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Party systems and cleavage structures revisited: A sociological explanation of party system
institutionalization in East Central Europe
Fernando Casal Bértoa
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DOI: 10.1177/1354068811436042

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Article

Party Politics
2014, Vol 20(1) 16–36
Party systems and cleavage structures ª The Author(s) 2013
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revisited: A sociological explanation sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354068811436042
of party system institutionalization ppq.sagepub.com

in East Central Europe

Fernando Casal Bértoa

Leiden University, The Netherlands

Abstract
Since Lipset and Rokkan (1967) published their seminal work on the importance of social cleavages for the ‘freezing’ of
party systems more than forty years ago, much has been written on the field demonstrating or discrediting the original
hypothesis. In the current article, I examine how cleavage formation and development have influenced the different levels
of institutionalization in four new post-communist party systems (i.e. Visegrad). Analysing distinct hypotheses, I arrive at
the conclusion that neither the number nor the type nor the strength of a cleavage is associated with the degree of party
system institutionalization in East Central Europe. On the contrary, the main conclusion is that party system institutio-
nalization in these democracies has been determined by the way cleavages are structured. In particular, the process of
party system institutionalization is found to be hindered when cleavages cross-cut, while fostered in cases where they
cumulate (i.e. coincide).

Keywords
cleavages, East Central Europe, number of parties, party system institutionalization

Introduction debate on the concept is addressed briefly, showing how

certain aspects of these two notions have led to a certain
Since Franklin et al. (1992) trumpeted the decline of ‘clea-
amount of confusion and misunderstanding within the liter-
vage politics’ in Western Europe, Lipset and Rokkan’s
ature. Section two summarizes some of the most important
seminal work (1967) on the social anchorage of party sys- arguments advanced by scholars in the course of the
tems has been considered to be nothing but a relic of the
‘sociology of politics’ debate, examining how well they
past (see Dalton, 2004). In post-communist Europe, where
travel through a test of their validity in four East Central
societies are considered to lack structure (Mair, 1997),
European democracies. Section three contains several new
‘dealignment appears not as an endstate but as a departure
propositions concerning the possible implications the dif-
point’ (Enyedi, 2008: 297; see also Elster et al., 1998; Law-
ferent mode of cleavage formation and development may
son et al., 1999).
have for the institutionalization of party systems. Finally,
In contrast to this scholarship, and notwithstanding the
section four analyses the causal mechanisms linking clea-
volatile character of the post-communist electorate, this vage structuration and party system institutionalization in
article constitutes an attempt to discover the social roots
Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.
of party system institutionalization in East Central Europe.
In fact, and linking mainly with Evans and Whitefield
(2000) and Kitschelt et al.’s (1999) tradition, the main aim
of this work is to examine how cleavage formation and Paper submitted 1 March 2011; accepted for publication 14 June 2011
development relates to different levels of institutionaliza-
Corresponding author:
tion in new post-communist party systems.1
Fernando Casal Bértoa, Leiden University, Faculteit der Sociale
The article is divided in four parts. Section one offers an Wetenschappen, Instituut Politieke Wetenschap, Pieter de la Court
analytical perspective on the conceptualization of cleavage gebouw, Leiden, 2333 AK, The Netherlands.
and party system institutionalization. Some of the scholarly Email: f.casal.bertoa@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

Downloaded from ppq.sagepub.com at University of Nottingham on February 3, 2014

Casal Bértoa
Cleavage and party system
institutionalization: Two debated concepts
Although more than 40 years have passed since the pub-
lication of Lipset and Rokkan’s seminal Party Systems
and Voter Alignments (1967), the truth is that, despite the
enormous number of studies making use of the concept,
a univocal definition of ‘cleavage’ is still lacking in the
literature (Maor, 1997; Tóka, 1998). In fact, following
Lipset and Rokkan’s ambiguous use of the notion,2 the
majority of studies published immediately afterwards
simply limited themselves to presenting their own defini-
tion of the notion depending on the different analytical
approach being adopted (Zuckerman, 1975).
A first attempt to bring some order into this chaos was
Taylor and Rae’s Analysis of Political Cleavages published
in 1970, where they provided a more explicit and sophisti-
cated definition of cleavage as the division of the members
of a community (or sub-community) into two or more nom-
inal groups with important political differences at specific
times and places according to three different types of divi-
sion: ascriptive, attitudinal, behavioural (1970: 1; see also
Taylor and Rae, 1969: 536).
Building on Rae and Taylor, Bartolini and Mair (1990)
maintained that these three types of division should be pres-
ent all together and at the same time. Thus, a cleavage not
only requires social stratification (according to class, reli-
gion, etc.) and group consciousness (according to different
values and/or preferences), but also a certain organization
(in the form of a political party, trade union, etc.) which
helps the group to realize their interests and/or beliefs. In
other words, a cleavage is only formed ‘when a particular
social divide becomes associated with a particular set of
values or identities [which are] made politically relevant
by means of an organized party or group’ (Mair, 2006:
373). In this context, a cleavage can be considered to be ‘a
form of closure of social relationships’ (Bartolini and Mair,
1990: 216).
A great advantage of this definition is that it immedi-
ately brings about a bridge between the two most important
approaches of political sociology (Maor, 1997: 21). In this
sense, it incorporates Sartori (1969) and Przeworski and
Sprague’s (1977) ‘organizational’ component (top-down
approach), while remaining faithful to Lipset and Rok-
kan’s requirement of socio-structural origins (bottom-up
approach). Similarly, it is by asking the presence of both
‘objective’ (structure) and ‘subjective’ (values) aspects
of a conflict that Bartolini and Mair help to distinguish the
notion of cleavage from other proximate concepts, such as
opposition, division or divide. Moreover, it is through this
semantic distinction that their conceptualization gains in
simplicity as it avoids any unnecessary qualification of the
term (e.g. social, political, value ‘cleavages’) present in
many other works (e.g. Flanagan, 1980; Inglehart, 1984;
Zieliński, 2002).3 It is for all these reasons that in this
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17
article I rely on Bartolini and Mair’s more strict definition
of the concept.4
Similarly, and although it may be difficult to believe
given its central importance, the concept of party system
institutionalization has no established definition. Putting
it very briefly, and summarizing a discussion sketched out
elsewhere (Casal Bértoa, 2011), most authors dealing with
the concept simple propose a series of ‘dimensions’ of the
notion (Bielasiak, 2002; Grzymała-Busse, 2002; Morlino,
1998), without paying much attention to the conceptualiza-
tion itself.
Notwithstanding the latter, and despite the fact that
scholars tend to point out different dimensions of institutio-
nalization, the truth is that all meanings of the notion of
party system institutionalization contain the idea of stabi-
lity and persistence in the rules and nature of inter-party
competition (Lindberg, 2007; Mainwaring and Scully,
1995; Mair, 2001). As a consequence, and bearing in mind
that the core of a party system is to be found in the patterns
of interaction among its subunits (i.e. political parties; see
Mair, 2006; Sartori, 1976), I consider party system institu-
tionalization to be the process by which the patterns of
interaction among political parties become routine, pre-
dictable and stable over time (Bakke and Sitter, 2005;
Mair, 2001). In other words, a system of parties can be said
to be institutionalized when political parties cooperate,
collaborate and colligate in a standardized and structured
way – a way that is independent of the relevant issues in
each moment and which random shocks cannot alter
(Mainwaring, 1998).
In order to assess the level of institutionalization in new
East Central European party systems, I rely on Mair’s
(1997, 2007) framework for party system analysis which,
focusing on the patterns of inter-party competition for gov-
ernment, determines whether a party system is institutiona-
lized or not (Table 1).5 Putting it briefly, party systems are
considered to be institutionalized if (1) alternations of gov-
ernments are either total (i.e. when the incumbent govern-
ment leaves office in its entirety) or partial (i.e. when the
cabinet in office is replaced by a wholly different party
or group of parties), (2) governing alternatives are stable
over a long period of time and (3) some parties (‘outsiders’)
are permanently excluded from participation in national
government. On the contrary, party systems are to be clas-
sified as weakly institutionalized when there are (1) partial
alternations of governments, (2) no stable compositions of
governing alternatives and (3) access to government has
been granted to all relevant parties.
In order to minimize subjective judgements when mea-
suring the main (and sole) dimension of party system insti-
tutionalization, I quantitatively operationalize each of the
factors suggested by Mair (Table 1). First of all, the degree
of governmental alternation is measured by the so-called
index of government alternation (IGA – see Mair, 2007:
140), which simply adapts Pedersen’s (1979) well-known
18 Party Politics 20(1)

Table 1. Criteria and operational indicators of party system institutionalization.

