Sejm parties change: Party Institutionalization and Legislative Organization in The Polish Legislature (original) (raw)
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Party system institutionalization in new democracies: Polanda trend-setter with no followers
Paul G. Lewis (szerk.) Party Development and …, 2001
The aim of this paper is to explain the development of the Polish party system. And not just any development, but its' institutionalization-a topic recently dealt with by many scholars (Lewis 1994; Morlino 1995; Mainwaring and Scully 1995; Toka 1997) 1. Moreover, an attempt is made to link two-believed by many to be causally related-phenomena: party system institutionalization and democratic consolidation. The approach of political science tends to see parties and party system institutionalization as-certainly not a sufficient, but clearly a necessary-prerequisite of democratic consolidation. And even though the intensity of this claim varies considerably, the general expectation is that the "appropriate" sequence of development is as indicated above. In this paper an attempt is made to convince the reader that the Polish case proves to be to the contrary. In a way this represents "bad news" for institutionally oriented political scientists-the institutionalization of parties comes last, as the finale of other consolidating changes, not as their precondition. The sequence of events shows that the macroeconomic success occurred first, this being followed by its positive subjective evaluation, then by an increase in satisfaction with democracy and-more importantly-in growth of diffuse political support, and only finally by party system institutionalization. The latter phenomenon should not, however, be confused with the institutionalization of parties themselves-this process is still ahead of us. The paper consists of several broad sections. The first focuses on different aspects and indicators of party system institutionalization and dwells on its manifestations in Poland. In section two the issue of democratic consolidation is discussed together with its crucial sub-indicator-the diffuse political support phenomenon. By disentangling this notion, tracing its unblurred, clear manifestations in Poland we expect to shed light on the extent to which democratic consolidation has been achieved. Section three looks into the "shape" of the party system-its polarization, issue structuring and the space of competition it delineates. In the fourth section, we take a glance at the meaning and salience of the left-right semantics. Finally, in the concluding part I try to interpret the overall relationship between the phenomena discussed and their particular manifestations. The design of the paper is comparative in nature; testing certain hypotheses needs both diachronic and synchronic approaches. Comparisons are thus both: in time (for Poland 1991-97) and in space (mainly within the ECE region). Polish Party System-Institutionalization or Fragility? (a) Party System Institutionalization-its Manifestations and Indicators As a starting point in conceptualizing the party system institutionalization Mainwaring and Scully's (1995) proposal serves us well. They put forward four indicators, constitutive elements of an institutionalized party system: (i) stability in inter-party competition; (ii) the existence of parties with stable roots in society; (iii) the acceptance of those parties and of elections as the legitimate means by which the public determines who governs; (iv) the existence of party organizations with stable rules and structures. Finally, an important remark is made that "institutionalizing a party system is important to the process of democratic consolidation" (p.4). We shall often return to this point in the remainder of the paper. There are other approaches to the analysis of party system institutionalization. Morlino prefers to talk of "party system structuring" or of "party system stabilization"(1995: 316 ff.). He enumerates its' several broad indicators-electoral volatility, frequency of critical elections and stabilization of the political class, especially at the outset of democracy's installation. This 1 The subtitle of the article is partly borrowed from Paul Lewis' conference paper Parties and Parliaments in East Central Europe: Poland as a Trend-Setter. Hardly anybody would disagree with the general assessment of Poland's pioneering role in the region, and equally with the claim that the "Polish status as a trend-setter of democratisation in the communist world did not make its own path any easier" (Lewis 1999: 4). The data presented in this article aim at showing that the Polish route to both a market economy and consolidated democracy, reveals idiosyncrasies considerably different from theoretical expectations and the experience of other countries' of the region as regards the sequence and patterned relationship between phenomena believed to be associated with party system institutionalization. parties has influenced the peculiarities of Poland as described. (7) A clearly alternative path of development took place in Hungary: parties came first, relatively well organized and believed by many to be "frozen too early". They had certainly preceded the most dramatic economic change that occurred only in spring of 1995. Meanwhile no visible changes in satisfaction with democracy or in the positive attitudes as regards the old regime and economy, accompanied by criticism of the new ones, are visible till 1998 (Rose & Haerpfer 1998). As of 1997/98 the comparison of the two genuine first-comers to the transformation does not show any-previously broadly alleged-superiority for the Hungarian party system in terms of its institutionalization as defined in this article. The same number of effective parties, almost the same below-five percent vote share is accompanied by two differentiating factors: considerably higher voter volatility in Hungary 1994-98 than in Poland 1993-97 (34 : 19) and relatively higher electoral participation in Hungary (though lower between 1994 and 1998, by some 12 percent). What remains indisputable is the much better state of parties' internal organization and institutionalization as well as their parliamentary behavior in Hungary. Briefly put-the two routes to the ultimate goals of the market economy and consolidated democracy lead via a different order of both the occurrence and importance of associated phenomena. In particular, the parties' and party system institutionalization seem to play a substantially different role. These two examples of recent successful transformation show that the theoretical predictions concerning the relationship between party system institutionalization and democratic consolidation are far from empirical reality.
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