size, and stability of membership. Centralization of Power Party centralization refers to the distribution of power within party organization and implies the extent to which the national level of party organization controls the regional and local levels in conducting politics and enforces its decisions on subnational organs (Harmel and Janda 1982, 59‐60). Political parties are treated as coherent and homogenous actors both in analytical (i.e. unit of analysis for studies focusing on party systems) and practical terms (i.e. the linkage between state and society, means for interest aggregation etc). A tightly organized and highly disciplined political party is very likely to behave as a unitary actor in elections and coalition negotiations (Katz 2002, 87). However, the issue at stake is to avoid confusion between unity and rigidity in the eyes of the electorate as hierarchical organizations with higher offices determining the activities of lower ones may be perceived as lacking adaptation capacity. A party with relatively autonomous/strong regional 6
Sergiu Gherghina organizations can be perceived in two ways. On the one hand, people may see it as a less unitary actor that cannot promote national level policies given the multilevel competition within the party (i.e. local, regional, and national). On the other hand, the patterns of competition and cooperation between the party levels enhance the idea of intra‐party democratic procedures, provides the sense of responsiveness to various challenges (e.g. government at national level, people’s needs at local level) without affecting the homogeneity and unity. The latter perspective sees the party in a multi‐tasking light, able to deal with issues occurred at various levels and able to strengthen connections with society that are rather poor in the post‐communist countries. By intensely acting at local level, they get closer to the voter and increase their chances to establish stable medium and long‐term communication with the electorate. Consequently, their chances to rely on a core of voters increase as local organizations have a word to say in the decision‐making process. One further argument that supports the logic of the relationship between a decentralized party organization and electoral stability can be derived from the intensity of reforms proposed at central and local level. The curvilinear disparity law explains that in general voters are moderate, with a tendency to support the status quo and to endorse only marginal social reforms (Kitschelt 1989, 401‐402). Party leaders and central offices are often pragmatic and eager to cope with these views whereas the local level, due to its contacts with the electorate, are more inclined to favor more radical policies that would make their constituency voters better off, without a national perspective. As a result, radical policies are more likely to find supporters regionally and locally, and less likely nationwide. Accordingly, a strongly centralized party has increased chances to maintain the appeal to its voters when compared with decentralized parties. However, this applies in countries not characterized by turbulent economic events like the CEE countries. Radical policies that change the status quo were often encouraged in early elections and/or government changes that encourage substantial reforms. In this respect, local organizations’ views and proposals may fulfill two tasks: provide the necessary feedback for the central office and indicate the electorate that their voice is heard. Their strength ensures tighter relations with voters. This reasoning is complemented by the specific party formation and party’s ties with the state. Whereas in most Western European democracies mass mobilization preceded the creation of national party organizations, parties in the newly emerged democracies pursued the expansion of their organization after winning the first elections mostly based on elite support (van Biezen 2003, 30). Such a beginning was followed by close ties with the state in terms of financing. As a result, the majority of parties behaves like cartel and catch all parties (Szczerbiak 2001), interested to mobilize voters around elections rather than in between. In order for the party to become a mass party and have tighter connections with the electorate, the party structures on the ground are necessary. Voters can be encapsulated 7
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies through two connected actions. On the one hand, parties should develop ancillary structures (youth and women organizations) that go beyond their formal existence and mobilize and socialize voters. On the other hand, local party branches should be active, formally organized, with clear tasks in the statute, connected with the party program and candidate nomination. The activity of a local organization with capacity to mobilize medium and long‐
term affiliations should go beyond poster gluing and propaganda during electoral campaigns. Arguably, if local organizations receive substantial powers within the intra‐party procedures they will be able to channel the societal demands and give them priority. H1: A high decentralization of political parties favors their electoral stability Consistent with previous research (Harmel and Janda 1982, 60; Panebianco 1988; Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Tan 2000, 31‐32; Moser 2001; Lundell 2004), I use two dimensions to operationalize party centralization: control over candidate nominations for legislative elections and the level of programmatic autonomy of local branches1 (e.g. the electoral program is imposed from the centre), each measured on a 0‐2 scale. The low value 0 corresponds to a totally decentralized party where decisions are taken by the local branches with respect to candidates’ selection and electoral programs. A score of 2 is given to those cases where the centre writes down the list of candidates and elaborates the programs used by all the branches. The intermediary score of 1 is given to those parties where the local branches decide the list and programs, but the centre has a veto right. It is different from the situations coded with 2 as the centre does not have the initiative, it only has a reactive power (as opposed to proactive) and usually faces time constraints to propose its own lost of candidates. Quite often, if the veto is given, the list is a combination between what proposed by the local branches and the persons the centre has in mind. The two indicators are equally weighed, basing my measurements mostly on the analysis of party statutes and partially on secondary literature (i.e. histories of the parties, foundation year) available for these countries. Party Membership Two aspects of party membership are tackled in this paper – the size and the constant number of members – each of them implying different logics for stabilizing the electorate. Party membership does not reach in the CEE countries similar levels with their Western counterparts (Lewis 1996; Bielasiak 1997; Kopecký 2001, van Biezen 2003, Spirova 2007). Graph 1 is illustrative in this respect, showing low and very low membership rates in all 1
