Some Party Systems Do Remain Quite Institutionalized: Structural Factors and Contemporary Party System Institutionalization in Europe over the Past Generation

There is much scholarly focus on party system deinstitutionalization, or lack of institutionalization, especially in Eastern Europe.  In contrast, this paper will focus on identifying and explaining those European countries where the party system remains quite institutionalized — with institutionalization ultimately seen as traditional parties (those existing by the early 1980s) still dominant and thus getting the overwhelming share of the vote (Mainwaring and Scully 1995) and no/few new major parties arising.  The theoretical focus will start from the new work on Ireland by McGraw (2015), and will examine institutions (electoral systems, corporatism and its evolution, federalism), political conventions (majority or minority government) and traditions (clientelism), and type of democracy (Westminster, centrifugal, et cetera) and how these structural factors relate to the maintenance of party system institutionalization.  The findings will then be applied to post-communist Europe to suggest which countries there might be more likely to achieve / maintain institutionalization.