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Patterns of Party Structural Change in Central and Eastern Europe, 1990-2015

Ibenskas, R; Sikk, A; (2015) Patterns of Party Structural Change in Central and Eastern Europe, 1990-2015. Presented at: ECPR General Conference, Montreal. Green open access

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Abstract

While parties in many new democracies frequently split, merge, change labels, and make and break electoral alliances, comparative systematic research on how these changes are related to each other is limited. Literature on political parties often treats different forms of party change as manifestations of a singular and single-dimensional phenomenon of party instability. This study examines the dimensionality of party structural change in 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. We apply Multiple Correspondence Analysis to an original dataset that differentiates between five types of party structural change and examines 780 party-electoral term dyads. Our findings contradict the idea of party structural change as a uni-dimensional phenomenon. Instead we distinguish between two types of change: temporary change (entry to and exit from electoral coalitions and changes in electoral labels) and permanent change (splits and mergers). A more fine-grained classification also discerns between change that brings about party system aggregation and fragmentation. These findings imply that different types of party structural change cannot be accounted for by the same factors.

Type: Conference item (Presentation)
Title: Patterns of Party Structural Change in Central and Eastern Europe, 1990-2015
Event: ECPR General Conference
Location: Montreal
Dates: 26 August 2015 - 29 August 2015
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > SSEES
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1470856
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