Abstract
Throughout Western Europe, parliaments are unrepresentative of their populations’ social structure and this was also the case with post-communist parliaments, where striking change in the social composition of deputies was evident from the outset. We have noted that the Soviet concept of representation placed great stress on parliament as a reflection of the social character of the population. Although communist parliamentarians never provided a precise mirror image of their populations, their social composition was indeed wider than that characteristic of the West. Yet the composition of the new freely chosen legislatures was far narrower than that of their communist predecessors; generally, it became more so with successive elections. The speed with which the new parliaments came to resemble their Western counterparts was a feature of post-communist political transformation, though the resemblance was far from exact. There were also some considerable differences between countries.
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© 2004 Frances Millard
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Millard, F. (2004). Standing for Office: Parties and their Candidates. In: Elections, Parties and Representation in Post-Communist Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230000865_7
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