Changes in the party politics of the new EU member states in Central Europe: Patterns of Europeanization and democratization

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 10, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 151-165

  Lewis, Paul G ^a,b  

^a OPEN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77649168227     PISSN: 19448953     EISSN: 19448961     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14613190802145911     Document Type: Article

References (96)

1. Eurobarometer 65, survey conducted May/June 2006, pp. 44, 47, available at: (last accessed 15 October 2007).
2. Candidate Countries Eurobarometer 2004.1, Full Report, p. 10, available at: (last accessed 15 October 2007).
3. Eurobarometer 66, survey conducted September/October 2006, Executive Summary for Poland, p. 2, available at: (last accessed 15 October 2007).
4. See 'The limited impact of Europe on national party systems', West European Politics, 23(4), 2000, pp. 7-15,
5. and the range of literature discussed in P. G. Lewis, 'The EU and party politics in Central and Eastern Europe: questions and issues', in P. G. Lewis and Z.Mansfeldová (eds), The European Union and Party Politics in Central and Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006, pp. 3-7.
6. L. Thorlakson, 'Assessing the impact of Europeanisation on party organisations: a conceptual framework',
7. P. Pennings, 'National political parties and Europeanisation: new evidence from party manifestos (1960-2003)', papers presented to Workshop on Impacts of EU Involvement on National Political Parties, Texas A&M University, August 2004, as well as K.M. Johansson and P. Zervakis (eds), European Political Parties between Cooperation and Integration, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden, 2002
8. P. Mair, 'Political parties and party systems', in P. Graziano andM. P.Vink (eds), Europeanization: New Research Agendas, PalgraveMacmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, pp. 154-166.
9. T. Poguntke, N. Aylott, R. Ladrech and K. R. Luther (eds), The Europeanization of National Political Parties, Routledge, London, 2007;
10. T. Poguntke et al., 'The Europeanization of national party organizations: a conceptual analysis', European Journal of Political Research, 46(6), 2007, pp. 747-771.
11. P. G. Lewis, 'EUenlargement and party systems in Central Europe', Journal ofCommunist Studies and Transition Politics, 21(2), 2005, pp. 171-199;
12. S. Soare, 'The incomplete Europeanization of the Romanian party system', in A. Ágh (ed.), Post-Accession in East Central Europe, the Emergence of the EU25,Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies, Budapest, 2004, pp. 287-310;
13. K. M. Johansson, 'Europeanization of political parties: towards an analysis of Baltic political party organizations and elites', paper presented at conference of the European Union Studies Association, Austin, TX,March-April 2005;
14. M. Baun, J. Dürr, D. Marek and P. Šaradiń, 'The Europeanization of Czech politics', Journal of CommonMarket Studies, 44(2), 2006, pp. 249-280;
15. Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics;
16. R. Rohrschneider and S. Whitefield (eds), Public Opinion, Party Competition, and the European Union in Post-Communist Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006. Much relevant discussion can also be found in F. Millard, Elections, Parties, and Representation in Post-Communist Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2004;
17. G. Pridham, Designing Democracy: EU Enlargement and Regime Change in Post-Communist Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2005.
18. J. Hughes, G. Sasse and C. Gordon, Europeanization and Regionalization in the EU's Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2004;
19. W. Jacoby, The Enlargement of the European Union and NATO: Choosing from the Menu in Central Europe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004;
20. M. Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage, and Integration After Communism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005;
21. F. Schimmelfennig and U. Sedelmeier (eds), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2005;
22. H. Grabbe, The EU's Transformative Power: Europeanization Through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2006.
23. W. Sadurski et al. (eds), Après Enlargement: Legal and Political Responses in Central and Eastern European States to the EU, Robert Schumann Centre, Florence, 2006;
24. V. Dimitrov, K. H. Goetz and H. Wollmann, Governing After Communism: Institutions and Policymaking, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD, 2006;
25. D. Fink-Hafner, 'Europeanization in managing EU affairs: between divergence and convergence, a comparative study of Estonia, Hungary and Slovenia', Public Administration, 85(3), 2007, pp. 805-828.
26. R. Ladrech, 'The Europeanization of interest groups and political parties', in S. Bulmer and C. Lequesne (eds), The Member States of the European Union, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 329.
27. See, for example, M. Haverland, 'Does the EU cause domestic developments? The problem of case selection in Europeanization research', European Integration Online Papers, 9(2), 2005, available at:,http://eiop.or.at/eiop/texte/2005-002a.htm. (last accessed 22 April 2005).
28. 'East-Central Europe: parties in crisis and the external and internal Europeanisation of the party systems', in P. Burnell (ed.), Globalising Democracy: Party Politics in Emerging Democracies, Routledge, London, 2006, pp. 91-92.