I use solely those indicators that can be perceived by voters as decentralization and can influence their choice. For example, the voter is not interested in the procedures to select party’s president. 8
Sergiu Gherghina countries. Low levels are mainly due to two related factors: the membership recruitment strategies and the refuse of citizens to enroll in political parties (Szczerbiak 2006, 115). The traditional role of party members was to provide financial contributions, but as the CEE political parties heavily rely on the state for subsidies, the incentives to get members are low. Besides such a reasoning and the necessary financial resources to establish local networks and strong presence on the ground (Kopecký 2006, 133), the field research conducted for this paper reveals certain attitudes of party officials that explain low membership rates. Their replies when asked for the number of members their party has at the moment and had in the past are difficult to imagine in the first place. Besides uninformed and/or exaggerated figures provided for the current situation, some respondents replied that they have no evidence on party members, it is everything loosely kept when it comes to their connections with voters. Graph 1: PARTY MEMBERSHIP IN THE CEE COUNTRIES % of members in the electorate
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Source: Mair and van Biezen (2001), Weldon (2006), Spirova (2007), Official Party Registry in Romania (2003). These chaotic approaches may be also rooted in people’s attitudes towards parties: in all examined countries the levels of confidence in parties are very low, rarely exceeding 20% of popular support (Eurobarometers 2001‐2007). Without knowing the internal workings of parties, voters may keep the anti‐party feelings generated by the previous regime (Kopecký 1995; Mair 1997). Moreover, parties are often perceived on the basis of poor party performance in government and opposition (often perceived as a routine activity with no effective results), corruption scandals, false declarations of politicians pursuing their own interest rather than the public (Szczerbiak 2006, 116), and lies. Such negative perceptions are fueled by parties’ controversial acts, leading to deadlocks. It is a vicious circle in which the initial absence of interaction between the organization and potential members generates adversity feelings and leads to a higher improbability of interaction. In such a dry climate, every effort made by political parties to enhance party membership, to promote an active strategy of strong networks of members that can be activated in election times, and thus to ensure communication with potential electorate 9
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies between elections can make the difference. Having a high roster of party members sends the electorate a message of popular legitimacy and sets the bases for a party speech of strong ties to ordinary citizens (Scarrow 2000. 84). Furthermore, parties that involve relevant numbers of party members increase their chances to create stable networks within the electorate even when the darkest clouds gathered above the party. Parties should be interested in large membership as this not only secures stable electorate, but also provides a wider pool for candidate recruitment. Kopecký (2006, 133) shows how in the 1998 local elections parties with minimal membership in the Czech Republic faced difficulties in active involvement as they were unable to field candidates outside the main cities. Duverger (1963) explains how in the Western European countries parties constructed national‐wide networked membership associations that cultivate political identities and mobilize newly enfranchised populations. With an emphasis on enrolment and political education, and encouraging citizens to extend their political involvement beyond merely voting, these mass parties broaden provide concrete links with those they claimed to represent (Scarrow 2000, 79). On these bases, I expect parties that broaden their membership base to rely on more stable electorates in consecutive elections compared to the rest of their race competitors: H2: Large membership favors increased electoral stability. At low levels of party membership, relevant discrepancies between party members may make the difference. In order to ensure continuous presence in the legislature and to rely on a core of voters parties cannot afford to act solely during electoral campaigns or have sporadic membership recruitment. Strong relationships with the members provide the ground for stabilizing the latter’s preferences. With the financial needs covered by the state, political parties enroll members to help achieving them political goals. For electoral purposes parties can adopt two positions vis‐à‐vis their members. On the one hand, they can be satisfied if members have a rather passive political attitude and get mobilized at elections, the latter being relevant moments when parties should know that they can count on. On the other hand, Although Panebianco (1988) correctly identifies the increased use of technology in voter mobilization, even electoral professional parties (using his typology) are aware that active involvement of members is desirable as parties can develop stronger ties with the electorate by local level activities, voluntary information collection, and campaigns during elections (i.e. enlarging the circle of voters through personal approach, enrolling new members in the youth clubs or door to door canvassing). Arguably, the level of electoral volatility decreases if the number of members in consecutive elections is relatively constant: H3: Stability of membership in consecutive elections leads to reduced electoral volatility. 10