Dimension Criteria Indicators Operationalization

Stability Government alternation IGA: Pedersen’s index of If MV  50, then IGA ¼ MV

Governing formulae
Access to government
ministerial volatility (MV) If MV < 50, then IGA ¼ 100-MV
IFA: % ministers of all If the very same combination ¼ 100%
familiar governments If entirely new combination or new party forms single
party government ¼ 0%
If part of the new government is familiar ¼ % of the
familiar part
If a party earlier in government forms a government on
its own ¼ 100 – % of previous coalition partners
IC: % ministers from ‘old’ ‘Old’ governing parties (see Sikk, 2005)
governing parties

Source: Adapted from Casal Bértoa and Enyedi (2010: 19).

index of electoral volatility to the measurement of minis- Table 2. Party system institutionalization in East Central Europe
terial volatility.6 The second criterion, based on assessing (1990–2009).
whether or not the party or combination of parties has
Countries IGA (%) IFA (%) IC (%) iPSI (z)
governed before in that particular format, is captured by
the index of familiar alternation (IFA), which measures Hungary 98.8 89.6 91.0 2.5
the percentage of ministries belonging to familiar combi- Czech Republic 96.7 86.1 91.3 1.4
nations of parties. Thirdly, access to government is mea- Slovakia 96.5 81.9 87.0 0.3
sured by the index of closure (IC), which basically Poland 92.4 68.7 76.6 -4.2
calculates the percentage of ministers belonging to ‘old’ The Cronbach’s alpha score among the three sub-indexes is as high as 0.9,
governing parties. justifying their addition in one (unique) composite ‘index of party system
Because time is particularly important when trying to institutionalization’ (iPSI).
Source: Own calculations.
measure the level of party system institutionalization in a
country (Mair, 1997), I also take into consideration all the
years a particular cabinet has lasted, understanding that if
there have been two or more cabinets in one year, then the The ‘sociology of politics’: Traditional
averages of the scores for the different above-cited govern- approaches
ment features are considered to characterize the year better When trying to capture the social roots of party system
than any such individual factors (Casal Bértoa and Enyedi, institutionalization, scholars have mainly adopted three dif-
2010: 20). Finally, and in order to avoid measuring incom- ferent explanations: (1) the number; (2) the type; and (3)
patible scores, I use the standardized (z-) score of the three the strength of cleavages. Let us examine each of them in
variables. The addition of all three z-scores gives the final turn as well as the extent to which they can be applied to
degree of systemic institutionalization in what I have the East Central European context.
named ‘composite index of party system institutionaliza-
tion’ (iPSI) which, giving equal weight to all the elements
of stability, has the advantage of paying due attention to it
as the sole dimension of institutionalization. Cleavage number
Application of the above-mentioned criteria to the four There is now a considerable literature on the relationship
East Central European party systems produces a clear con- between party system format and the number of cleavages
clusion: party systems in East Central Europe have institu- in a political system. Taagepera and Grofman speak for a
tionalized in different ways and at different rates – for more long line of scholars when they note that ‘the more axes
details, see Casal Bértoa (2011) and Casal Bértoa and Mair of cleavage there are within a society, the greater will be
(2012). Examination of the scores in Table 2 indicates that the number of political parties’ (1985: 343).
there is one extreme case at the top end of the scale: Hun- Reviewing the literature in the field, and in correspon-
gary, which on all three measures turns out to be highly dence with the concept of cleavage adopted, two different
institutionalized. In a similar vein, the Czech party system approaches can be distinguished among scholars. The first
is to be considered institutionalized, while its Slovak coun- focuses on the relationship between ‘social’ cleavages and
terpart only achieves a weak level. Finally, the Polish party party system fragmentation and maintains that, because
system remains, after 20 years of democratic experience, political parties represent the political expression of under-
completely under-institutionalized. lying social divisions, social segmentation results in

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Casal Bértoa 19

Table 3. Fractionalization data.

Country Economic Religious Ethnic/linguistic Rural/agricultural Post-communist ENEP

Hungary 0.3 0.5 0.2/0 0.4/0.2 0.2 4.7

Czech Republic 0.3 0.7 0.3/0.3 0.4/0.1 0.3 5.2
Slovakia 0.3 0.6 0.3/0.3 0.5/0.2 0.2 6.3
Poland 0.4 0.2 0.1/0.1 0.5/0.3 0.2 7.0
Source: Structural heterogeneity is measured using the Herfindahl index of fragmentation derived from census and politico-economic data taken from (1)
the UN Demographic/Statistical Yearbook, for economic (2008) and rural (2007); (2) Alesina et al. (2003: 184–189), for religious/ethnic/linguistic; (3) FAO
Agricultural production yearbook (2008), for agricultural; and (4) Gryzmała-Busse (2002: 32, 36, 43, 52) and Szczerbiak (2001: 579), for post-communist
fractionalization. For the ENEP, see Gallagher’s ‘Electoral Systems’ web site.

multipartism (Powell, 1982; Cox, alone or together with
Amorin Neto, 1997; Spirova, 2007: 160, etc.)
A second group of political scientists uses the number of
‘political’ cleavages to predict the number of ‘effective’
parties. The work within this tradition was initiated by Lij-
phart (1984), who, in his comparative study of the patterns
of government in 21 democracies, found that the number of
cleavages, operationalized as ‘issue dimensions,’7 and the
number of parties within a system are clearly correlated.
The main logic behind this is that ‘when there are several
dimensions of political conflict in a society [ . . . ] a rela-
tively large number of parties are needed to express all of
[them . . . ]’ (Lijphart, 1984: 147–148). Just one year later,
and using Lijphart’s work (and data) as a point of departure,
Taagepera and Grofman found that the number of issue
dimensions ‘alone can account well for the differences in
[the number of parties] across countries, even if we do not
take electoral systems into account’ (1985: 350). More
recently, Horowitz and Browne (2005), in their analysis of
23 post-communist democracies at three different points in
time, found that regardless of the temporal period under
study ‘political’ cleavages exert, by far, a more important
influence on the number of parties than institutional factors.8
Although the majority of studies quantitatively linking
social segmentation and party system format tend to focus
on only one cleavage, generally the ethnic one (see Stoll,
2008), here I follow Powell’s (1982) seminal study and try
to measure as many ‘social’ cleavages as possible.
In Table 3, I present scores for five different (social)
cleavages: economic (Gini coefficient), religious and
centre–periphery (classical religious and ethnic/linguistic
fractionalization indexes), urban–rural (fractionalization in-
dexes according to urbanization and economic sector) and
post-communist (social fractionalization in accordance
with communist or communist-satellite party membership).
Contrary to what scholars have usually maintained (see
above), there seems to be no association between cleavage
fragmentation and the ‘effective’ number of electoral par-
ties (ENEP).9 Not even rural segmentation, which seems
to separate institutionalized Hungary and Czech Republic
from weakly institutionalized Slovakia and Poland, as it
does not really explain the differences observed within the
previously mentioned groups.
Table 4. Number of ‘issue’ dimensions, cleavages and party system
fragmentation/institutionalization.
No. of No. of
Country dimensions cleavages ENEP iPSI
Hungary 3.5 3 4.7 2.5
Czech Republic 1.5 1 5.2 1.4
Slovakia 3.5 2 6.3 0.3
Poland 3.5 3 7.0 4.2
Source: For the number of dimensions, see Table A in the Appendix. For
the number of cleavages, see the text. For the ENEP, see Gallagher’s
‘Electoral Systems’ web site.
In order to examine to what extent the above-cited sec-
ond approach can be applied to East Central European party
systems, I use Lijphart’s (1984, 1999) framework of analysis
with one modification: post-materialism, almost irrelevant in
post-communist countries (Inglehart and Welzel, 2005), has
been substituted for a so-called ‘post-communist’ dimen-
sion, much more relevant in countries exiting from 40 years
of communist dictatorship (Grabowska, 2004).
Table 4 displays the total number of issue dimensions
per country (see appendix) as well as the number of clea-
vages described in detail in section 4 (see below). When
looking at the table, neither the number of issue dimensions
nor the number of cleavages seems to explain the ranking
of electoral fragmentation or systemic institutionalization
observed. In concrete, both the Hungarian and the Polish
party systems, which are characterized by the higher num-
ber of dimensions and/or cleavages, are respectively at the
top and at the bottom of the table in terms of electoral
fragmentation and systemic institutionalization. More-
over, the country with the lowest number of dimensions
and cleavages (i.e. the Czech Republic) is not even the
least fragmented/institutionalized. In fact, the rather low
difference in terms of (electoral) fragmentation (i.e. half
point) between the latter country and Hungary cannot be
explained by the rather large difference (i.e. two points)
in terms of issue dimensions. In a similar vein, and in spite
of the fact that a similar number of ‘issue dimensions’ (i.e.
three and a half) can be detected in both Slovakia and
Poland, their ‘effective’ number of electoral parties
clearly diverges. Needless to say, the explanatory power

