Political Parties in Post-Communist Societies: Formation, Persistence, and Change

Political Parties in Post-Communist Societies is a study of party development in the post-communist world.  Set in the endogenous institution tradition, it develops an analytical framework that can be used to understand why parties form and how and why they choose certain electoral strategies once formed.  The book is based on extensive fieldwork in Bulgaria and Hungary and uses the experience of parties there as well as aggregate data from 12 post-communist states to provide an explanation of the behavior of parties since 1990.  The book offers some new insights into the impact of party financing, party organization and international actors on the behavior of political parties in these recently democratized political systems.