Abstract
Although the study of party politics in general has a long tradition in the political sciences, the study of party organizations is a much less-researched topic. This is even more the case with regard to party organizations in the new Europe, which remains a ‘white spot’ in the scholarship on post-communist party politics. In this respect, Post-communist Democracies and Party Organization contributes significantly to this academic field. Tavits states the purpose of her volume by posing a simple question in her introductory chapter: “Why do some parties succeed, prosper and unify while others remain fragile and wither?” (p. 5). In the six chapters that follow, the reader is guided by the author through the muddy waters of post-communist party politics in order to discover the answer: “this book underlines the importance of agency in addition to just context in affecting the fate of the parties” (p. 202).
Taking the book in hand, we can easily notice that Tavits organizes the chapters in accordance with her main research questions. Thus, the first substantive chapter after the Introduction (Chapter 2) is entitled “Organizing for Success: Party Organizational Strength and Electoral Performance”, followed by “Organizations at Work: Assessing the Causal Mechanisms”. The fourth chapter is “Organizing for Unity: Organizational Strength and Parties in Parliament”, Chapter 5 deals with power distribution within parties, “Power within Parties: The Consequences of Subunit Organizational Strength”, while the final one is “Environment, Ideology, and Leaders: Why Do Some Parties Have a Strong and Others a Weak Organization?”.
Let us now turn to the author’s case selection and the methodological and conceptual aspects of her research. Based on “theoretical and practical reasons” (p. 13), the countries in focus are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Poland over the time period from 1990 to 2010. The rationale behind this selection is, on the one hand, the availability of data and, on the other, the authors’ ambition to reach a high level of generalizability and robustness through combining in one research project a diverse set of countries. Tavits’ research utilizes both quantitative statistical analysis, focusing on two levels of aggregation (party-level analysis and district-level analysis) and qualitative case studies (for additional testing and illustration). The author uses an abundance of primary and secondary sources, such as elite interviews, analyses of party statuses, statistical information, sociological and expert surveys, archives, websites, and newspapers.
Chapters 2 and 3 are closely connected to each other, as they provide complementary perspectives on the issue of party organizations using quantitative and qualitative methodology respectively. In Chapter 2, Tavits underlines the importance of the electoral competition capabilities of office- or policy-seeking parties. Her central hypothesis tested here is that “organizational strength enhances electoral performance in post-communist party systems” (p. 24), that is, political parties with high levels of organizational strength perform better in elections. Thus, the independent variable is organizational strength and the dependent variable is “party success”. In measuring and assessing party organizational strength, Tavits pays attention to a combination of four indicators: party membership, branch office networks, the existence of professional staff, and participation in local elections. Assessing these four indicators, she concludes that: “In sum, organizational strength matters for which parties win and lose in the new democracies of CEE (Central and Eastern Europe)” (p. 63). In Chapter 3, she complements these findings with a detailed country-by-country qualitative analysis, confirming that “the main difference between the successful and unsuccessful parties is their level of organizational strength” (p. 70).
Another aspect of the importance of party organizational strength is addressed in “Organizing for Unity: Organizational Strength and Parties in Parliament”. In this chapter – using centralized candidate selection, party size, governing majority size, number of votes, and the party budget as explanatory variables – Tavits tests and proves that “the findings suggest that party organizational strength is associated with more party unity in parliament” (p. 124). On the basis of these findings she suggests that future research should focus on the relationship between party organizational strength and programmatic representation. Tavits argues that strongly organized parties have a better chance of implementing their programmes.
But “why do not all parties build strong organizations?” (p. 130). This is the question that Tavits poses in the next chapter, and one that we could expect on the basis of her previous findings. The answer she gives us has to do with the effect that party organizational strength at sub-unit level has on the power distribution within parties. She proposes two hypotheses. First, she suggests that MPs from organizationally strong party branches are more inclined to break party discipline. Second, that they are more likely to hold leadership positions in parliamentary commissions. She tests these hypotheses in her research using information from 13 legislative terms in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, and Poland. Tavits’ results confirm both of her hypotheses and lead her to conclude that “the prospects of such power redistribution may make organization building less appealing” (p. 151).
In the last research chapter, Tavits argues that party organizational development is a function of both contextual factors and type of leadership. Her focus is particularly on environmental hostility and the electorate that is hard to reach by means other than branch organizations. She demonstrates that: “When both conditions (environmental hostility and a hard to reach electorate) are present, the expected level of organizational strength increases substantially” (p. 162). Regarding the role of the party leadership, she identifies two types of party leaders: ideological and pragmatic. Using thorough qualitative analysis, Tavits argues that pragmatic leaders are crucial for building strong party organizations. In the conclusion, Tavits once again underlines the importance of party strength regarding party competition and institualization.
Tavits’ book advances the debate on CEE party stability by putting party organizational development in focus. This extensive empirical study contributes significantly to a better understanding of party politics in CEE, especially the processes that take place behind the scenes. It would be interesting for the reader to see Tavits develop her research further by considering the impact of the EU on party organizational forms.