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20
Table 5. Legacies, types of cleavage and party system competition.
National preconditions
Marketization Ethnic homogeneity
þ –
þ þ
– –
Source: Adapted from Evans and Whitefield (1993: 540, 542, 545).
Table 6. ‘Predominant’ cleavage type and party system institutionalization.
‘Predominant’
Country cleavage
Hungary Religion
Czech Republic Economy
Slovakia Ethnic
Poland Religion
Source: For the ‘predominant’ cleavage in each country, see Deegan-Krause (2004), Enyedi and Tóka (2007), Jasiewicz (2007) and Brokl and
Mansfeldová (2004).
of the ‘raw’ number of cleavages is not higher either.10 A
similar conclusion can be drawn when looking at the
degree of systemic institutionalization. In sum, it seems
that neither the number of parties nor the level of party
system institutionalization depends on the number of clea-
vages (neither in its social nor political dimension) present
in a country.
Cleavage type
The second approach which is central to research on the
sociological foundations of systemic institutionalization
relates to the implications of the type of cleavages for party
system stability. In this context, two different works are
worth mentioning.
Echoing Offe’s (1991) ‘triple transition’, Evans and
Whitefield (1993), who pioneered work in this tradition,
established a link between the type of cleavage structuring
party competition and the level of electoral volatility
observed in elections. According to their view, the type
of cleavage emerging in a country is ‘conditioned’ by the
social and historical characteristics present in a nation (see
Table 5). Moreover, the stability of a party system will be
high, moderate or low depending on the predominance of
ethnic, socio-economic or ‘political’ (i.e. valence issues)
cleavages, respectively. The logic behind the previous
hypotheses is that ‘ethnicity involves identity questions
on which it may be extremely difficult to find a compro-
mise [lowering electoral volatility], at least by comparison
with those concerned with economic distribution’ (Evans
and Whitefield, 1998: 135). On the contrary, in those coun-
tries where ‘political’ cleavages predominate, voters will
be more willing to switch sides, as ‘the principal issues
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Party Politics 20(1)
Type of Party system
Established state cleavage stability
– Ethnic High
þ Socio-economic Moderate
þ/– Political Low
Level of PSI (predicted)
Evans and Whitefield Kitschelt iPSI (actual)
Moderate Moderate 2.5
Moderate High 1.4
High Weak 0.3
Moderate Moderate –4.2
around which parties will compete will be consensual’
(1993: 540).
In a similar vein, and around the same period, Kitschelt,
alone (1995, 2001) or with other colleagues (1999), devel-
oped what can be considered by far the most consistently
and rigorous work on the cleavage-party system linkage
in post-communist Europe. Kitschelt et al. (1999) found
that in countries with prevalent economic-distributive clea-
vages, party systems would be more structured than in
countries where cultural or historical-regime cleavages pre-
dominated. More specifically, echoing Offe’s (1991) ‘triple
transition’ debate, Kitschelt et al. maintain that where eco-
nomic cleavages prevail, a bi-polar structure of competition
between programmatic political parties will develop. As a
result, party systems will not only structure strongly, but
also in a shorter period of time. On the contrary, because
socio-cultural cleavages tend to polarize both elites and
masses hindering inter-party cooperation, party system
structuration will be only moderate. Last, but not least, in
those countries where neither economic nor cultural clea-
vages are prevalent, but are combined with other (ethnic,
geographical, etc.) divisions reinforcing each other, party
appeals will remain weakly crystallized, favouring the for-
mation of clientelistic parties and the lack of systemic
structuration (1999: 383–391).11
Although the above-mentioned authors predicted a dif-
ferent degree of systemic institutionalization according to
the type of cleavages prevailing in a country’s party system
(see section above), the truth is that when looking at the
four countries analysed here no association between these
variables can be observed.
Thus, and as follows from Table 6, both Hungary and
Poland should display a moderate level of party system
Casal Bértoa
institutionalization. On the contrary, and in spite of the fact
that the structure of competition has been turned around
religion, the level of institutionalization observed in both
countries is clearly the opposite: high in the first country,
low in the second. In the same vein, the Slovak party sys-
tem is neither the most (Evans and Whitefield, 1993), nor
the least (Kitschelt et al., 1999) institutionalized. Finally,
economy has brought a moderate level of systemic institu-
tionalization to the Czech Republic, something Evans and
Whitefield, but not Kitschelt, had already hypothesized.
However, the problem here is that, contrary to their expec-
tations, the level of institutionalization displayed by the
Czech party system is higher than the Slovak, rooted on
ethnic oppositions. As a result, and similar to what we have
seen in the previous section, it seems clear that the degree
of institutionalization in a party system does not at all
depend on the types of cleavages that are prevalent.
Cleavage strength
Other scholars, more in the tradition of Lipset and Rokkan
(1967), do not distinguish so much between types of clea-
vage as determinants of the degree of party system stabili-
zation, but focus on the different strength a particular
cleavage may have.
Although many other scholars had attempted to study
the above-mentioned relationship before them (Alford,
1963; Devine and Stearns, 1985; Pappi, 1984, etc.), it was
in Bartolini and Mair’s (1990) Identity, Competition and
Electoral Availability that a first attempt to measure clea-
vage strength independently of electoral behaviour was
made. In their work, and using an index of cultural hetero-
geneity and another index of organizational density, Barto-
lini and Mair managed to quantitatively operationalize two
of the three cleavage dimensions, namely: empirical and
behavioural. Unfortunately, as they recognized themselves,
the second dimension (i.e. identity) was left aside. More-
over, their analysis only referred to one of the four classical
cleavages referred to by Lipset and Rokkan, namely, class.
Still, the results they found were quite striking: the greater
the strength of the (class) cleavage, the lower the level of
electoral instability (1990: 225, 243).
Although some authors have preferred to follow the for-
mer approach and quantify cleavage strength in relation to
electoral behaviour (e.g. Franklin et al., 1992; Knutsen and
Scarborough, 1995; Tóka, 1998), other political scientists,
when analysing the determinants of party system stability
whether in Africa (Ishiyama, 2003), Latin America
(Madrid, 2005; Roberts and Wibbels, 1999), Eastern Eur-
ope (Tavits, 2005), or the whole democratic world (Main-
waring and Zocco, 2007), have preferred to continue the
path initiated by Bartolini and Mair of measuring the
strength of a cleavage by the degree of social homogeniza-
tion (e.g. first three above-cited studies) or organizational
density (e.g. Mainwaring and Zocco’s work). Interestingly
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21
Table 7. Cleavage strength and party system institutionalization.*
Country Economic Religious Post-communist iPSI
Hungary –2.4 0.2 0.4 2.5
Czech Republic 2.1 –0.2 –0.7 1.4
Slovakia 0.6 –1.5 –1.6 0.3
Poland –0.2 1.5 1.9 –4.2
*Cleavage strength is calculated by summing the (z-)scores for each of the
three components of a cleavage: namely, structural (i.e. the fractionalization
data in Table 3), normative (i.e. ‘issue salience’ in Table A) and organizational
(following Bartolini and Mair, 1990: 232, Duverger’s party-membership
ratio is employed here).
When classifying political parties into different party families, Armingeon
and Careja’s (2004) comprehensive typology has been used.
enough, notwithstanding the indicator employed, and con-
trary to Lipset and Rokkan’s expectations and Bartolini and
Mair’s findings, the general conclusion has been that the
impact cleavage(s) strength may have on the stability of
electoral behaviour has declined much in the past decade,
reaching a ‘no-effect’ point in certain regions (e.g. Africa,
Latin America or Eastern Europe).
Following Bartolini and Mair (1990), I combine each of
the different cleavage dimensions (structural, normative
and organizational) into a single composite index of ‘clea-
vage strength’,12 before relating it to the different levels of
systemic institutionalization observed in East Central Eur-
ope. This is done in Table 7 for each of the cleavages for
which we have complete data (i.e. economic, religious and
post-communist).13
As follows from Table 7, neither of the different clea-
vages reveals having explanatory power in terms of the
systemic institutionalization ranking. Thus, while Hun-
gary and Poland present fairly close figures in terms of
cleavage strength (in all three cases), they occupy oppo-
site ranks in terms of party system institutionalization.
Similarly, and contrary to previous findings (Grabowska,
2004; McAllister and White, 2007), neither religious nor
post-communist cleavage strength figures explain why the
Czech party system is more institutionalized than its Slo-
vak counterpart. Interestingly enough, and in clear con-
trast to Bartolini and Mair’s (1990) findings for Western
Europe, my analysis shows no relationship between sys-
temic institutionalization and economic cleavage strength,
confirming to a certain extent Gijsberts and Nieuwbeerta
(2000) or Mateju et al.’s (1999) findings on the non-
existence of a pure ‘class’ cleavage in East Central Europe.
All in all, it could be concluded that cleavage strength
does not exert any impact on the level of party system
institutionalization.
Lipset and Rokkan revisited
The two questions that first arise in our mind in light of
the previous findings are the following: Were Lipset and
22
Rokkan wrong when stating that party system ‘freezing’/
institutionalization [was] determined by the way cleavages
form and develop? Can sociological explanations to party
system institutionalization travel to post-communist
democracies? According to the previous section, the num-
ber, type or strength of cleavages do not exhaust the ways
in which the latter can affect the process of party system
institutionalization in a country. In fact, in my understand-
ing, it is the way different cleavages relate to each other
that really determines the degree to which party systems
may or may not institutionalize.
The roots of such an approach can be traced back to
Simmel (1908 [1955]) and Ross’s (1920) works on the rela-
tionship between cross-cutting cleavages and social con-
flict. In these studies, as well as in Coser’s analysis on
The Functions of Social Conflict (1956), cross-cutting clea-
vages are considered to diminish the potential for major
social conflict and political unrest by reducing ‘the inten-
sity of individual political feelings’ as well as preventing
the formation of monolithic coalitions or ‘potential conflict
group[s]’ (Rae and Taylor, 1970: 87 f.). On the contrary,
the more the cleavages reinforce one another, the more
intense a conflict in society will become (see Dahrendorf,
1959: 215).
Although Simmel’s idea of ‘cross-cuttingness’ found
further development in the anthropologic field (see Fortes
and Evans-Pritchard, 1940; Gluckman, 1954, etc.), it was
the ‘social pluralist’ school that put forward the argument
that cross-cutting politically relevant cleavages contributed
to reducing social conflict and, therefore, led to more stable
democratic systems (Almond, 1956; Lipset, 1960) in one of
the most widely accepted explanatory hypotheses in polit-
ical science (Nordlinger, 1972: 93).14
Still, it was not until Dahl’s Political Opposition in West-
ern Democracies, that the party system was incorporated in
the equation. In particular, Dahl considered that cross-
cutting cleavages would only have an inexorable ‘unifying
effect’ if some of them were less important than others
(Dahl, 1966: 378–381; emphasis in the original). Moreover,
and contrary to the Duvergerian ‘imperative’ associating
two-party systems with political compromise and multiparty
systems with ideological conflict and instability, Dahl main-
tained that both types of party system could lead to conflict
depending on the distribution of cleavages structures,
namely: while two party systems will lead to moderation and
conciliation only when characterized by cross-cutting clea-
vage structures with unequal salience, if the contrary is true
(i.e. cumulative or cross-cutting cleavages with equal sal-
ience), political conflict and unrest will be the main out-
come, independently of the type of party system at hand.
Was it the failure to confirm early hypotheses or the
advent of the Institutional Revolution which left aside all
cultural explanations? The truth is that after Dahl’s classi-
cal study, interest in examining the relationship between
cleavage interaction and party system development was
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Party Politics 20(1)
neglected until Randall and Svåsand dealt with the subject
in passing. The very opportunity for party institutionaliza-
tion provided by exclusive forms of cleavage, above all
religion and ethnicity, could be at odds with the institutio-
nalization of the party system through restricting the possi-
bilities for cross-party competition (2002: 9)
More recently, and in clear contrast to Randall and Svå-
sand’s theoretical expectations, Tóka and Gosselin (2008)
found no evidence of any direct effect of cleavage cross-
cuttingness on the process of party system institutionaliza-
tion itself.15
Bearing in mind all that has been said, and borrowing
from the ‘social pluralist’ and ‘voting behaviour’ literature,
the assumption that ‘cross-pressured’ individuals – voters,
elites, etc. – tend to be weak partisans, I would like to intro-
duce here the idea that when cleavages are cross-cutting16
party systems tend to be weakly institutionalized. The rea-
sons are twofold.
First of all, in systems with cross-cutting cleavages, par-
ties will have difficulty finding ideologically contiguous
partners with which to cooperate, as being close in one
dimension may be accompanied by irreconcilable differ-
ences in another. Being forced to interact in a multiplicity
of non-coinciding directions will definitely diminish their
ability to behave in a rather patterned way, making it diffi-
cult for the structure of competition to stabilize.
The second possible reason why cross-cutting cleavages
may hinder party system institutionalization is that, being
pulled in different ideological directions, cross-pressured
political parties are characterized by lower partisan attach-
ments (Huber et al., 2005; Lipset and Rokkan, 1967). In
other words, and paraphrasing Green and Shachar (2000:
4), because cross-pressured political parties are ‘caught in
the middle’, pushed one way by a certain ideological issue
and pulled the other way by another, their commitment to a
certain group of ideological parties will be dependent on
the ‘flavour issue’ of the day or on the ‘dominant’ political
faction. In order to see it more clearly, here is an example.
Let us think of a four-party system where two cleavages
– economy and religion – are cross-cutting. Party A and
party B are both secular; the former is economically liberal,
while the latter is socialist. On the other hand, party C and
party D are both religious, but they differ in terms of their
economic views: the latter being statist and the former lib-
eral. In such an ideologically divisive party system, politi-
cal parties will have difficulty interacting in a stable and
predictable way. First of all, it may even be impossible for
them to interact at all. In such case, especially if neither of
them has an absolute majority, systemic instability – char-
acterized by frequent minority governments and elections –
will be the norm. Still, even if they manage to cooperate,
and supposing that totally ideological enemies will never
colligate, I can distinguish four different ways: A-B, A-C,
B-D and D-C; which can be seven in the event three parties
are necessary to form the government (i.e. A-B-D; A-C-D;
Casal Bértoa
Table 8. Cleavages, competitive dimensions and party system institutionalization.
No. cleavages Cleavage interaction
One None
Two or more Cumulative
Cross-cutting
Two
Source: Based on Kitschelt et al. (1999).
B-C-D). The fact that parties opt for one or another will
most probably depend, ceteris paribus, on the most salient
issue at a particular moment (e.g. abortion or religious edu-
cation in schools would lead to a structure of competition
pitting AB against CD; a tax increase would face AC with
BD; European integration could even open the path to a
ABC vs. D confrontation, etc.) or on the preferences of a
party faction predominant at a certain period (e.g. if liberals
are predominant in C, a coalition between AC is more
likely than AD, and so on).17
Notwithstanding the different sources of alliance forma-
tion, the truth is that in systems where cleavages are cross-
cutting the possibility that a government contains a party
already existing in the previous cabinet will be high (i.e.
partial alternation). Moreover, and although access can be
closed rather quickly (but not necessarily), the governing
formula will remain innovative for some time. In summary,
cross-cutting cleavages not only render the formation of
routinized and predictable coalitions difficult (when
equally salient), but also hinder the stability of existing par-
tisan alliances (when not equally salient). As a result, and
because cross-cutting cleavages make it hard for the emer-
gence of politics structured along the classical left–right
dimensions (Kitschelt, 1992: 27; 1995: 462), party systems
in such countries will need more time to institutionalize (if
ever).18
On the contrary, when cleavages are cumulative (i.e.
reinforcing) the structure of inter-party competition will
be quite stable as parties will be divided by two (or more)
different cleavages along the same ideological line (Huber
et al., 2005: 369). Thus, because in systems with reinfor-
cing cleavages ‘all the politically relevant sources of divi-
sion lie parallel, [making party] loyalty [within each side of
the cleavage] paramount’ (Evans and Whitefield, 1998:
117), parties will tend to interact only with those other
parties within the same side of the cleavages, rejecting any
cooperation that would lead to them crossing such a line.
Because a large proportion of parties are organized into
ideological groups of mutually reinforcing loyalties, the
number of ‘volatile’ parties will be low. As a result, cumu-
lative cleavages help to simplify the structure of competi-
tion in two different (and separate) blocs of parties,
making the patterns of interaction more predictable and
stable. Think of the example above if parties A and B were
not only secular but socialist, while C and D were both
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23
Dimensions of competition Party system institutionalization
Uni-dimensional High
Very high
Multi-dimensional Low
Bi-dimensional Medium
religious and liberal. In such a case, cumulative pressures
would most probably lead to a ‘left–right’ (A/B vs. C/D,
respectively) type of party competition, typical of many
(institutionalized) Western European party systems.
Following the previous assumptions, and also bearing in
mind the number of cleavages and the dimensions of com-
petition available, party systems could be classified into
four different basic types according to the degree of institu-
tionalization observed (see Table 8).
Thus, as follows from the previous table, party systems in
which the only existing cleavage or two (or more) ‘cumula-
tive’ cleavages create one dimension of competition will
tend to be highly institutionalized. The ‘reinforcing effect’
of the latter will make for the different degree of institutio-
nalization (high and very high, respectively) observed. In
contrast, party systems characterized by ‘cross-cutting clea-
vages’ will be weakly institutionalized. The level of ‘weak
institutionalization’ will be higher or lower depending on the
number of cleavages and, therefore, competitive dimensions
available.
One final remark is in order before proceeding to the
analysis of cleavage formation/interaction and its implica-
tion for party system institutionalization in East Central
Europe. Although it may seem the contrary, this ‘new’
approach is compatible with both Lipset and Rokkan’s
original approach (the so-called ‘freezing’ hypothesis) as
well as with the conclusions of the ‘social pluralist’ school
examined above. First, and contrary to most works using
Lipset and Rokkan’s scheme as a foundation (see section
3), my theory allows not only for different types of clea-
vages but also for distinct party alternatives to interact: a
party system may institutionalize due to economic/reli-
gious and/or ethnic/geographical cleavages, etc. In this
context, neither the number nor the type of cleavage is
important. On the other, it is not the number of cleavages
per se but the way in which such cleavages (be it 2 or 6)
structure party alternatives into two or more different
politico-ideological blocs/camps/groups that really matters
(Bartolini and Mair, 1990; Lipset and Rokkan, 1967; Mair,
2006).
Last, but not least, the approach explained here does not
contradict Lipset (1960) and followers’ statement that
cumulative cleavages lead to political conflict while
cross-cutting cleavages help to resolve the latter. In fact,
my theory departs from the assumption that cumulative
24 Party Politics 20(1)

