Explaining Formation, Persistence, and Change: Post-Communist Trends

Abstract

The discussion in chapter 4 pointed to some clear indications that factors at the system level influence the behavior of political parties and their decision to form, run alone, merge, or ally. This chapter discusses in detail the way that regulations of party financing and the electoral systems in Bulgaria and Hungary seem to have constrained the parties in their evolution, and then provides a system-level test of the model.