Sergiu Gherghina Party electoral stability This indicator reflects the “net electoral change between two consecutive elections” (Bartolini and Mair 1990, 19). Thus, it represents a reliable indicator of party stability in relationship with the electoral potential of the party (Lane and Ersson 1999, 127). It is considered an indicator for party acceptance in society and often included in measurements of party institutionalization. Most of the times, individual data regarding voter behavior are not available and this measurement provides useful hints regarding vote transfers between subsequent elections. Based on Krupavicius’ assessment (1999, 8) that party system volatility is a reliable indicator of relative strength and social rooting, by calculating the volatility at party level I expect to identify similar patterns at party level. As electoral volatility is a systemic feature (Bartolini and Mair 1990) I label my measurement party electoral volatility without following the course of votes that are gained or lost by a party in favor of race partners, but the longitudinal performance of a political party. Basically, I examine the net electoral change that a party suffered in consecutive legislative elections in order to calculate its electoral stability. High volatility indicates that many voters do not attach loyalty to one political party, and they switch preferences in consecutive elections. The formula I use for party electoral volatility is an adjustment to the formula proposed by Bartolini and Mair (1990), with the difference that I calculate it relatively to the mean party support. The formula for party electoral volatility is Vj =
| Vt1 − Vt 0 |
| Vt1 + Vt 0 | 2
Vj = party j electoral volatility, Vt0 = the share of votes obtained by party j at moment/election t0. Vt1 = the share of votes obtained by party j at moment/election t1, The results provided by this formula highly correlate with those used for party systems volatility (Pedersen 1979; Bartolini and Mair 1990; Sikk 2005; Tavits 2005) and with the one used for party volatility (Rose and Urwin 1970). This consistency indicates the measurement validity of the used formula. However, as it correlates around 0.7, there are a few cases that cannot be explained by using previous formulas, especially the small parties as their volatility is overestimated. Research Design Using the most similar systems design (similarities in terms of former political regime, non‐
belonging to the Soviet Union, and paths towards democratization), this paper focuses on 11
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies the six former Warsaw Pact countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The case selection has both theoretical and methodological bases. Most of the studies about the post‐communist space represent either extensive single‐case studies or comparisons of two countries that can rarely be generalized (Pop‐Eleches 1991; Szczerbiak 1999; Kopecký 2001; Lewis 2001; Moser 2001; Spirova 2007) or broad comparisons that include general explanations, leaving aside details and variables relevant for many observed countries (Miller et al. 1998; Moser 1999; Tavits 2005). However, occupying a middle position on the ladder of generality, there is a handful of relevant studies that selected a medium number of cases to provide both an in‐depth analysis of political developments and a comparative perspective (Lawson et al. 1999; Grzymala‐Busse 2002; van Biezen 2003). The latter approach provides at least two advantages. On the one hand, it is possible to have a better investigation of the processes and developments in the selected countries, with a feasible potential for comparison. On the other hand, due to the different nature of variables, such a design allows the combination of statistical and narrative comparisons based on extensive information gathered (Mahoney 1999). Moreover, a mid‐
range comparison is suitable for both a longitudinal and cross‐country research that provide rich information and increases the quality of comparisons. The units of analysis are the political parties that succeed in at least half of the national elections held after the fall of communism. By conducting an analysis that takes into account almost 20 years for all the countries, I track those parties that existed for a longer period on the political scene. I use this threshold in order to eliminate parties that had an episodically appearance in Parliament and got there due to specific conjunctures at a certain moment in time (e.g. due to no electoral threshold, there were 29 parties in the 1991 Polish Parliament out of which only 5 survived in the subsequent 1993 Parliament). At the same time, parties that are permanently outside the legislature have a very low level of electoral volatility, but with basically no substantive meaning. A party that scores around 1% at general elections will appear very stable, but its performance makes it irrelevant for the national political system and for the current analysis. The unit of observation is the political party/electoral cycle. The time‐period for analysis is the beginning of the transition period (1989‐1990) until the most recent elections (Romania 2008). Findings Table 1 briefly describes the range of electoral volatility at party level in the CEE countries and provides a clue regarding its values. The scores are calculated as the average of electoral volatility for all elections in which these parties competed. These extremes (i.e. the least and the most volatile party in every country) reflect differences between the countries under observation with a narrow range of variation and high values in Poland and with the greatest 12
Sergiu Gherghina variation in Slovakia. The least volatile Polish party has higher values than the most volatile Czech party, but both Romania and Slovakia have parties that are more volatile than the upper Polish extreme. The two parties that are the most volatile from the entire region, the Christian‐Democratic National Peasants Party in Romania and the Party of the Democratic Left in Slovakia are no longer in Parliament, in the most recent election from every country they did not compete: the former competed on the Liberals lists with no success, whereas the latter merged with Direction – Social Democracy. Table 1: EXTREMES OF PARTY ELECTORAL STABILITY FOR THE CEE COUNTRIES Country Political Party / Formation Average volatility (%) Bulgaria Movements for Rights and Freedoms 31 Union of Democratic Forces 62 Czech Republic Christian‐Democratic Union‐Czech People's Party 17 Czech Social Democratic Party 36 Hungary Alliance of Free Democrats 21 Hungarian Democratic Forum 90 Poland Polish Peasant Party 44 Civic Platform 63 Romania Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania 5 National Peasants Party Christian Democrat 93 Slovakia Christian Democratic Movement 10 Party of the Democratic Left 149 In fact, the parties that present extreme high volatility in Hungary and Bulgaria are not major political actors. The Hungarian Democratic Forum did not get in the 1998 legislature and it got 5% at the most recent elections, whereas he Union of Democratic Forces in Bulgaria dropped to 7% in the most recent elections. This general data allows two observations. On the one hand, quite logically, the level of volatility at party level is rather high and partially congruent with previous research that showed high levels of electoral volatility at party system level in the region (Birch 2003; Tavits 2005). On the other hand, the dependent variable has a wide range of variation among countries. Downplaying the Centre Party centralization varies across the analyzed political parties. Figure 2 depicts the level of centralization for all political parties under observation. The totally decentralized – totally centralized continuum displays five values that resulted after aggregating the internal mechanisms for candidate nomination and program elaboration. The totally decentralized extreme implies decisions taken solely at local level, the organizations having full responsibility for the candidates nomination in their districts and constituencies. From the entire pool of parties only the National Liberal Party in Romania has a statute that allows its classification in this category. At the other extreme, the totally centralized parties do not allow freedom of decision for their local branches and nominate the candidates and elaborate the program at the centre. For them, the local organizations have the role to 13