Secular SZDSZ MSZP Fidesz FKgP MÍEP MDF Religious

Post-Comm. MSZP SZDSZ MDF Fidesz FKgP MÍEP Anti-comm.

Urban SZDSZ MSZP MDF Fidesz FKgP MÍEP Rural

Liberal SZDSZ MSZP FKgP MDF Fidesz MÍEP Statist

Figure 1. Cleavages and approximate placement of political parties (1995–2009).

Sources: Benoit and Laver (2006), Enyedi (2006), Rohrschneider and Whitefield (2009: 14) and Vachudová (2008).

1993-2000 KSČM ČSSD SPR/RSČ HSD/SMS KDU/ČSL ODA ODS

Protectionism Liberalism
2001-2009 KSČM SZ ČSSD KDU/ČSL US/DEU ODS

Figure 2. Economic cleavage and approximate placement of political parties.

Sources: Deegan-Krause (2002), Evans and Whitefield (1998), Kitschelt et al. (1999), Markowski (1997) and Saxonberg (2003) until 2000. Benoit and
Laver (2006), Hlousek and Kopeček (2008) and Rohrschneider and Whitefield (2009:13) from 2001.

cleavages create a certain degree of tension between the
two different ideological camps, converting them into ‘irre-
concilable’ political enemies. Likewise, I accept that
‘cross-cutting cleavages’ [when not ‘felt with equal inten-
sity’] encourage conciliation’ and compromise (Dahl,
1966: 378; Sartori, 1969; Schattschneider, 1960: 67–68).
In fact, it is the different degree of disagreement created
by cumulative and cross-cutting cleavages that helps to
‘freeze’ party systems in the first place. This is not to say,
however, that too much conflict will not be inimical to
democratic stability, as social pluralists scholars have
maintained.
Cleavage structuration and party system
institutionalization in East Central Europe
Let us now examine how the previous ‘innovative’ analyti-
cal framework works in the real world and in the East Cen-
tral European region in particular.
less nationalist camp’ (Tóka, 2004: 322; see also Enyedi,
2006). Moreover, even when the economic divide (not
cleavage) is introduced into the picture it does not overlap
with the more culturally-like cleavages making the Hungar-
ian structure of competition uni-dimensional: the ‘left’ vs.
the ‘right’. As a result, and mainly from 1994, the structure
of partisan competition has stabilized around two antago-
nistic camps – the nationalist, anti-communist, clerical
right (Fidesz, MDF, KDNP and FKgP), and the cosmopoli-
tan, post-communist and anti-clerical left (MSZP and
SZDSZ) – which alternate in power in a wholesale manner,
always adopting the same familiar composition while
excluding other (more extreme) parties (e.g. MIÉP). All
in all, and bearing in mind all that has been said, it is pos-
sible to conclude that ‘the gradual return to a bipolar
[almost over-institutionalized] system of alliances after
1994 [has to be] interpreted as a natural adaptation, in the
absence of deep cleavages cross-cutting each other’
(Enyedi and Tóka, 2007: 150; see also Tóka, 2004).