29. S. Coss, 'New EU heads of state need to learn old negotiating skills', European Voice, 29 April-5 May 2004.
30. J. Paradowska and J. Baczyński, 'Wyborcy bez wyboru', Polityka, 24 April 2004.
31. P. Buras, 'Polish social democracy, policy transfer and programmatic change', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 21(1), 2005, p. 87.
32. J. Majcherek, 'Koniec postkomunizmu', Rzeczpospolita, 29 March 2004.
33. A. Ware, Political Parties and Party Systems, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996, pp. 13, 213.
34. S. Jungerstam-Mulders, 'Parties and party systems in post-communist EU member states: comparative aspects', in Jungerstam-Mulders (ed.), Post-Communist EU Member States: Parties and Party Systems, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2006, pp. 15-16.
35. P. G. Lewis, 'Party systems in post-communist Central Europe: patterns of stability and consolidation', Democratization, 13(4), 2006, pp. 562-583.
36. C. Chiva, 'EU enlargement and the Bulgarian and Romanian party systems', paper delivered to a conference on The EU's South-Eastern Enlargement: Romania and Bulgaria in Comparative Perspective, European Studies Research Institute of the University of Salford, January 2007.
37. Conflicts arising from European integration have often been found to be sharper within mainstream parties than between them, see L. Hooghe and G. Marks, 'European integration and democratic competition', Friedrich Ebert Stiftung International Policy Analysis Unit, March 2004, p. 3;
38. M. Gabel and K. Scheve, 'Mixed messages: party dissent and mass opinion on European integration', European Union Politics, 8(1), 2007, p. 41. Equally, little variation among mainstream parties in established EU states on integration issues has been found, with parties of the extreme left and radical right much more likely to take up Eurosceptic positions.
39. See D. J. Beers and N. Clark, 'Euroskepticism in transition: public support for Euroskeptic parties in Eastern Europe at the national and transnational levels', paper for conference of the EU Studies Association, Austin, TX, 2005.
40. See Lewis, 'The EU and party politics', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, pp. 1-19;
41. also S. Bartolini, Restructuring Europe: Centre Formation, SystemBuilding and Political Structuring between theNation-State and the European Union, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, p. 312;
42. J. Bielasiak, 'Party systems and EU accession: Euroskepticism in East Europe', in Rohrschneider and Whitefield, Public Opinion, pp. 59-60.
43. Z. Enyedi and P. G. Lewis, 'The impact of the European Union on party politics in Central and Eastern Europe', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, pp. 231-249. The following section draws on this analysis.
44. See Mair, 'Limited impact'. The two cases where the EU has been argued to have had an impact on the format of party politics in the pre-accession period are Poland and Bulgaria.
45. See Lewis, 'EU enlargement' and Chiva, 'EU enlargement'. 'The past in the present: a cleavage theory of party response to European integration', British Journal of Political Science, 20, 2000, pp. 433-459.
46. Mair has also come to endorse this view more strongly, see 'Political parties and party systems', p. 159.
47. V. Sobell, 'Central Europe unhinged', Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd, p. 2.
48. D. Stoyanov, 'The impact of EU integration on the Bulgarian party system', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, pp. 190-209.
49. P. G. Lewis, 'Impacts of EU enlargement on party politics in Central Europe', paper delivered to a conference on The EU's South-Eastern Enlargement: Romania and Bulgaria in Comparative Perspective, European Studies Research Institute of the University of Salford, January 2007.
50. D. Auers, 'Latvia: a normal, issue-free election', Transitions Online, 18 October 2006;
51. N. Sitter and A. Batory, 'Europe and the Hungarian elections of April 2006', European Parties, Elections and Referendums Network Briefing, Sussex European Institute, 2006, p. 7.
52. Europe Undivided, p. 170.
53. See T. Haughton, 'When does the EU make a difference? Conditionality and the accession process in Central and Eastern Europe', paper delivered at Annual Conference of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham, June 2006.
54. K. Henderson, 'Slovak political parties and the EU: from symbolic politics to policies', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, pp. 155, 166.
55. Slovak developments provide a key point of reference for the 2007 enlargement in this respect. In elections held in the three relevant countries between 2000 and 2002 it was only in Slovakia that reformers were 'resoundingly re-elected' while Romania, in particular, 'trailed far behind'. As there were other incentives for the EU to accept Romania as a member, this might well have shown the strict limits placed on the EU capacity for leverage as a general practice (Vachudova, Europe Undivided, pp. 208, 215). Later on Bulgaria turned out to be the most problematic candidate, although by the time of accession Romania's reformist credentials again raised considerable doubts.
56. See V. Pop, 'Romanian parliament will stick out like sore thumb in EU', euobserver.com, 22 December 2006.
