It’s Been Mostly About Money! A Multi-method Research Approach to the Sources of Institutionalization
Abstract
Although much has been written about the process of party system institutionalization in different regions, the reasons why some party systems institutionalize while others do not still remain a mystery. Seeking to fill this lacuna in the literature, and using a mixed-methods research approach, this article constitutes a first attempt to answer simultaneously the following three questions: (1) What specific factors help party systems to institutionalize (or not)? (2) What are the links (in terms of time and degree) as well as the causal mechanisms behind such relationships? and (3) how do they affect a particular party system? In order to do so, this article focuses on the study of party system development and institutionalization in 13 postcommunist democracies between 1990 and 2010. Methodologically, the article innovates in five respects. First, it continues the debate on the importance of “mixed methods” when trying to answer different research questions. Second, it adds to the as yet brief literature on the combination of process tracing and qualitative comparative analysis. Third, it constitutes the first attempt to date to use a most similar different outcome/most different same outcome procedure in order to reduce causal complexity before undertaking a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis. Third, it also shows the merits of combining both congruence and process tracing in the same comparative study. Finally, it also develops a novel “bipolar comparative method” to explain the extent to which opposite outcomes are determined by reverse conditions and conflicting intervening causal forces.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Bartolini S., Mair P. 1990. Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability: The Stabilization of European Electorates 1885-1985. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Beach D., Pedersen R. B. 2013. Process-tracing Methods. Foundations and Guidelines. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Benoit K., Laver M. 2006. Party Policy in Modern Democracies. London, UK: Routledge.
Berg-Schlosser D., De Meur G. 2009. “Comparative Research Design: Case and Variable Selection.” Pp. 19–32 in Configurational Comparative Methods, edited by Rihoux Benoit, Ragin Charles C. London, UK: Sage.
Bielasiak J. 2002. “The Institutionalization of Electoral and Party Systems in Postcommunist States.” Comparative Politics 34:189–210
Birnir J. K. 2005. “Public Venture Capital and Party Institutionalization.” Comparative Political Studies 38:915–38.
Brewer J., Hunter A. 2006. Foundations of Multimethod Research: Synthesizing Styles. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Caporaso J. 2009. “Is There a Quantitative-qualitative Divide in Comparative Politics? The Case of Process Tracing.” Pp. 66–84 in Sage Handbook of Comparative Politics, edited by Landman Todd, Robinson Neil. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Casal Bértoa F. 2012. “Parties, Regimes and Cleavages: Explaining Party System Institutionalization in East Central Europe.” East European Politics 28:452–72.
Casal Bértoa F. 2013. “Post-communist Politics: On the Convergence or Divergence of East and West.” Government and Opposition 48:398–433.
Casal Bértoa F. 2014. “Party Systems and Cleavage Structures Revisited: A Sociological Explanation to Party System Institutionalization in East Central Europe.” Party Politics 20:16–36.
Casal Bértoa F. 2015. “Party System Institutionalization. A Travelling Concept?” In Party Politics and Democracy in Europe: Essays in Honour of Peter Mair, edited by Müller-Rommel Ferdinand, Bértoa Fernando Casal. 117-30. New York: Routledge.
Casal Bértoa F., Enyedi Z. 2014. “Party System Closure and Openness: Conceptualization, Operationalization and Validation.” Party Politics. Accessed September 9, 2014 http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/09/08/1354068814549340.abstract.
Casal Bértoa F., Mair P. 2012. “Party System Institutionalization across Time in Post-communist Europe.” In Party Government in the New Europe, edited by Müller-Rommel Ferdinand, Keman Hans, 85-112. London, UK: Routledge.
Casal Bértoa F., Spirova M. 2013. “Get a Subsidy or Perish! Party Funding and Party Survival in Europe.” The Legal Regulation of Political Parties Working Paper Series (n. 29), Leiden University.
Cooper B., Glaesser J. 2012. “Qualitative Work and the Testing and Development of Theory: Lessons from a Study Combining Cross-case and Within-case Analysis via Ragin’s QCA.” Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research 13:art.4.
Deegan-Krause K., Haughton T. 2015. “Hurricane Season: Systems of Instability in Central and East European Party Politics.” East European Politics and Societies. 29:61–80.