Hungary Czech Republic

Since the very beginning of the transition, and most clearly
after 1994,19 party politics in Hungary has revolved around
cultural rather than economic conflicts (Enyedi, 2006;
Evans, 2006; Kitschelt et al., 1999; Markowski, 1997;
Tóka, 2004; Tóka and Henjak, 2007). Within the first, three
distinct types of cleavage can be distinguished: State vs.
Church, post-communist vs. anti-communist and urban
vs. rural (Körösenyi, 1999a, b).
As follows from Figure 1, these three cleavages present
a cumulative character which allows for the division of the
Hungarian political spectrum into two very antagonistic
(and stable) political camps: ‘a socially conservative, reli-
gious, somewhat nationalist, and anti-communist camp
[ . . . ] and [ . . . ] a secular, morally permissive and generally
Contrary to Hungary, the Czech party system has been
characterized since the independence of the country by a
one-dimensional structure of competition revolving around
a unique cleavage: economy (Brokl and Mansfeldová,
2004; Kitschelt et al., 1999: 230; Markowski, 1997). Figure
13 presents the approximate socio-economic orientations
of the Czech political parties along this cleavage in two dif-
ferent periods.
As is evident from Figure 2, economic policy orienta-
tions vary from one party to another although, as mentioned
above, the gap between liberal and state-centred socio-
economic orientations puts communist and social demo-
crats (KSČM and ČSSD) on one side and liberal and/or
conservative parties on the other (ODS, ODA, US/DEU),

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Casal Bértoa
Secular KSČM ČSSD SZ (ODA) ODS (SPR) (US)
Communist KSČM ČSSD (HSD) (SPR) SZ (ODA) ODS KDU/ČSL (US) Anti-communist
Figure 3. Religious and post-communist divides and approximate placement of political parties (1993–2009).
Sources: Benoit and Laver (2006), Kitschelt et al. (1999), Markowski (1997) and Saxonberg (2003). Currently defunct political parties are given in
parentheses.
with the Christian democrats (KDU/ČSL) somewhere in
the middle, although a bit closer to the liberal bloc (espe-
cially in the first period).
The above-mentioned cleavage structure based on eco-
nomic considerations has certainly helped the stabilization
of the pattern of partisan interaction into two different
blocs: social protectionists vs. market-liberals. Concretely,
[t]he composition of government coalition has so far been a
perfect embodiment of these bipolar and rather strongly pro-
nounced line [ . . . ] of conflict: the right-of-centre coalition
of the ODS, ODA, KDU/ČSL formed the government in
1992, and again in 1996; the left-of-centre CSSD formed the
(minority) government in 1998 and, together with KDU/ČSL
and US, after the 2002 elections [ . . . ] the 2006 elections have
again seen [ . . . ] a bipolar pattern of competition (Kopecký,
2007: 120–121)
with the ODS, the KDU/ČSL and a new parliamentary
party, the Greens (SZ), forming the government while the
ČSSD and the non-reformed Communist party (KSČM)
remained in opposition.
As can be seen from what has been said, the structure of
inter-party competition in the Czech Republic has been
characterized by the alternation between ODS-liberal
government and ČSSD-social-democratic cabinets. As
Kopecký has also recognized, the only time this pattern was
not absolutely observed was in 2002, when the socialists
formed a coalition government with the centrist KDU/ČSL
and the right-of-centre liberal US (2006: 129). To a lesser
extent, I would add, the coalition formed by PM Topolánek
in 2007, which united ODS, KDU/ČSL with the centre-left
SZ was also weakly consistent in this respect. However, in
this case, the formation of such ideologically diverse coali-
tion was facilitated by the clear ‘anti-communist’ stances of
the SZ, which were not willing to participate in a cabinet
that could rely, even tacitly on Communist support. More-
over, the Green Party ‘modified its profile before the elec-
tion’ incorporating ‘some liberal economic goals’ which
placed it more on the right (Hloušek and Kopeček, 2008:
532). As a result, the SZ became the party that, together
with the Christian Democrats, came closest to being an
‘economically’ centrist party, giving both the greatest
coalition potential.
This is not to say that less ideologically homogeneous
coalitions were not more prone to political quarrelling. In
fact, the amount of conflict within the last two governing
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25
(HSD) KDU/ČSL Religious
coalitions has been the highest among the five different par-
tisan cabinets the country has had in the last twenty years.
This has had important consequences for the process of
party system institutionalization, which has seen itself
stopped by the increasing amount of unstable coopera-
tion/collaboration among the different parties. As a result,
the degree of systemic institutionalization after 2002 has
decreased significantly.
Notwithstanding the latter, the Czech party system has
continued to be among the most institutionalized in Eastern
Europe in general (Casal Bértoa and Enyedi, 2010; Casal
Bértoa and Mair, 2012), and the Visegrad region in partic-
ular. As a matter of fact, this has been eased by the rather
cumulative character of the other two ideological ‘divides’
present in Czech politics, namely: post-communism and
religion.
In the Czech Republic, the so-called post-communist
divide separates the non-reformed communist party
(KSČM) from its parliamentary counterparts, making the
former a real political ‘pariah’. Thereby, the Czech struc-
ture of partisan competition has always been characterized
by the fringe character of the communist party, systemati-
cally excluded from every single government coalition. In
fact, as we have seen before, anti-communist attitudes not
only helped SZ in its travel to the right, but also KDU/ČSL
and US/DEU in their will to cooperate with ČSSD in 2002.
Still, from 2005 onwards, the willingness of the ČSSD to
collaborate and, in case of necessity, ally with the KSČM
has certainly increased, reinforcing the already strong polit-
ical division between anti-communist Christian democrats
and liberal-conservative parties and socialist/communist
forces.
On the other hand, and as follows from Figure 3, religion
has also played a role in the traditional division between
left and right in Czech lands, even if the religious divide
constitutes only a second dimension in the structure of par-
tisan competition: not only are all parties secular, with the
exception of the KDU/ČSL, but also the latter has tended to
place itself on the left–right dimension (Mateju et al., 1999;
Sitter, 2002; Tóka and Henjak, 2007). Thus, and when we
look at the level of secularity displayed by the different
political forces, we can see that the ideological spread of
the different parties basically coincides with their position
along the post-communist, but also the economic (see Fig-
ure 2), axes. In fact, if we leave aside all the parties which
have already disappeared or whose role in the political sys-
tem is irrelevant, we get a clear picture of the Czech party
26
1993-2001
Periphery
MK
DÚ
SDSS
SDL’
SOP
Statist Liberal Statist
KDH
ZRS
HZDS SNS
Centre
Figures 4 and 5. Cleavages and approximate placement of political parties (1993–2009).
Sources: Deegan-Krause (2004), Gyárfášová and Krivý (2007), Krno (2005) and Markowski (1997) for the period 1993–1998. For the period 1999–2009,
see Benoit and Laver (2006), Gyárfášová and Krivý (2007), Hloušek and Kopeček (2008), Krivý (2004) and Vachudová (2008).
I have included within the circles all parties with a certain religious background (in terms of both ideology and support). All the other parties are con-
sidered to be secular, and some of them even anti-clerical (KSS, ZRS, SDL’, Smer, ANO).
system, where ODS and, to a lesser extent, KDU/ČSL con-
stitute the political right and KSČM and ČSSD form part of
the left bloc, with SZ somewhere in between. Still, the cen-
trist position of KDU/ČSL in economic terms, the only
‘full’ cleavage in the Czech Republic, facilitates possible
centre-right and centre-left coalitions, giving place to a
rather institutionalized two-and-a-half party system.
In conclusion, in light of what has been presented it
seems obvious that among the four Visegrad democracies
studied here the Czech Republic is where the economic
cleavage has been most sharply articulated and where axio-
logical divides (i.e. religious and ‘post-communist’) have
cross-cut less the dominant left–right dimension, in the
electoral arena as well as at the level of elite opinion
(Kitschelt et al., 1999; Markowski, 1997; Vachudová and
Hooghes, 2009).
Slovakia
From the moment of its independence in 1993, the Slovak
party system has been characterized by the presence of two
cleavages (centre–periphery and economy) and one struc-
tural divide (religion). However, as Eibl and Chytı́lek have
wisely pointed out, ‘whereas up to 1998 the main axis of
the party competition was determined by [the first], after
2002 it approached [more] a systemic logic based on the
evaluation of socio-economic issues’ (2007: 175; see also
Deegan-Krause, 2004). This difference has significant con-
sequences for interpretation of the relationship between
cleavage development and the structure of partisan compe-
tition discussed below.
Figures 4 and 5 display, respectively, the structure of
Slovak cleavages for the two periods signalled above. In
contrast to what we have seen for Hungary and the Czech
Republic, Slovak cleavages (and divides) present a cross-
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Party Politics 20(1)
2002-2009
Periphery
SMK
ANO
SDKÚ
Smer
Liberal
KDH
KSS
HZDS
SNS
Centre
cutting, rather than a cumulative, character (Deegan-
Krause, 2002). As a result, four different political and ideo-
logical camps can be distinguished: (1) the national-
authoritarian camp, formed by the nationalist SNS, the
charismatic HZDS and other minor parties (the economi-
cally populist ZRS until 1998, and the communist KSS
from 2002); (2) the Christian-liberal camp, made by the
religious KDH – a monothematic party; (3) the socialist
camp, composed by the post-communist SDL’, the social-
democratic SDSS and the personalistic SOP until the
2000s, when the populist/charismatic Smer-Direction
managed to capitalize on the emerging socio-economic
cleavage and take over the previous three parties, which
finally merged before the last legislative elections in
2006; and (4) the liberal-cosmopolitan camp, character-
ized by its liberal stances in terms of both economy and
nation-building, and formed by the secular-conservative
SDKÚ, the ethnic SMK and the neoliberal ANO (already
defunct).
The previous picture becomes even more complicated
when we introduce the ever increasing religious divide
(Hloušek and Kopeček, 2008), which, with the exception
of the ferociously secular and anti-clerical socialist camp
and the religious Christian-liberal camp (unified around the
KDH), divides the other two camps into two distinct sides:
secular (ZRS, KSS, ANO and SDKÚ) and pro-Church
(SMK, HZDS and SNS).
With such a bi-dimensional (tri-dimensional at times)
cleavage structure it is not difficult to understand why the
patterns of inter-party competition in Slovakia have been
characterized by the presence of partial alternations
(mainly from 1998), innovative governing formulae and
open access (every single cabinet since 1994 has included
at least one new party – most of them formed just a couple
of months ahead of the elections).
Casal Bértoa
In particular, with the exception of Mečiar’s 4th cabinet,
every coalition government since 1994 has included polit-
ical forces from at least two different political camps,
at times even three. This was the case of the 1994 Morav-
čik’s and 1998 Dzurinda’s ‘rainbow’ cabinets, which
comprised five political parties/groups ranging from the
centre-right to the centre-left of the political spectrum
(Szomolányi, 2004). In fact, each of these two govern-
ment was so ideologically heterogeneous as to bring
together the conservative DS, with the liberal DÚ (AD and
APR in 1994) and the religious KDH (all of them anti-
communists) on the right, and the post-communist SDL’
and the historical social-democrats (SDSS) on the left,
together with the populist SOP, the ethnic SMK and the
environmentalist SZS. Dzurinda’s and Fico’s cabinet in
2002 and 2006, respectively, followed a similar pattern,
although the level of ideological homogeneity increased to
a certain extent. Thus, the former again included Christian
Democrats (KDH) with the Catholic Hungarian SMK (now
itself divided along two different economic trends: liberal
and populist), together with the liberal-secular SDKÚ (DÚ’s
successor) and the neoliberal-anti-clerical ANO. In a similar
vein, the current government also includes parties from two
different camps, namely: the national-authoritarian (with the
religious HZDS and SNS) and the socialist (secular) Smer
(Hloušek and Kopeček, 2008; Rybář, 2006; Szomolányi,
2004). The fact that these parties differed in terms of econ-
omy (SDL’ vs. KDH/APR/ADSR; SDL’/SDSS vs. KDH/
DÚ; SMK vs. ANO/SDKÚ), religion (SDL’ vs. KDH;
SDL’/SDSS vs. KDH/SMK; ANO vs. KDH/SMK; Smer
vs. HZDS/SNS), and national identity (SMK vs. KDH; Smer
vs. HZDS and SNS) clearly hindered the stabilization of the
patterns of inter-party competition in Slovakia.
This is not to say, however, that the national-
authoritarian based government constituted an ideologi-
cally homogeneous ‘oasis of peace’. In fact, the parties
forming Mečiar’s cabinets in 1993 and 1994 also quarrel
over economy (ZRS/HZDS vs. SNS) as well as religion
(ZRS vs. HZDS/SNS). However, the fact that they shared
a common view on the way the process of national (in terms
of both identity and institutions) building should develop
certainly helped to make the patterns of partisan interaction
at the beginning of the 1990s more predictable and stable,
although not much stable, than ever afterwards.
All in all, when analysing the process of party system
configuration in Slovakia and its chances of developing
an institutionalized structure of inter-party competition,
it is important to note that the cross-cutting nature of the
Slovak cleavages, boosted by the territorial and socio-
demographical heterogeneity of the population, fostered
the formation and development of a bi-dimensional struc-
ture of competition characterized by unstable partisan alli-
ances and unpredictable patterns of government formation
(Pridham, 2002; Rybář, 2006; Sitter, 2002; Szomolányi,
2004).
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27
Poland
In contrast to the most institutionalized East Central Eur-
opean party systems (i.e. Hungarian and Czech) the Polish
party system has been characterized since the very beginning
by a multi-dimensional space of inter-party competition
revolving around two different type cleavages: cultural/
axiological (religious and post-communist) and economic
(Grzybowski and Mikuli, 2004; Kitschelt et al., 1999;
Markowski, 2007a; Szczerbiak, 2006; Tworzecki, 2003).
As Jasiewicz has recently remarked, ‘the salience of these
two [types], as well as their cross-cutting configuration in
the political spectrum, has been well documented in
_
empirical studies (Markowski and Tóka, 1993; Zukowski,
1994; Jasiewicz, 1995, 1998; Kitschelt et al., 1999)’
(2007: 88, the emphasis is mine). Similarly, he was the
first scholar to point out that on the basis of these two dif-
ferent cleavage types it was possible to structure the Pol-
ish party system into four different politico-ideological
fields:
The combination of relatively strong support of secularism/
universalism and a free-market/free-enterprise orientation may
be described as the liberal-democratic field [ . . . ] The combi-
nation of pro-market attitudes and high religiosity (with the
emphasis on Christian values and economic nationalism)
brings about the conservative field (usually in a Christian-
democratic version) [ . . . ] Support for state interventionism
combined with religiosity/particularism gives the populist
field [ . . . ] State interventionism combined with secularism
may be identified as the socialist field [ . . . ]. (2007: 88 f.,
emphasis in the original; see also Markowski, 1995 and
Szczerbiak, 2006)
Figures 6 to 11 locate the most important political forces
– and, in any case, all the parliamentarian parties – within
the four above-mentioned fields along a bi-dimensional
axis built on the basis of the two primary dimensions of par-
tisan interaction, namely: religion (most salient until 2001)
and economy (extraordinarily relevant ever after). The
post-communist cleavage is also indicated, so that parties
with a non-negative perception of the communist regime
and contrary to the adoption of ‘justice-distributive’ mea-
sures like lustration or de-communization are grouped
together.20 Moreover, and because Polish political parties
have more often than not come and gone after every elec-
tion, it has been necessary to portrait the position of the dif-
ferent parties within the cultural–economic axis along each
of the different legislative periods.
As shown in the figures below, religion cuts across
the economic cleavage dividing both the economically
interventionist ‘left’ and the pro-liberal-market ‘right’. In
a similar vein, the post-communist cleavage separates the
so-called ‘successor parties’ (SLD and PSL) from the
post-Solidarity parties, which can be found in all but in
the socialist field. Moreover, the latter cleavage cuts across
28 Party Politics 20(1)