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies implement the program in the territorial elections and to support the candidates that are imposed from the centre. There are five parties that fall in this category: The Movement for Rights and Freedoms in Bulgaria, Smallholders' Party from Hungary, The Social Democratic Party from Romania, The Greater Romania Party, The Party of the Democratic Left from Slovakia. The diversity of Romanian parties is revealed only by looking at the extremes, two out of six parties are situated at the centralized extreme, whereas one party is positioned at the other extreme. If this contrast is visible in Romania, the other side of the coin is revealed in the Czech Republic and Poland that have no party at any extreme. Unfortunately, the low number of cases does not allow separate investigations for every country. Graph 2: THE CEE POLITICAL PARTIES AND THEIR DEGREE OF CENTRALIZATION Number of parties
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0
Level of centralization
As this figure indicates, most of the parties are highly centralized (10) closely followed by medium centralized (9). Consequently, if we add the number of parties that are highly and totally centralized we end up with exactly half of the total number parties (15). If we add the highly and totally decentralized parties, their number does not exceed 20% of the total number of parties under investigation (6). Parties make small paces towards organizational change. Once established at a certain level of centralization, political parties rarely modify this setting.2 Adaptation processes are slow as quite often political parties, after perceiving the necessity for change, initiate internal debates that need time. It is more likely to have faster changes within the totally centralized parties compared to other parties as the former has a more direct chain of command and decision‐making, with little or no contestation in the territories. For example, one of the few political parties that modified their degree of centralization is the Social‐
Democratic Party from Romania that took in 2004 the decision to introduce more decentralized means of nominating the candidates. The entire decision was adopted at the 2
Some parties modified their setting in the first years after formation as their initial power relations were quite blurry; this is the case with SZDSZ (in 1991) and Fidesz (in 1993) in Hungary or the Union of Democratic Forces in Bulgaria. For details on these examples, see Balazs and Enyedi (1996) and Karasimeonov (1996). 14
Sergiu Gherghina central level and imposed in the territories having primary elections two months later (as in the American model.) The territorial branches had no word to say about this decision and after the primaries they had little or no word in nominating the candidates for eligible positions (usually the first two in every constituency). This setting was no longer used at the 2008 elections, the party going back to the old practices. Table 2 presents the correlations between the average electoral volatility at party level and party centralization. The first column of the table indicates the variables for which one tests relationships. The first row includes the aggregated measurement of party centralization, resulting after summing the codes for candidate nomination and party program. The following rows present the relationship between volatility and every component of party centralization. Table 2: PARTY CENTRALIZATION AND ELECTORAL VOLATILITY The relationship between electoral Correlation coefficient3 volatility and... Party centralization 0.37* Candidate nomination 0.16 Party program 0.4* ** significance at the 0.01 level * significance at the 0.05 level Number of cases 34 34 34 These correlation coefficients support the hypothesized relationship. The first coefficient shows that the more centralized a party is, the higher its volatility. In more than one third of the cases, the voters from the CEE countries attach medium and long‐term preferences to parties that are decentralized. The statistical significance of the coefficient allows the generalization of these results and shows that the relationship is not established by accident. From the two components of party centralization, the elaboration of the program at the local or central level correlates the highest with voters’ stability when compared to candidate nomination and aggregate party centralization. In the entire region, a party that gives the floor to its local organizations and takes their opinion into account has 40% more chances than a centralized party to stabilize its electorate. This percentage is comparable with what happens at the aggregate level and at a glance it might appear that the programmatic independence of territorial organizations makes the difference among parties. This partial conclusion is strengthened when looking at who decides on candidates’ nomination. The most important source of variation in candidate selection procedures is their degree of inclusiveness ranging from the less inclusive (elite agreements) to the most inclusive (primaries open to voters). Most of the studied parties have regional or national decision regarding the nomination with a few case emphasizing the local decision‐making process and only exceptional cases with primaries. Overall, the parties that are more 3
As data do not fit the requirements of parametric statistics, the reported correlation coefficients are Spearman instead of Pearson used for party membership. 15
