Členství a vnitřní organizace ve středoevropských politických stranách
Party Membership and Internal Organization in Central European Political Parties

Summary/Abstract: Party membership became one of the important indicators of political participation level and quality in the Western democracies. After the fall of the communist regimes in East Central Europe, also the new democracies in the region were included into the comparative research of party membership showing important differences and specifics next to the traditional democratic states. The aim of our article is to analyse the contemporary situation in party membership development in Central Europe. As the analytical framework for the discussion we use the typology of five party models developed by André Krouwel, especially with respect to the internal party organization. Four countries are included into the analysis – next to Czechia, Slovakia and Poland as examples of new democracies in Central Europe we include also Austria, being in our perspective also Central European state. As the basis for the analysis we use the comparative study of 27 European democracies presented by van Biezen, Poguntke and Mair. As far as this study collected the date ending with the year 2009, we develop the analysis to the present day.The comparison evidences that the party membership decline continued also in the last decade.

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