Government formation and party system stabilization in East Central Europe

The stabilization of party systems in new democracies is commonly assumed t o be a lengthy process. Applying Peter Mair's government-formation-based mo del of party system development to the three young East Central European de mocracies of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, the article shows that party systems can stabilize much more quickly than expected. In an analysi s of emerging party system patterns, the Hungarian and Czech party systems are found to be far more stable than the Polish, and already nearly as stab le as more mature party systems. Examining differences in the three cases, the article makes two primary conclusions about the process of stabilizatio n in new party systems. First, it suggests that stabilization is the produc t of both electoral system design and consequent patterns of elite behavior . Second, it argues that stabilization not only occurs in spite of on-going volatility in party-voter alignments, but actually serves to reduce it.