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Party organizational strength and party unity in post-communist Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2011

Margit Tavits
Margit Tavits*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Washington University, St Louis, MO, USA
*
* E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The existing comparative literature focuses on political institutions to explain party unity in parliament, and largely ignores the role of party characteristics in this process. This study argues that the strength of political party organization directly and independently influences the level of party unity. Organizational strength makes the party a valuable asset to individual legislators, thus increasing their willingness to be disciplined. Therefore, parties with strong organizations are likely to be more unified in parliament than those with weak organizations. I find support for this argument with data from four post-communist democracies: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Poland. Narratives suggest that the proposed causal mechanism is plausible.

Keywords

party organizationparty unitypost-communist politics
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , November 2012 , pp. 409 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © European Consortium for Political Research 2011

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