Book Review: Post-communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-Party Cooperation
Book Review: Post-communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-Party Cooperation

Summary/Abstract: Book Review: Post-communist Party Systems: Competition, Representation and Inter-Party Cooperation. By Herbert Kitschelt, Zdenka Mansfeldová, Radoslaw Markowski and Gábor Tóka. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 Political scientists, who examined democratisation movements in the last quarter of the 20th century, concentrated their analyses to several key periods and processes within the rise and establishment of new democracies. First, they tried to define the conditions and circumstances, under which breakthrough moments in the history occurred, at the time when various autocratic regimes collapsed and were substituted by democratic systems. Later their attention was redirected to the processes through which the new political regimes are established and reinforced. A key question emerged then, how it is possible to secure that relevant political forces, represented both by top politicians and population groups, accept each other and respect the rules of democratic competition. In several new democracies the processes of democratic transition and consolidation have been, more or less, accomplished. Attention is thus paid to the new issue, concerning the quality of the democratic regime rather that its pure survival.

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