57. K. Henderson, 'Europe and the Slovak parliamentary election of June 2006', European Parties, Elections and Referendums Network Briefing, Sussex European Institute, 2006, p. 6.
58. Party renamed National Movement for Stability and Progress-but retaining the same initials-in June 2007.
59. A. Sikk, 'From "sexy men" to "socialists gone nuts": the European Union and Estonian party politics', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, p. 59. No such development was evident by 2007, however.
60. J. Ikstens, 'Does EUropematter? The EU and Latvia's political parties', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, p. 102;
61. A. Krašovec, D. Lajh and S. K. Lipicer, 'EuropeanUnion and party politics in Slovenia: an apparent or real impact', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, p. 185.
62. V. Stojarová, J. Šedova, L. Kopeček and R. Chytilek, Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe: In Search of Consolidation, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm, 2007, p. 36.
63. Henderson, 'Slovak political parties', p. 163.
64. Bartolini, Restructuring Europe, p. 358.
65. M. Walecki, presentation at workshop of British Academy Research Network on The Impacts of EU Enlargement on Party Systems in Central and Eastern Europe, European University Institute, 30 September 2006.
66. R. Grecu, 'Accession without integration? The impact of EU enlargement on the Romanian party system', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, p. 218;
67. Chiva, 'EU enlargement', pp. 9, 10.
68. Restructuring Europe, p. 335.
69. euobserver.com, 13 October 2006;
70. G. Pridham, 'Fico's break with the European socialists', Slovak Spectator, 21 October 2006.
71. M. Spirova, 'Europarties and party development in EU candidate states: PES and EPP in Bulgaria', paper delivered to a conference on The EU's South-Eastern Enlargement: Romania and Bulgaria in Comparative Perspective, European Studies Research Institute of the University of Salford, January 2007.
72. Chiva, 'EU enlargement', pp. 10, 15.
73. T. Haughton and S. Fisher, 'From the politics of state-building to programmatic politics: the postfederal experience and the development of centre-right party politics in Croatia and Slovakia', University of Birmingham European Research Working Paper No. 16, August 2006, pp. 23, 26.
74. J. Pribáň, 'European hopes and national fears: the Czech constitutional system, Europe's legacy, nationalist "politics of identity" and new tensions', in Sadurski, Après Enlargement, p. 37;
75. S. Hanley, 'Europe and the Czech parliamentary elections of 2-3 June 2006', European Parties, Elections and Referendums Network Briefing No. 27, Sussex European Institute/University of Sussex, 2006, p. 8. The result of this moderation was to render Europe a non-issue in the campaign.
76. Z. Enyedi, 'The "Europeanisation" of Eastern Central European party systems', The NET Journal of Political Science, 5(1), 2007, p. 67.
77. P. Kopecky and C. Mudde, 'The two sides of Euroscepticism: party positions on European integration in East Central Europe', European Union Politics, 3, 2002, pp. 297-326;
78. P. Taggart and A. Szczerbiak, 'Contemporary Euroscepticism in the party systems of the EU candidate states of Central and Eastern Europe', European Journal of Political Research, 43(1), 2004, pp. 1-27.
79. L. Linek and Z. Mansfeldová, 'The impact of the EU on the Czech party system', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, pp. 25-26.
80. euobserver.com, 22 May 2006;
81. Rzeczpospolita, 23 June 2006.
82. Bartolini, Restructuring Europe, p. 322.
83. M. R. Steenbergen, E. E. Edwards and C. E. de Vries, 'Who's cueing whom? Mass-elite linkages and the future of European integration', European Union Politics, 8(1), 2007, pp. 15-17.
84. 'Challenge from the pace-setting periphery: causes and consequences of Slovakia's stance on further European integration', in Sadurski, Après Enlargement, p. 336.
85. 'Party systems', p. 58.
86. G. Marks, L. Hooghe, M. Nelson and E. Edwards, 'Party competition and European integration in the East and West: different structure, same causality', Comparative Political Studies, 39, 2006, pp. 155-175.
87. K. Benoit and M. Laver, Party Policy in Modern Democracies, Routledge, London, 2006, p. 133.
88. P. Taggart and A. Szczerbiak, 'The party politics of Euroscepticism in EU member and candidate states', Sussex European Institute Working Paper No. 51, 2002.
89. 'Euro-skepticism in the EU accession countries', Comparative European Politics, 2, 2004, pp. 29-50.
90. Rohrschneider and Whitefield, Public Opinion, pp. 244-245.
91. Bartolini, Restructuring Europe, p. 358.
92. M. Mattila and T. Raunio, 'Cautious voters-supportive parties: opinion congruence between voters and parties on the EU dimension', European Union Politics, 7(4), 2006, pp. 427-449.
93. R. Markowski, 'EU membership and the Polish party system', in Lewis and Mansfeldová, European Union and Party Politics, pp. 128-148.
94. P. Mair, 'The Europeanisation dimension', Journal of European Public Policy, 11, 2004, pp. 337-348.
95. D. Berg-Schlosser, 'The quality of democracies in Europe as measured by current indicators of democratization and good governance', in D. S. Hutcheson and E. A. Korosteleva (eds), The Quality of Democracy in Post-Communist Europe, Routledge, London, 2006, p. 38.
96. H. Grabbe, 'Central and Eastern Europe and the EU', in S. White, J. Batt and P. G. Lewis (eds), Developments in Central and Eastern European Politics 4, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2007, pp. 110-126.