Introduction to Special Section, “Parties and Party System Development in Post-communist Europe”
Introduction to Special Section, “Parties and Party System Development in Post-communist Europe”

Summary/Abstract: This article introduces a special section on parties and democratic linkage in postcommunist Europe. It sets out the main objectives and research questions that guide the four articles in this special section, presenting these in the context of the comparative politics literature on party and party system change and democratic development. It introduces the key arguments of the articles in the section, arguing that the contributions identify regionally distinctive patterns of party and party system behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe. These patterns have fuelled a quest for more suitable conceptual and measurement tools and call for diversity in comparative analysis, combining intra and inter regional comparison.

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