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies permissive and allow nominations from the territory or only use their veto to nominate candidates have 16% more chances to stabilize their electorate when compared with parties that impose their will at all levels. As this percentage is rather small and without statistical significance, it is not erroneous to claim that parties with a decentralized nomination do not perform much better than the others in stabilizing preferences. This situation is very likely due to the used list PR systems that do not allow voters to be aware of the nominating procedures and the order on the lists. At the same time, as so few parties organize primaries, the connection between candidates and voters is loose, with no relevant differences across the parties. We observe that political parties that develop their territorial units maintain stable ties with their electorate. It appears that the recipe to maintain voter loyalties consists of getting closer to allow decision‐making at the level that is closer to the citizen. In more than one third of the cases, voters stabilize their electoral preferences around those organizations that not only play a decorative role within the larger political frameworks provided by the party. Immediate replies to voters’ needs and priorities (i.e. reflected in party programs proposed at the local level) appear to provide rewards to parties. Evidence indicates that voters are more sensitive to establishing party programs than denominating candidates at local level. In this respect, programmatic decentralization is a sufficient condition (similar correlation coefficients for the aggregate measurement and for the program dimension) for electoral stability in one third of the cases. As a result, a purely pragmatic party will decide on programmatic independence of its local branches and will provide candidates from the centre to keep control. Party members’ (lack of) importance In order to have comparable data I refer to party membership as the percentage of party members in the total national electorate, the latter being the number of registered voters. The number of cases in the tables below differs as there are a few missing values in the dataset I compiled. To test the second hypothesis I focus on the size of membership. Graph 3 depicts the membership trends followed by the investigated political parties during their existence. An ascending trend implies that the party constantly increased its share of members, in the descending category fit all parties that constantly lost members, whereas the oscillatory category includes the ups and downs of membership. The graph supports the earlier description of the chaotic approach towards membership: six out of ten parties are marked by ups and downs in their existence, with no clear trend of stabilizing or increasing membership. An equal percentage of 20% out of the investigated parties, with no country specifics, reveals a clear pattern of constantly gaining or losing members. 16
Sergiu Gherghina Graph 3: THE TRENDS OF MEMBERSHIP FOR THE CEE PARTIES Ascendant
Oscillator
Descendant
When looking at the latter, the main explanation for decreasing membership rests in the disappointment of people involved and party’s inefficiency and ineffectiveness in tackling such an approach. Most of the parties in this category (i.e. DAHR and Peasant’s Party in Romania, MKP in Slovakia or UDF in Bulgaria) mobilized large amounts of members in the beginning with large perspectives at the beginning of transition, but as time passed the enthusiasm went down especially that the rhythm in which policies were tackled and implemented differed from initial expectations. The ethnic parties in this category mobilized members at the beginning of the transition period and they started losing them as soon as their activities do not lift up to the level of expectations. Their trend is peculiar when compared to the general tendency of membership for all investigated parties: the average level of membership increased from the first (0.8%) to the second election (0.9%) and then decreased below the initial level (0.7% for the third election and 0.65% for the fourth). The apogee for party membership in a comparative perspective was between the first and second elections. As the vast majority of studied parties last from the beginning of transition, this evidence supports the theoretical underpinnings and descriptions for the region. The first elections were often held in a tensed environment, immediately after the negotiations and the development of political parties could be observed only after setting the first government, with the first legislature at work, and with a constitution on the working table. Thus, in the second elections parties benefit of most members compared with the rest of their development and most of them are not able to maintain this level. As mentioned, only 20% increase their membership rolls out of which almost half are parties established after the md‐1990s. Table 3 summarizes the results of the correlation between the size of membership and the electoral stability of political parties, both at general and country level. The broad picture reveals the existence of a weak relationship that goes in the hypothesized direction with parties that attract more members to have 10% more chance of reducing volatility 17
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies compared with the rest. A closer look at country level may explain such a weak relationship. With a clear tendency to go in the hypothesized direction, the analyzed countries can be divided into three groups: no relationship between the party membership size and electoral volatility (Bulgaria and Czech Republic), weak relationships (Poland and Slovakia), and strong relationships (Hungary and Romania). The small amount of cases in Bulgaria may explain the lack of relationship, but not the same argument applies to the Czech Republic where the relationship does not exist despite the rather high number of cases. Table 3: PARTY MEMBERSHIP SIZE AND ELECTORAL VOLATILITY The relationship between electoral volatility and Correlation coefficient party membership size General ‐0.11 Bulgaria 0 Czech Republic ‐0.01 Hungary ‐0.5* Poland ‐0.09 Romania ‐0.37* Slovakia ‐0.1 ** significance at the 0.01 level * significance at the 0.05 level Number of cases 126 8 20 27 22 25 24 At the other extreme we find Romania and Hungary, with the only two statistically significant relationships where parties with higher membership rolls increase with 40 and 50% their chances of relying on stable electorates. These results are valuable as the two countries have the highest number of units among the countries in the table. In Hungary, although there are no large discrepancies between parties in terms of party members, the most stable from an electoral point of view have more members. Given the complex electoral setting in Hungary, such small differences may count both in the networking among other voters and in electing MPs in the single member district where every vote