We analyze how the degree of parliamentary activity affects both individual MPs' performance in the candidate selection process within the party and their popularity with voters at the electoral stage. We expect that parliamentary work of MPs matters less for voters' evaluations of MPs because of limited monitoring capacities and lower salience attached to this type of representation. The empirical analysis uses data from recent elections in the Czech Republic and Sweden. During the analyzed period, these countries further personalized their flexible list electoral systems. Our results suggest that parties hold MPs accountable mainly through the threat of nonre-selection rather than by assigning them to a promising list position. While there is no evidence that voters consistently reward MPs' effort, the case of the Czech elections in 2010 shows that they may do so if context draws attention to individual MPs' work.

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The article examines four centre—right parties in East-Central Europe in order to assess the impact of ideology on party organization and revisit the thesis of organizational weakness in the region. The data collected indicate that, together with electoral success, inherited resources and national context, ideology does indeed shape the style of organization. Centre—right parties, as opposed to leftist parties, tend to be less bureaucratized, have fewer staff members, a simpler structure, more individualized leadership and the `party-in-public-office' tends also to have a more elevated role. Parties that have more individualistic ideologies tends also to have `lighter' organization and weaker embeddedness, while parties subscribing to a more collectivist and corporatist type of conservatism have developed more complex party organization and rely more heavily on affiliate organizations. Analysis of temporal changes uncovers a degree of organizational vitality that is surprising given that the literature on both centre—right and on post-communist politics points towards organizational weakness.

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