Development of Parties and Party Systems in Central Europe 1989-2008

Development of Parties and Party Systems in Central Europe 1989-2008 (I) - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary

Søren Riishøj, Senior Lecturer, Institute of Political Science, University of Southern Denmark

Email-adresses: [e-mail]

Contents:

I. Introduction

1.1. Political parties and stages of post-communism

1.2. Political parties and party systems

1.3. The formation of political parties

1.4. Stages of party and party system development

1.5. Consolidation of democracy

1.6. The left-right divide and post-communist cleavages

1.7. Anti-communism and the Right

1.8. The dilemmas of the Left

1.9. Coalition building

1.10. Presidentialism

1.11. The new political elites

1.12. Party institutionalization

1.13. The party culture and party life

II. About parties and party-systems: Poland

2.1. Path-dependency and the parties and party-systems in Poland

2.2. Solidarity and AWS

2.3. The first years

2.4. The foundation myth

2.5. The new social environment

2.6. The first big crisis and the political come-back in 1997

2.7. The foundation of AWS

2.8. The organisational structure of AWS

2.9. The different “legs”

2.10. RS AWS

2.11. More about the debate about establishing a functional party federation

2.12. “The End”

2.13. AWS’ other ”legs”

2.14. Peasant Parties: PSL and “Selfdefence” (Samoobrona)

2.15. Democratic Union (UD), the Freedom Union (UW) and the Citizen’s Platform (PO)

2-16- Civic Platform (PO)

2.17. SLD

2.18. The foundation of the party SLD

2.19. SLD after the 2002 election

2.20. The Labour Union (UP)

III. The Czech Republic

3.1. Stages of party and party system development

3.2. More about the power sharing agreements- and the time after

3.3. The 2002 election and after

3.4. The parties: Civic