counts. The correlation coefficient would have increased if the Smallholders’ Party (FKgP), the largest in terms of membership, would have maintained the trend observed until 1998, its failure to enter the Parliament in 2002 dramatically increased the electoral volatility. In Romania, the electoral stability of the Social‐Democratic Party and its increased claims to become a mass party joined with the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania’s stable performance and high membership lead to the above mentioned result. Furthermore, the development of the Democratic Party (starting 2008 known as the Democratic‐Liberal Party) and its increasing stability in the electorate represents an asset for a stronger correlation in future elections. Apparently, an orientation towards mass parties brings benefits in at least one third of the analyzed countries, although in comparative perspective such a trend is not visible. Consequently, the evidence does not support the second hypothesized relationship. If membership size does not matter in stabilizing the electorate, the third hypothesis might make more sense. Table 4 includes the correlation coefficients between the 18
Sergiu Gherghina differences in membership rolls for parties in consecutive elections. Overall, the stability is not related with the stability of the electorate. The correlation coefficient indicates a random distribution of the two in the universe of 95 cases.4 Table 4: PARTY MEMBERSHIP DIFFERENCE AND ELECTORAL VOLATILITY The relationship between electoral volatility and Correlation coefficient stability of party membership General 0.02 Bulgaria ‐0.35 Czech Republic ‐0.2 Hungary 0.72** Poland 0.09 Romania ‐0.06 Slovakia ‐0.15 ** significance at the 0.01 level * significance at the 0.05 level Number of cases 95 4 15 20 18 20 18 At country level, the same three categories are distinguishable here, the distribution being rather different. Romania and Poland display no relationship between variables, political parties in Czech Republic and Slovakia have a very weak tendency to stabilize their electorates when they stabilize their voters, whereas Bulgarian and Hungarian parties benefit a lot in electoral terms of their internal stability. The relationship for Bulgaria is problematic given the small amount of data, only four cases being available. The sign of the coefficient indicates a different relationship than hypothesized (and the same applies to Romania, Slovakia, and Czech Republic): parties that lack internal stability in terms of membership are with one third more stable than the rest. However, anything can happen with this coefficient when all data are collected for Bulgarian parties. Hungary displays a robust result in the light of our previous findings. With a correlation coefficient that is statistically significant, seven out of ten Hungarian parties that stabilize their membership figures during the years manage to get a rather stable core of electorate. When analyzing the figures enclosed in tables 3 and 4 for the Romanian political parties, we can draw one conclusion; the size of the membership is more relevant than the differences between the numbers of members at various points in time within the same party (the opposed tendency to the Bulgarian parties). Summing up, with one and notable exception (Hungary) the evidence does not support the third hypothesis. Political parties do not float; they evolve and develop within an environment where similar actors perform comparable actions. Despite my focus at party level, I cannot ignore the possible systemic influence. The next section deals with control variables for the relationships where correlations were found. Thus, I investigate the influence of party system volatility on the results regarding decentralization and of incumbency on the membership influence. As size and stability of party membership accounts for little or no 4
The number of cases differs from table to table due to the missing values. 19
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies variation of the electoral stability in all countries but Hungary, I test the effect of incumbency on such relationships only in this country. Controlling for environment and incumbency Two possible effects of the party system on its components (i.e. political parties) are at work. On the one hand, there is the isomorphic mimetism or the experiential learning. Political parties learn from each other’s experience and benefit of their roles within the same play. Once a party manages to stabilize its electorate, its techniques are known by its competition partners and may be imitated. On the other hand, there is a competition for a limited number of votes. Irrespective of the number of parties, the number of voters remains approximately constant within a country. As a result, losses of one party imply quite often gains of another one.5 The correlation coefficient between party volatility and party system volatility in the analyzed countries (0.4, statistically significant at the 0.01 level) indicates a medium degree of dependence among political parties that cannot be neglected. I test if the volatility of the party system has an intervening effect on the already identified relationships between party centralization and party electoral stability. The relationship between party centralization and the party electoral volatility is not influenced by the party system volatility as an intervening variable. The correlation coefficient in this new statistical setting is identical to what was obtained in the original relationship between centralization and volatility and party level (0.35,) the only difference is that the results when controlling for the environment cannot be generalized (i.e. not statistically significant at the 0.05 level). At economic level, voters punish or reward incumbent parties for their success in managing the economy (Kramer 1971; Lewis‐Beck 1988). Tavits (2005) shows at party system level that the effects of economic shocks on electoral stability were most pronounced in the beginning of the transition period and diminished as the economy stabilized. Incumbency does not have an intervening role in the relationship between party decentralization and electoral stability: it only decreases the initial correlation coefficient by 0.03. With respect to the relationships between membership size and electoral stability in Hungary, the incumbency has no influence on the strength and significance of the correlation coefficient. Also, there is no influence of the incumbency on the relationship between the stability of membership and of the electorate. Summing up, none of the tested control variables influence in any way the relationships. 5