1991-1993 1993-1997
Secular Secular

SLD PPPP SLD

UD UP
SP SO UD
KPN KPN
PSL KLD KLD
Statist PL Liberal Statist PSL Liberal
BBWR
‘S’ PC
PC ‘S ’

ZChN ZChN

Religious Religious

1997-2001 2001-2005
Secular Secular
SLD
UP
UP SLD
UW UW

PO
Statist Liberal Statist Liberal
PSL SO
PSL
PiS
AWS AWS-P
ROP LPR

Religious Religious

2005-2007 2007-2009
Secular Secular
UP
SLD
PD LiD
SdPL
PO
PO
Statist SO Liberal Statist Liberal
PSL
PSL
PiS SO
PiS
LPR LPR

Religious Religious

Figures 6 to 11. Cleavages and approximate placement of political parties (1991–2009).

Sources: I have included within the circles all parties with a certain post-communist background. All the other parties are considered to be anti-
communist (mostly post-Solidarity). From the 1991-1997 period, Kitschelt et al. (1999), Markowski (2006a), Wesołowski (1996) and Zarycki (2000). Masłyk
and Kocór (2000), Wiatr (2000) and Zarycki (2000) for 1997-2001. For 2001-2005, see Castle and Taras (2002), Markowski (2006b), Rohrschneider and
Whitefield (2009: 16), Vachudová (2008) and Wiatr (2004). For the final period (i.e. 2005-2009), Benoit and Laver (2006) and Markowski (2007b).

individual political parties like UP or UW/PD (see figures).
Finally, and although not reflected in the figures presented
above, the post-communist cleavage also cross-cuts its
economic counterpart, separating all those bitter anti-
communist post-Solidarity parties (e.g. PC, AWS, PiS,
LPR) from all those anti-communist forces, also stem-
ming from the Solidarity movement, which adopt a more
pragmatic approach to their relationship with both PSL and
SLD (e.g. UW/PD or PO). As a result, both post-communist
and religious cleavages clearly overlap each other, but only
at the right side of the political spectrum. In this sense, the
higher the level of religiosity among the pro-market
camp,21 the lower the chances a political party will collabo-
rate – not even ally – with the post-communist forces.22
Bearing in mind all that has been said, it is clear that the
social protectionist camp (socialists þ populists) differs

