Party System Instability in Europe: Persistent Differences in Volatility between West and East?

An initial profile of the ideologically volatile voter in Europe: The multidimensional role of party attachment and the conditionality of the political system

“…The parsimoniousness of the index allows for insights into certain temporal and some cross-national trends (e.g. Dalton et al, 2000;Lane and Ersson, 2007).…”

“…From a more subjective perspective, it is also imperative to improve understanding of the societal and normative consequences of electoral instability (Blondel, 1968;Drummond, 2006;Lane and Ersson, 2007), which do not only affect political mobilisation (Kitschelt, 1999;T oka, 2004;Mainwaring and Zoco, 2007), but can also have a direct effect on the democratic legitimacy and general efficiency of a political system (Bartolini, 1999(Bartolini, , 2000. Given the long recognised relation between political continuity and political stability, the systematic ambiguity that follows from (ideological) volatility can be quite detrimental for a society's governance.…”

Studying Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies: Issues and Perspectives

“…33 This has manifested itself in rising levels of volatility in the majority of older democracies, while many younger democracies (especially in Eastern Europe) have been highly volatile from the outset. 34 Important components of party competition and also of governmentopposition relations emerge from the dynamic relations between individual parties, which is particularly true at the governmental level. In general, smaller opposition parties tend to profit from an open structure of competition within a given party system, which has been analytically distinguished from a closed structure of competition.…”

Party politics in Georgia and Ukraine and the failure of Western assistance

“…The vast difference in outcomes of party development in the two halves of the post-communist world is instructive in this regard. Whereas party politics in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is seen as gradually converging with party politics in Western Europe, 1 in the member states of the Commonwealth of Independents States (CIS) most relevant parties are anything but institutionalized, democratic forces. In these latter states, regime-initiated or regime-sponsored parties often distort the level to the development of stable, representative, and democratic parties.…”