Fluid Parties, Fickle Voters, Fixed Spaces: Assessing the Stability of Party Competition in Eastern Europe

Party politics in Eastern Europe is generally considered as volatile in comparison to developed democracies. Political parties in the region have weaker organizations, and they appear and disappear, splinter and merge, with greater frequency. Simultaneously, electoral support for eastern European parties is more volatile, as voters have weaker party allegiances and support different parties in different elections. Despite these characteristics of instability, we argue that party politics in eastern Europe is inherently stable. The policy preferences over which competition in various eastern European countries occurs are steady. While parties come and go, they tend to replicate stable competition patterns. Eastern European party organizations thus may be fluid, and voters thus may be fickle, but the ideological spaces of the region are strikingly fixed.