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Centre-Right Parties in Post-Communist East-Central Europe

Edited by Seán Hanley, Aleks Szczerbiak

Published July 21st 2005 by Routledge – 168 pages

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Description

This is the first book to cover the centre-right in post-communist Eastern Europe.

It makes an vital contribution to the broader research agenda on the Central and East European centre-right by focusing on one specific question: why strong and cohesive centre-right formations have developed in some post-communist states, but not others. It also delves into the attempts to develop centre-right parties after 1989 in four nations: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The authors of these fresh case studies use a common analytical framework to analyse and provide fascinating insights into the varying levels of cohesion in centre-right parties across the region.

This volume was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

Reviews

"Seeking to fill a perceived lacuna of research on the center-right parties in Central and Eastern Europe, Szczerbiak and Hanley present six essays that comparatively explore the re-emergence of the center-right. Rather than stress historical or structural reasons for party successes, the essays focus more on such political factors such as the choices of political actors during the critical 1989-91 period, the proportionality of the electoral system, parliamentary versus semi- presidential systems, formation on the basis of territorial penetration versus territorial diffusion, and the relative ideological and social cohesion of political elites. After a discussion of post-communist Europe as whole, the studies separately analyze the center-right parties of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia." --Reference & Research Book News

Contents

1. Introduction 2. Getting the Centre-Right Right in Central and Eastern Europe 3. The Czech Republic (focusing on the Civic Democratic Party) 4. Hungary (focusing on Fidesz) 5. Poland (focusing on Solidarity Electoral Action) 6. Slovakia 7. Conclusion