Party organization and electoral volatility in Central and Eastern Europe: enhancing voter loyalty

Abstract

By putting together individual parties from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia within a sample of 29 individual parties (a total of 116 units of observation considering the number of elections taken into account and the political parties analysed) and by covering the time period from 1990 to 2008, the analysis goes beyond the limits that characterised previous single-country studies or restraint comparisons. This methodological framework represents one of the major assets of the book, providing both an in-depth analysis of the party politics as well as broader generalisations. The balanced combination between statistic and narrative comparison further reinforces the solidity of general explanations without neglecting details and case-specific relevant variables.