Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behaviour and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behaviour and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition.

Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behaviour and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behaviour and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition.

Why do some governing parties limit their opportunistic behavior and constrain the extraction of private gains from the state? This analysis of post-communist state reconstruction provides surprising answers to this fundamental question of party politics. Across the post-communist democracies, governing parties have opportunistically reconstructed the state - simultaneously exploiting it by extracting state resources and building new institutions that further such extraction. They enfeebled or delayed formal state institutions of monitoring and oversight, established new discretionary structures of state administration, and extracted enormous informal profits from the privatization of the communist economy. By examining how post-communist political parties rebuilt the state in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, Grzymala-Busse explains how even opportunistic political parties will limit their corrupt behavior and abuse of state resources when faced with strong political competition.

The question of how political parties are, and ought to be, regulated has assumed an increased importance in recent years, both within the scholarly community and among policy-makers and politicians as the state assumes an increasingly active role in the management of, and control over, their behaviour and organisation This book concentrates on the regulation of political parties in the EU post-communist democracies, and on Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, in particular. In analysing the various dimensions of party regulation, it builds on the main premises derived from the neo-institutionalist literature in political science, concerning the ways in which the (formal and informal) rules and procedures may influence, constrain or determine the behaviour of political actors. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive overview of the regulation of Eastern European political parties provided by leading experts in the field and casts theoretical and empirical light on the manner in which the constitutional and legal regulation of party organizations and finances have had an impact (or not) on the consolidation of party politics in post-communist Europe since 1989. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Political Parties and Behaviour, East European and Post-Communist Politics and Comparative Politics.

This key volume explores how party and campaign finance in post-communist countries have influenced the development of the party system. Based on an analysis of nine case studies, the work examines how the implementation of public finance affects the pattern of party competition and the role of money in elections. One of the lessons from the post-communist experience is that, no matter how well-designed, public finance systems are subject to constant revision as parties, politicians and business elites exploit loopholes which can undermine the integrity of the entire system. Party and campaign finance systems must therefore be considered in a larger discussion involving party regulation and electoral rules.

This book provides the first systematic book length study of political parties across Central Europe since 1989, and provides new tools and conceptual frameworks that can be used to explain party politics in other regions across the globe.

This major study examines the regeneration of the former communist parties in East Central Europe after 1989.