This panel seeks to cast empirical and theoretical light on the state of party regulation and its (non-)effects on party system development in post-communist Europe, with a special focus on the Baltics and the Balkans. Contrary to previous works which exclusively focus on the relationship between party funding and party system consolidation (e.g. Birnir, 2005; Smilov and Toplar, 2007; etc.), this panel focuses more on the way political parties have been regulated in general since the (re-)inauguration of democracy in 1989. In particular, all papers begin with an examination of the rules and regulations governing political parties (either in the Constitution or in the party/electoral law), seeking to explore what have been the motivations behind the formal legal recognition of political parties, trying to analyze the different modalities of party regulation in light of the various normative understandings of party democracy. In a similar vein, the papers study the historical evaluation of party funding legislation, distinguishing between the different types of sources, its salience (for political parties) and its limits. Finally, all the papers conclude with an assessment of the extent to which the different regulatory frameworks have affected (or not) the process of party system development. All in all, it is the tendency for democracies in both the Balkans and the Baltics to make party structures and activities subject increasingly intensive regulation by law, implying a closer management of partisan organization and behavior by the state, with its (positive or negative) consequences for the party system as a whole, that becomes the object of this panel´s study.