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Casal Bértoa
Table 9. Cleavage cross-cuttingness and party system institutionalization.
Type of
Country cross-cuttingness
Hungary Religious-regional
Czech Republic Economic-religious
Slovakia Ethnic-economic
Poland Religious-economic
Using the Benoit and Laver (2006) dataset, I have calculated the degree of cleavage cross-cuttingness in each of the political systems under study by
locating the ‘relevant’ political parties within the dimensional space of each country and obtaining the R2 of the line of fit. The main logic behind such
analysis is that the higher the latter will be, the lower the degree of cross-cuttingness.
from the pro-market camp (liberals þ conservatives) in
terms of economy; the secular camp (socialists þ liberals)
from the religious camp (populists þ conservatives) in
terms of religiosity; and the post-communist successor par-
ties (SLD and PSL) from all the other parties in terms of
‘nostalgia’ for the previous (communist) regime. At the
same time, the socialist field (mainly SLD and UP) differs
from the populist field in terms of religiosity (all), but also
in terms of ‘nostalgia’ (all but the PSL); the liberal field
(mainly UW/PD and PO) disagrees with the conservative
parties in the degree of religiosity and anti-communism.
As a result, parties have found it very difficult to establish
stable governmental coalitions and/or electoral alliances.
As a rule, cabinets have been short-termed and the only one
to endure the entire legislature (SLD-PSL from 1993 up to
1997) was characterized by its quarrels, rather than by its
agreements. Moreover, and as explained elsewhere (Casal
Bértoa, 2011), not even one of the coalition governments
in Poland managed to unite all parties from the same polit-
ical field23 – in the majority of cases not even two parties
from the same political field (the only exceptions are
Suchowska’s 7-party cabinet – if not then, when?, and Kac-
zynski’s controversial three-party coalition, where LPR
and Samoobrona allied together with PiS).
In sum, with such an ideologically heterogeneous and
dogmatically complex political panorama, it is hardly sur-
prising that the level of party system institutionalization in
Poland has remained the lowest among the four countries
examined here.
Cleavage cross-cuttingness: Does it make
a difference?
If the most important conclusion following from the previ-
ous analysis is that it is the cleavage structure in a country
that determines the degree of institutionalization of its party
system, the next question should be: can the degree to
which cleavages cross-cut hint at the level of institutionali-
zation a party system is able to achieve?
Table 9 shows the degree of cross-cuttingness for the
two most important ‘cleavage’ dimensions – for which data
are available – in each of the countries analysed here.24 As
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29
Cross-cutting score
Selway (2009) Benoit and Laver (2006) PSI
0.83 0.33 2.5
0.87 0.88 1.4
0.89 0.90 0.3
0.90 0.97 –4.2
follows from the table, cleavage cross-cuttingness and
party system institutionalization are highly related,25 pro-
viding an explanation for the different degrees of institutio-
nalization observed in the four East Central European party
systems. Moreover, and what is more striking, the differ-
ence in the degree of cross-cuttingness among the countries
and the level of party system institutionalization almost
perfectly associate (see also Casal Bértoa, 2010: appendix
B). For all these reasons, it is possible to complement my
previous conclusions with the more specific statement that
the higher the level of cleavage cross-cuttingness, the lower
the institutionalization of a party system will be.
Conclusion
In this article, and following the steps of the sociological
approach initiated by Lipset and Rokkan’s (1967) seminal
work, I have tried to examine how a nation’s cleavage
structure affects the process of party system institutionali-
zation. Using Bartolini and Mair’s (1990) rather strict con-
cept of ‘cleavage’, and distinguishing three main cleavages
in Hungary and Poland, two in Slovakia and one in the
Czech Republic, I have presented the most important scho-
larly theories linking both cleavage formation and develop-
ment with party system institutionalization. An in-depth
analysis of the first three most important hypotheses led
to the watertight conclusion that neither the number nor the
type nor the strength of a cleavage is associated with the
degree of party system institutionalization in East Central
Europe.
As a result, and building on Dahl’s original idea that
both cleavage and party system structuring are deeply
entangled, I decided to pursue an analysis of the conse-
quences different modes of cleavage formation and devel-
opment may have for stabilization of the patterns of
partisan competition. The idea is that when cleavages are
cross-cutting, parties will find it difficult to identify ideolo-
gically contiguous partners with which to cooperate, as
being close in one dimension may be accompanied by irre-
concilable differences in another. On the contrary, when
cleavages are cumulative (i.e. coinciding), parties will tend
to interact only with other parties on the same side of the
30
cleavage, rejecting any cooperation that would lead them to
cross such a line. In this context one-dimensional cleavage
configurations are considered to have a similar effect,
although to a lesser degree, than the latter.
After a thorough analysis of the distinct cleavage config-
urations in the different East Central European countries,
the main conclusion needs to be that the process of party
system institutionalization is hindered when a country’s
cleavages cross-cut and fostered when coinciding (i.e. cumu-
lating). Moreover, the degree to which cleavages cross-cut
with each other exerts an unquestionable influence on the
level to which party systems institutionalize: the lower the
cross-cuttingness, the higher the institutionalization.
For all this, I can conclude with Whitefield stating that
‘[a]lthough parties and politicians have come and gone
[ . . . t]he term cleavage, [ . . . continues] to be meaningful
for post-communist societies’, as the way they structure
helps to ‘define the behavior of politically relevant [ . . . ]
actors’ (2002: 195). Hence, party system institutionaliza-
tion does appear to be determined, to an enormous degree,
by the way cleavages form, develop and, overall, configure.
Funding
This research was completed while I was a ‘MAEC-AECI’
funded PhD candidate at the European University Institute.
Acknowledgements
This article is dedicated to the memory of my mentor, Peter Mair
(R.I.P. 1951–2011).
Previous versions of this article were presented at the 3rd ECPR
General Conference in Dublin (August 2010) and at the IPSA-
ECPR Joint Conference in Sao Paulo (February 2011). I thank
participants at these conferences, especially Simon Bornschier
(Universities of Zurich and St. Gallen, Switzerland), as well as
three anonymous reviewers for useful comments. I am also grate-
ful to Kevin Deegan-Krause (Wayne State University, USA) and
Zsolt Enyedi (Central European University, Hungary) for sharing
their expertise with me regarding cleavage salience and issue
dimensionality. The usual disclaimers apply.
Notes
1. However, this is not to deny the fact that other institutional
variables (e.g. electoral system or the type of regime) may
contribute to explaining the different degree of institutionali-
zation observed in East Central European party systems
(Casal Bértoa, 2011).
2. Lipset and Rokkan alone are to blame as they avoided any
explicit definition of the term. In fact, and despite Zucker-
man’s (1975) laudable effort to interpret Lipset and Rokkan’s
will, the truth is that the latter authors even used different
terms (e.g. ‘contrasts’, ‘divides’, ‘conflicts’, oppositions’ . . . )
as synonyms (see Meisel, 1974: 6; Randall, 2001).
3. Interestingly enough, and as Mair (2006: 373) himself has
recently pointed out, such efforts at qualification have not
resolved the existing conceptual confusion as there is almost
nothing in a so-called ‘political’ or ‘social’ cleavage that
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Party Politics 20(1)
differs from a political conflict or a structural divide,
respectively.
4. This is not to say that, when appropriate, I will refer and
address other conceptualizations of the notion: namely
‘social’ or ‘political’ cleavages, depending on whether only
the structural or the normative element is present. In this con-
text, ‘political’ cleavages, ‘issue dimensions’ and/or ideologi-
cal ‘divides’ are used indistinctly.
5. For previous applications of Mair’s framework in a similar
context, see Müller-Rommel (2005), O’Dwyer (2006), Rybář
(2004) or Toole (2000).
6. Ministerial volatility is computed by adding the net change in
the percentage of ‘ministers’ (including the prime minister),
rather than ministries or portfolios gained and lost by each
party in the cabinet from one government to the next, and
then dividing by 2.
7. Lijphart defines ‘issue dimensions’ in terms of ‘differences
[derived or not from social divisions] between rather than
within parties’ (1984: 128).
8. In contrast to Lijphart’s approach, political cleavages are
operationalized here using the ideological vote-share of par-
ties distributed in a two-dimensional political space based
on economic and ethnic issues.
9. The ‘effective’ number of electoral parties is calculated
according to the following formula: ENEP¼1/Svi, where vi
is the proportion of seats/votes of the ith party (Laakso and
Taagepera, 1979). Here, I use the ENEP rather than the ‘effec-
tive’ number of parliamentary parties (ENPP), as the latter may
well also be influenced by other factors, mainly the electoral
system (Duverger, 1954). Still, none of my findings would
have been changed by the use of such a ‘legislative’ indicator.
10. When dealing with electoral fragmentation scores, similar
conclusions can be made but for the number of ‘full’ clea-
vages, whose explanatory power is a bit higher.
11. Notwithstanding Kitschelt et al.’s thorough work (1999), the
only empirical study of the above-cited relationship is Birnir’s
(2007a, b) analysis of the relationship between ethnicity and
electoral politics in new democracies. Using a nested research
design, the author confirmed Evans and Whitefield’s hypoth-
eses when finding that, far more than religious cleavages,
‘identity that is expressed through ethnic parties [ . . . ] jump-
starts party system stabilization’ (2007a: 602–603).
12. For each cleavage, the composite index represents the sum
of the three dimensions in standardized form (or z-scores).
Cronbach’s alpha for the different indexes is rather high
(always higher than 0.70 but in one case: three-dimensional
composite economic index), a relatively respectable figure
given that the scale consists of three items only (inter-item
correlation was always between 0.56 and 0.75, with the sole
exception of the economic cleavage, in any of the two ver-
sions, three- or two- dimensional).
13. The fact that data for the ethnic and urban/rural cleavage are
unavailable does not undermine the findings, as these two
cleavages are only present in one (Slovakia and Hungary,
respectively) of the four countries (see section 3).
Casal Bértoa
14. In addition to the studies explaining political conflict or dem-
ocratic stability, Simmel’s ‘cross-pressure’ theories are echoed
within the ‘voting behaviour’ literature (Berelson et al., 1954;
Lazarsfeld et al., 1944; Tingsten, 1937). Very briefly, the main
idea was that ‘cross-pressured’ individuals tended to become
politically indifferent. Consequently, they might withdraw
from voting, change their vote intention, decide for whom to
vote at the last minute, ‘feel a reduced sense of partisanship’,
etc. (Rae and Taylor, 1970: 86; Lane, 1959: 197–203).
15. As far as I am concerned, this is the only empirical work
attempting to link both variables.
16. Building on Rae and Taylor’s (1969: 537) definition, I consider
cross-cutting cleavages all those that divide the political spectrum
in such a way that two political parties share a common ideologi-
cal direction while differing on a second one. On the contrary,
cumulative cleavages are those that divide the political spectrum
in two distinct camps, each one characterized by the presence of
at least two completely different ideological preferences.
17. In this context, cross-cutting cleavages could also hinder the pro-
cess of party institutionalization, facilitating the splits of differ-
ent factions and the creation of new political groups and parties.
18. Note, however, that the example is theoretical, as it is difficult
for new party systems to remain with the same parties all the
time.
19. As the majority of scholars have recognized (Enyedi and
Tóka, 2007; Körösenyi, 1999a, b; Markus, 1998), and as one
of the reviewers has accurately pointed out, cleavages in Hun-
gary took their current structure only in 1994. Enyedi (2005)
contains the most detailed account to date on how agency can
influence the way cleavages structure in a country.
20. It is important to note here that, in clear contrast to the separation
of Slovak religious parties, the grouping of post-communist par-
ties is only indicative and does not present the exact distance
other ‘post-Solidarity’ may have to the previous group.
21. In contrast to the word ‘field’, I use the notion of ‘camp’ to
indicate the sum of two fields (on the basis of economy or
religion or ‘communist nostalgia’). As a result, ‘camp’ has
a stronger connotation than ‘field’.
22. A clear example of what has been said is the electoral colla-
boration of PD with SLD within LiD, or the formation of a
coalition government between PO and PSL. In contrast, and
despite intensive talks at the beginning of 2006, PiS did not
manage to agree on stable governmental cooperation with PSL.
23. The only exception was AWS (2000–2001) and PiS (2005–
2006) minority governments, which, on the other hand,
required the parliamentary support of political forces from
other different ideological fields (ROP in 2000 or Samoo-
brona and LPR in 2005).
24. For example, and due to the lack of reliable data, I could not
compare the degree of cross-cuttingness between religiosity
and post-Communism in Hungary.
25. No other comparison attempted (i.e. economic-religious,
economic-ethnic, economic-regional, religious-ethnic, religious-
regional, ethnic-regional) achieved such a high degree of
coincidence.
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31
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Appendix A
‘Political’ cleavages in East Central Europe[1]
Similarly to what has been observed in the most consoli-
dated Western European democracies, the two most impor-
tant dimensions of partisan conflict in East Central
European party systems have a socio-economic and reli-
gious character (McAllister and White, 2007). Notwith-
standing the former general statement, it is important to
note here, however, that, in relation to the former, Table
A below assigns ‘medium’ ratings only to Hungary which,
during Kadar’s ‘goulash communism’ (1966–1988), had
the most liberalized economic system within the Soviet
bloc. This obviously helped political elites to adopt a gra-
dual approach to economic reform during the 1990s, and
consequently diminished the level of political conflict on
the issue. In a similar vein, religious conflict did not
achieve high quotas in those countries where, on the one
hand, the religious population has been lower (e.g. the
Czech Republic) and where, on the other, the Catholic
Church was marginalized during communism (e.g. Slova-
kia), playing also a smaller role after the democratic transi-
tion (Kostelecký, 2002: 96–103).
In general, when the four ratings for these two issues are
added up – with an H counted as 1.0 and an M as 0.5 – the
total is 3.5 and 3.0, respectively, as indicated in the bottom
line of Table A. This total score for the above-cited dimen-
sions is more than twice as high as the total score for any
other dimension (with the exception of post-communism).
Furthermore, the socio-economic and religious dimensions
are also the only ones present to a significant extent in all
four East Central European party systems.
Differences between post-communist successor and oppo-
sition parties constitute the second most important issue
dimension. Interestingly enough, such differences can be
found in the two countries where democratic transition was
negotiated, allowing Communist leaders not only to main-
tain a certain control over the transition, but to conserve
their property and the remaining economic assets (Bozóki
and Ishiyama, 2002). This obviously made it difficult to
resolve former nomenklatura’s ‘debts with the past’, allow-
ing also the successor parties to keep a core of electoral
36 Party Politics 20(1)

