1st Edition

Centre-Right Parties in Post-Communist East-Central Europe

Edited By Sean Hanley, Aleks Szczerbiak Copyright 2005
    162 Pages
    by Routledge

    162 Pages
    by Routledge

    This is the first book to cover the centre-right in post-communist Eastern Europe.

    It makes an vital contribution to the broader research agenda on the Central and East European centre-right by focusing on one specific question: why strong and cohesive centre-right formations have developed in some post-communist states, but not others. It also delves into the attempts to develop centre-right parties after 1989 in four nations: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The authors of these fresh case studies use a common analytical framework to analyse and provide fascinating insights into the varying levels of cohesion in centre-right parties across the region.

    This volume was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics.

    INTRODUCTION 1. Understanding the Politics of the Right in Contemporary East–Central Europe. Aleks Szczerbiak and sean Hanley. 2. Getting the Right Right: Redefining the Centre-Right in Post-Communist Europe. Sean Hanley. 3. Blue Velvet: The Rise and Decline of the New Czech Right. Sean Hanley. 4. The Polish Centre-Right’s (Last?) Best Hope: The Rise and Fall of Solidarity Electoral Action. Aleks Szczebiak. 5. Concentrated Orange: Fidesz and the Remaking of the Hungarian Centre-Right, 1994–2002. Brigid Fowler. 6. All Right Now? Explaining the Successes and Failures of the Slovak Centre-Right. Tim Haughton and Marek Rybar. 7. What Is the Right Way in East–Central Europe? Concluding Remarks. Paul G. Lewis.

    Biography

    Sean Hanley (University College London, UK) (Edited by) , Aleks Szczerbiak (University of Sussex, UK) (Edited by)

    "Seeking to fill a perceived lacuna of research on the center-right parties in Central and Eastern Europe, Szczerbiak and Hanley present six essays that comparatively explore the re-emergence of the center-right. Rather than stress historical or structural reasons for party successes, the essays focus more on such political factors such as the choices of political actors during the critical 1989-91 period, the proportionality of the electoral system, parliamentary versus semi- presidential systems, formation on the basis of territorial penetration versus territorial diffusion, and the relative ideological and social cohesion of political elites. After a discussion of post-communist Europe as whole, the studies separately analyze the center-right parties of the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia." --Reference & Research Book News