Even if I do not consider all the parties from a party system (the votes of the analyzed parties rarely sum to more than 80% of the cast votes), the degree of dependence between the political parties from a national party system remains considerable. 20
Sergiu Gherghina Conclusions This study longitudinal tests the relevance of internal components of CEE political parties (decentralization of party organization and membershi) in stabilizing their electorate. The level of decentralization indicate that at a general level, parties that give power to their territorial branches have almost 40% more chances to stabilize their electorates compared to those that decide key issues at the centre. Whenever the local organizations have decision powers regarding the political program to be used in elections, the chances to have a stable electorate increase with approximately one third. This relationship is quite natural, as the local organizations are closer to the needs of the people in their constituencies and can better promote and implement policies that are elaborated at local levels, as well as being better able to advertise their work. If the program is imposed from the centre, it can lead both to an alienation of the voters and party members at the local level. Centralization has the least negative effects for electoral volatility when it comes to candidate nominations in the PR systems where the voter does not differentiate between lists proposed at local level or imposed from the centre. Size of the membershi rarely makes a difference when it comes to electoral stability, but whenever such a relationship occurs it is in favor of parties that have high number of members (one out of ten situations). Only in Hungary and Romania the size of membership clearly differentiates among parties regarding their electoral stability and provides more incentive to parties to strengthen their linkages with society through well designed networks of members. The stability .of membership is not linked with the electoral stability with the exception of Hungary. The latter provides solid evidence in favor of the thesis that membership matters, both in size and stability. None of these relationships suffer changes when controlling for party system volatility and party incumbency, calculations that reveal the robustness of the relationship both in longitudinal and cross‐country comparisons. The major empirical implication of these results is that the explanation for the high levels of party electoral volatility in new democracies may be found somewhere else than investigated until now. The identification of a rather strong relationship between party organization and party electoral volatility shifts the focus from the exogenous explanations emphasized in previous research at party system level. Moreover, the isolated relevance of party membership in one of two countries may increase as soon as complete data are available and deeper insights are taken. The internal structure and dynamics of parties not only produce changes in the life of party bureaucracy, but are also related to voters’ behavior. The latter appear to reward specific decentralized party organizations, attaching medium and long‐term loyalty when casting their votes. Further investigation can reveal that also other features of party organization matter (e.g. turnover of leadership), but the crucial point is that formal structures of political parties make a difference with respect to their 21
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies stability on the electoral market. In the terms of institutional theory, the formal components of party institutionalization can generate more behavioral institutionalization (acceptance of the political party by the public). At theoretical level, this research shows that the logic of institutional adaptation may work in the CEE setting. Consequently, the theoretical foundations to explain electoral volatility should dedicate more space to the adaptation mechanisms developed by parties through their internal mechanisms. The communication with the electorate cannot involve solely a passive presence, but rather an active role in which the political party responds to citizens’ needs through internal changes that bring it closer to its core voters. New institutionalist insights, with a focus on the internal life of parties, may represent balanced approaches to investigate the process of party adaptation to the electorate following the logic of appropriateness. Given these implications, the study opens the door for new analyses and provides bases for further research. By focusing on the crucial role that an organization can play, this study allows further developments in two main directions. On the one hand, a closer look at the mechanisms of party membership and decentralization is necessary, with complete data. The rough measurements used in this paper represent the starting point for an in‐depth analysis to investigate the dynamism of party politics. On the other hand, once started on the road of endogenous institutional explanations, there are further variables to play relevant roles in shaping a stable electorate for the CEE parties: party recruitment and party financing (autonomy towards the environment). Such research sets the bases to investigate a cause‐effect relationship between the environment and the organizational features with possible more solid conclusions about the political parties in newly‐emerged democracies. 22
Sergiu Gherghina Appendix 1: METHODOLOGICAL CHOICES Splits and A concrete example explains my approach: party A splits and the resulting parties are Mergers parties B (the direct successor of the initial party) and C (the splitter). However. If party C scores low in the elections following the split, I consider B to be the direct successor of party A as it maintains the core voters. In this situation party C is considered newly emerged. If the resulting parties B and C have similar comparable strength after the split and no successor party of A can be detected, I consider both B and C as successors and the volatility is calculated accordingly. My choice is strengthened by one particular situation in Romania: FSN splits in 1992 and the resulting parties are FSN and FDSN. Whereas the new FSN was on paper the successor of the old FSN (i.e. offices, organizations etc), in practice FDSN gained the majority of the old voters. For mergers, whenever a new party is created its electoral performance starts from scratch. If smaller parties are absorbed by larger ones, then I stop accounting for the former. Quite often, the change of party’s name as a result of the merger is a good indicator for the impact of the merger (i.e. usually large parties do not change names when merging with small parties). Coding The centralization of power is problematic with respect to the interpretation and coding procedures of the party statutes. If