Party Policy Change in Central and Eastern Europe

Understanding the stability and change in political parties’ policy positions is crucial for the study of democratic representation and policy outcomes. A substantial body of the literature has examined the causes of party platform change in the US and Western European countries. However, the causes of party policy change in younger democracies in Central and Eastern Europe remain surprisingly under-studied. Using the data from the Manifesto Project Database and Chapel Hill expert surveys on parties’ policy positions, this research investigates the causes of the change in parties’ policy positions in 11 Central and Eastern European democracies. The analysis tests some of the theoretical explanations of party policy change established in the literature on advanced industrial democracies, such as the change in parties’ electoral support and their government status. Additionally, it also makes a theoretical contribution to the literature by investigating whether party structural transformations, such as party splits, mergers and the formation and dissolution of electoral alliances, lead to changes in parties’ policy positions.