Diversified Partisan Linkage Strategies. Comparative Argument and Post-Communist Evidence

 Case studies with subnational comparative frames have found that a substantial number of political parties successfully combine clientelistic and programmatic linkage strategies. There is no simple, iron-clad trade-off between these linkage strategies. This paper develops a more general theoretical framework to account for the rise and demise of “diversified linkage parties” (DLPs) and tests the argument on a broad cross-national dataset of linkage strategies in 506 parties in 88 countries. To give the argument more dynamic and causal traction, the paper finally zooms in on diversified linkage strategies in the post-communist region with stylized case study vignettes. The basic argument is that the most important condition for the fortunes of DLPs is what the comparative political economy literature calls the developmental state. Where it thrives, parties find opportunities to engage in diversified linkage strategies. When it experiences economic crises, parties also have to make tough choices between more programmatic or more clientelistic strategies. Post-communist polities illustrate this logic.