Suchergebnisse

Despite spells outside parliament, with its blend of nationalist and populist appeals the Slovak National Party (SNS) has been a prominent fixture on Slovakia's political scene for three decades. Unlike some of the newer parties in Slovakia and across the region, partly as a product of the point of its (re-)creation, SNS has a comparable organizational density to most established parties in the country and has invested in party branches and recruiting members. Although ordinary members exercised some power and influence during the fissiparous era of the early 2000s, SNS has been notable for the role played by its leader in decision-making and steering the party. Each leader placed their stamp on the projection, pitch and functioning of the party, both as a decision-making organization and an electoral vehicle. Ordinary members have been largely—but not exclusively—relegated to the role of cheerleaders and campaigners for the party's tribunes; a situation which has not changed significantly in the era of social media. The pre-eminent position of the leader and the limited options for "voice" has led unsuccessful contenders for top posts and their supporters to opt instead for "exit." Despite having some of the traits of the mass party and having engaged in some of the activities common for mass parties, especially in the earlier years of its existence, in more recent times in particular, SNS falls short of the mass party model both in aspiration and reality.

Although aggregate popular support for particular nationalisms in Slovakia showed little change during the 1990s, relationships between nationalisms changed significantly. This article uses categories of nationalism derived from the relational typologies of Brubaker and Hechter to analyze surveys of postcommunist Slovak public opinion and demonstrate that popular nationalisms against Czechs, Hungarians, the West, and nonnationalist Slovaks bore little relationship to one another at the time of Slovakia's independence but converged over time. With the encouragement of nationalist political elites, a large share of the Slovak population became convinced that Slovakia faced threats from all sides and that the country's enemies were actually working together to undermine its sovereignty. The example of Slovakia thus provides an important case study for understanding how the complex and interactions between distinct nationalisms creates opportunities for the influence of political leadership.

This text provides a systematic study of political parties across Central Europe since 1989, and provides new tools and conceptual frameworks that can be used to explain party politics in other regions across the globe.

This article is part of the special cluster titled Parties and Democratic Linkage in Post-Communist Europe, guest edited by Lori Thorlakson, and will be published in the August 2018 issue of EEPS Political parties in Central and Eastern Europe come and go quite rapidly, giving the region a reputation for electoral chaos, but amid the change, some parties survive for many electoral cycles. A brief examination of the party systems in the region shows a high rate of party collapse but also indicates the robustness of certain parties in the face of crisis. Closer comparisons of the collapsed and surviving parties indicates a significant role for three factors: organization on the ground, a clear position on an enduring issue dimension, and ability to change party leadership. The finding is particularly important for explaining the dynamics of Central and East European party systems because the same characteristics that contribute to longevity are found in lower levels among new parties in the region. Only a small subset of new parties have made choices that would contribute to long-term survival, and such cases are largely confined to those with strong ties to previous long-surviving parties.

The seemingly random triumph and demise of new political parties in Central and Eastern Europe actually represent a durable subsystem with relevance for party systems around the world. This article supplements existing research on volatility with new measures of party age distribution that reveal clear patterns of disruption, turnover and restabilization. These patterns emerge from stable and coherent party subsystems that follow a simple model based on three dynamics: losses by established parties, rapid gains by uncorrupted newcomers, and equally rapid newcomer losses to even newer parties. Confirmed both by electoral evidence and computer simulations, this model offers insight into the endurance of these subsystems, particularly since the very mechanisms that generate new parties' success can preclude their ability to survive in subsequent elections. Central and Eastern European party systems offer a laboratory for understanding trends in party system volatility that are emerging in Western Europe and across the globe.