candidates’ nomination is rather clear in all the analyzed statutes, there are a few cases with scarce if any reference regarding local organizations’ capacity to have a word to say with respect to the political program of the party that is used in election (quite often labeled electoral program in the literature). I have used a universal technique to assign scores: if nothing was mentioned about the party program when reading the atributions of the local organizations, I assume that it has nothing to say in the process of elaborating/changing the program. However, there are specific cases in which regional or supra‐local bodies bring amendments to programs, make proposals to the centre etc. These cases are coded as intermediary and given a score of 1. A second problem raised by this variable is related with the document sources. For most of the cases only the most recent statute was available with no references to the previous statutes. Whenever I found references, there were no modifications in the statute regarding the way of selecting candidates. This lack of data limits the longitudinal measurement on this variable and allows only the observation of a general relationship between the degree of centralization and the average electoral stability of the party. Coalitions The difficult cases regarding the coalitions are those with no reference to the shares of votes divided within the coalition. I use two possible mechanisms to reduce the distortion and to diminish the consequences produced by the lack of data. First, the parties that got into a coalition / alliance received different weight according to the number of votes received in the previous election, reporting both to the other parties or to the total share of votes received by a party. For example, if a party received 10% in the 1992 elections and in 1994 got into a coalition with three other parties that did not get in the Parliament in 1992 and the coalition from 1996 obtained 15% of the votes, I assume that the electoral support for the party did not change dramatically and I approximate the same 10% share for the first party. If, on the other hand, there is a coalition made of parties that were never before in the Parliament, I provide an equal share for all the members of the coalition. All these decisions are based on the assumption that a coalition is the sum of the votes of its parts, although this is not true all the time. The potential of the coalition is ignored in this case in the attempt of better approximating the results obtained by individual parties. Party The membership figures provide information on the nature of parties' organizational membership links with their affiliated supporters and the goals of the former. Also, the attitude of parties towards keeping records of membership says a lot: parties that do not aspire to the mass party form do not have available data, do not regularly keep tracks of membership, and the approximations of their leaders when asked about membership widely contrast. Usually, these parties lack precise enrolment figures and any direct channels to communicate with members. For many of the CEE parties this is the situation, with Romanian and Bulgarian parties as the champions of information shortage. The main common challenge in party membership investigation in longitudinal studies is that parties may change their practices of data collection about 23
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies their members and the resulting figures may not be comparable. I am consistent in my measurements comparing only data gathered through the same procedure (individual enrolment vs. self‐reported), focusing mainly on individual enrolment numbers whenever these are available. Whenever self‐reported data were included, I used at least three different sources (scholars, reports, interviews with leaders, articles etc) to evaluate and compare them. Appendix 2: PARTY MEMBERSHIP (as % of registered voters) Political Party/Coalition Bulgaria Union of Democratic Forces Year Percentage of members 1994 0.50 2005 0.13 Bulgarian Socialist Party 1994 4.29 1997 3.43 2001 3.04 2005 2.84 Movements for Rights and Freedoms 2001 0.46 Czech Republic Civic Democratic Party‐Christian Democratic Party 2005 1.42 1992 0.28 1996 0.28 1998 0.23 2002 0.22 2006 0.35 Czech Social Democratic Party 1992 0.15 1996 0.16 1998 0.22 2002 0.21 2006 0.21 Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia 1992 2.87 1996 4.38 1998 1.97 2002 1.55 2006 0.93 Christian‐Dem Union‐Czech People's Party KDU‐CSL 1992 1.03 1996 1.25 1998 0.76 2002 0.67 Hungary Hungarian Socialist Party 2006 0.46 1990 0.75 1994 0.51 24
Sergiu Gherghina 1998 0.48 2002 0.53 2006 0.71 Alliance of Young Democrats (FIDESZ) 1990 0.06 1994 0.19 1998 0.19 2002 0.27 2006 0.79 Alliance of Free Democrats (SDSZ) 1990 0.31 1994 0.43 1998 0.20 2002 0.35 2006 0.40 Hungarian Democratic Forum 1990 0.43 1994 0.47 1998 0.29 2002 0.25 2006 0.22 Smallholders' Party 1990 0.51 1994 0.64 1998 0.74 Christian Democratic People's Party 1990 0.04 1994 0.36 1998 0.12 Poland Polish Peasant Party 2006 0.34 1991 0.65 1993 0.69 1997 0.53 2001 0.51 2005 0.40 2007 0.52 Alliance of the Democratic Left 1991 0.22 1993 0.22 1997 0.21 2001 0.30 2005 0.26 2007 0.24 25
Still Waters Run Deep: Party Organization and Electoral Stability in New Democracies Democratic Union/Freedom Union/Democratic Party 1991 0.05 1993 0.07 1997 0.05 2001 0.07 2005 0.03 2007 0.01 Law and Justice 2005 0.02 2007 0.07 Civic Platform 2001 0.02 2005 0.05 Romania Social‐Democratic Party 2007 0.10 1992 0.37 1996 1.79 2000 1.72 2004 2.09 2008 1.58 National Liberal Party 2004 0.40 2008 0.63 National Peasants Party Christian Democrat 1990 3.49 2004 0.30 2008 0.19 Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania 1990 2.91 1992 1.84 1996 1.55 2000 0.82 2004 0.60 2008 0.46 Greater Romania Party 1992 0.09 1996 0.42 2000 1.23 2004 1.14 2008 0.58 Democratic Party 1996 1.92 2000 0.76 2004 0.81 Slovakia Movement for a Democratic Slovakia 2008 0.84 1994 1.03 26
Sergiu Gherghina 1998 1.79 2002 0.96 2006 0.83 Christian Democratic Movement 1992 0.66 1994 0.26 1998 0.73 2002 0.66 2006 0.37 Party of the Hungarian Coalition 1994 1.03 1998 0.29 2002 0.29 2006 0.25 Slovak Democratic and Christian Union 1994 0.15 1998 0.14 2006 0.47 Slovak National Party 1994 0.05 1998 0.32 2006 0.03 Party of the Democratic Left 1992 1.27 1994 0.71 1998 0.53 2002 0.38 2006 0.37 Source: Balasz and Enyedi (1996), Day (1996), Lewis (1996; 2000), Lomax (1996), Mair and van Biezen (2001), Szczerbiak (2001; 2006), Bugajski (2002), Kolarova (2002), Kulcsár and Bayer (2003), van Biezen (2003), Kopecký (2006), Rybar (2006), Weldon (2006), Spirova (2007), van Biezen and Mair (2009), online resources and documents (see the list of references). 27
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