Table A. ‘Issue dimensions’ in four East Central European party systems (1990–2009).
Socio- Cultural– Urban– Regime Foreign Post- No. of
Country economic Religious ethnic rural support policy communism dimensions

Hungary M H – H – – H 3.5
Czech H M – – – – – 1.5
Republic
Slovakia H M H – M M – 3.5
Poland H H – – – M H 3.5
Total 3.5 3.0 1.0 1.0 0.5 1.0 2.0

Source: Benoit and Laver (2006), Deegan-Krause (2004), Enyedi and Tóka (2007), Jasiewicz (2007), Mansfeldová (2004) and Whitefield and Rohrsch-
neider (2009: 675).

support which helped them to recover power quickly (the
so-called ‘Velvet Restoration’ took place in Poland in
1993 and just one year later in Hungary) and stop the
ongoing process of de-communization and/or lustration
(Grabowska, 2004). As a result, conflicts over the past in
these two countries reached great importance, while in the
lands of former Czechoslovakia were kept to a minimum.
Cultural–ethnic and urban–rural conflicts have been
possible only in those countries were an ethnic minority
(Slovakia) or a rather large agricultural population has
been present (Hungary). Surprising is the case of
Poland, where, despite having the highest percentage
of farmers among the four, the urban–rural divide has
been embedded within the more general economic con-
_
flict (see Zarycki and Nowak, 2000). Similarly, the
regime-support dimension has appeared in the only
country where nationalistic forces have held fairly stable
support for some time (Slovakia). Here, the salience of
the issue passed from very high in 1994–1998 to very
low in 2006–2009, thereby, the ‘medium’ score.
Interestingly enough, the so-called ‘foreign policy’ dimen-
sion (perhaps, also, Lijphart’s most controversial dimension)
could only be found in Poland and Slovakia, mainly as a result
of the process of European integration (Ladrech, forthcom-
ing). In both Hungary and the Czech Republic, no major party
(except for the marginalized KSČM) raised its voice against
joining NATO and/or the EU.
Appendix B
List of acronyms
Czech Republic: CˇSSD ¼ Czech Social Democratic Party;
DEU ¼ Democratic Union; HSD – SMS ¼ Movement for
Self-Governing Democracy – Society for Moravia and
Silesia; KDU/CˇSL ¼ Christian and Democratic Union/Cze-
choslovak People;s Party; KSCˇM ¼ Communist Party of
Bohemia and Moravia; ODA ¼ Civic Democratic Alliance;
ODS ¼ Civic Democratic Party; SPR-RSCˇ ¼ Association
for the Republic-Czech Republican Party; SZ ¼ Green
Party; US ¼ Freedom Union.
Hungary: Fidesz ¼ Federation of Young Democrats;
FKgP ¼ Independent Party of Smallholders; KDNP ¼
Christian Democratic People’s Party; MDF ¼ Hungarian
Democratic Forum; MIE´P ¼ Hungarian Justice and Life
Party; MSZP ¼ Hungarian Socialist Party; SZDSZ ¼ Alli-
ance of Free Democrats.
Poland: AWS ¼ Solidarity Electoral Action; AWS-P ¼ Sol-
idarity Electoral Action-Right; BBWR ¼ Non-Partisan
Bloc in Support of Reforms; KLD ¼ Liberal Democratic
Congress; KPN ¼ Confederation for an Independent
Poland; LiD ¼ Left and Democrats; LPR ¼ League of Pol-
ish Families; PC ¼ Centre Alliance; PiS ¼ Law and Jus-
tice; PL ¼ Peasant Alliance; PO ¼ Civic Platform;
PPPP ¼ Polish Beer-Lovers’ Party; PSL ¼ Polish Peasant
Party; ROP ¼ Movement for the Reconstruction of Poland;
‘S’ ¼ Solidarity; SdPL ¼ Social Democracy of Poland;
SLD ¼ Democratic Left Alliance; SO ¼ Self-Defence of
the Republic of Poland; SP ¼ Labour Solidarity; UD ¼
Democratic Union; UP ¼ Union of Labour; UW/PD ¼
Freedom Union/Democratic Party (democraci.pl); ZChN
¼ Christian National Union.
Slovakia: AD ¼ Alliance of Democrats; ANO ¼ Alliance
of the New Citizen; APR ¼ Alternative of Political Rea-
lism; DS ¼ Democratic Party; DU´ ¼ Democratic Union;
KDH ¼ Christian Democratic Movement; KSS ¼ Commu-
nist Party of Slovakia; HZDS ¼ Movement for a Demo-
cratic Slovakia;; MK ¼ Hungarian Coalition; SDK ¼
Slovak Democratic Coalition; SDKU´ ¼ Slovak Democratic
and Christian Union; SDL’ ¼ Party of the Democratic Left;
SDSS ¼ Social Democratic Party in Slovakia; Smer ¼
Direction; SMK ¼ Hungarian Coalition; SNS ¼ Slovak
National Party; SOP ¼ Party of Civic Understanding; ZRS
¼ Association of Workers of Slovakia.
Author biography
Fernando Casal Bértoa is currently a Post-doctoral Fellow at the
University of Leiden. He studied Law and Political Science at the
University of Pamplona and the University of Salamanca, respec-
tively. After specializing in Eastern and Central European Studies
(Jagiellonian University), he obtained his PhD at the European
University Institute (Florence). His work has been published or
is forthcoming in various edited volumes as well as in the Hungar-
ian Political Science Review or Government and Opposition.

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