De Meur C., Berg-Schlosser D. 1994. “Comparing Political Systems—Establishing Similarities and Dissimilarities.” European Journal of Political Research 26:193–219.
De Meur C., Bursens P., Gottcheiner A. 2006. “MSDO/MDSO Revisited for Public Policy Analysis.” Pp. 67–94 in Innovative Comparative Methods for Policy Analysis, edited by Rihoux B., Grimm H. New York: Springer.
De Meur C., Gottcheiner A. 2009. “The Logic and Assumptions of MSDO-MDSO Designs.” Pp. 208–21 in The SAGE Handbook of Case-based Methods, edited by Byrne David, Ragin Charles C. London, UK: Sage.
Duvold K., Jurkynas M. 2004. “Lithuania.” In The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, edited by Berglund Sten, Ekman Joakim, Aarebrot Frank H., 133–80. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Enyedi Z. 2006. “The Survival of the Fittest: Party System Concentration in Hungary.” Pp. 231–32 in Post-communist EU Member States, edited by Jungerstam-Mulders Susanne. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Enyedi Z. 2007. “Party Funding in Hungary.” In Political Finance and Corruption in Eastern Europe, edited by Smilov Daniel, Toplak Jurij, 91-104. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Enyedi Z., Bértoa Casal. 2011. “Patterns of Inter-party Competition (1990–2009).” In Europeanizing Party Politics? Comparative Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Lewis Paul G., Markowski Radosław, 116–42. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Enyedi Z., Tóka G. 2007. “The Only Game in Town: Party Politics in Hungary.” In Party Politics in New Democracies, edited by Webb Paul, White Stephen, 149–78. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
George A. L., Bennett A. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gerring J. 2007. Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grofman B., Schneider C. Q. 2009. “An Introduction to Crisp Set QCA, with a Comparison to Binary Logistic Regression.” Political Research Quarterly 20:1–11.
Haughton T., Krasovec A. 2013. “The 2011 Parliamentary Elections in Slovenia.” Electoral Studies 32:201–4.
Huntington S. P. 1968. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Johnson E. P. 2002. “Streams of Least Resistance: The Institutionalization of Political Parties and Democracy in Indonesia.” PhD Diss., University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Katz R. S., Mair P. 1995. “Changing Models of Party Organization and Party Democracy: The Emergence of the Cartel Party.” Party Politics 1:5–28.
Kitschelt H. 1995. “Formation of Party Cleavages in Post-communist Democracies.” Parties Politics 1:447–72.
Kopstein J. 2003. “Post-communist Democracy: Legacies and Outcomes.” Comparative Politics 35:231–50.
Ladrech R. 2011. “(Shallow) Europeanization and Party System Instability in Post-communist States: How Changing Constraints Undermine the Development of Stable Partisan Linkages.” In Europeanizing Party Politics? Comparative Perspectives on Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Lewis Paul G., Markowski Radosław, 218–35. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.
Lindberg S. I. 2007. “Institutionalization of Party Systems? Stability and Fluidity among Legislative Parties in Africa’s Democracies.” Government and Opposition 42:215–41.
Linz J. 1990. “The Perils of Presidentialism.” Journal of Democracy 1:51–69.
Lipset S. M., Rokkan S. 1967. “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems and Voter Alignments: An Introduction.” In Party Systems and Voter Alignments, edited by Lipset Seymour M., Rokkan Stein, 1–64. New York: Free Press.
Madrid R. 2005. “Ethnic Cleavages and Electoral Volatility in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 38:1–20.
Mainwaring S. 1999. Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Mainwaring S., Scully T. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Mainwaring S., Zoco E. 2007. “Political Sequences and the Stabilization of Inter-party Competition.” Party Politics 13:155–78.
Meleshevich A. 2007. Party Systems in Post-Soviet Countries: A Comparative Study of Political Institutionalization in the Baltic States, Russia, and Ukraine. New York: Palgrave.
Morlino L. 1998. Democracy between Consolidation and Crisis: Parties, Groups, and Citizens in Southern Europe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Pedersen M. N. 1979. “The Dynamics of European Party Systems: Changing Patterns of Electoral Volatility.” European Journal of Political Research 7:1–26.
Przeworski A., Limongi F. 1997. “Modernization: Theories and Facts.” World Politics 49:155–83.
Przeworski A., Teune H. 1970. The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry. New York: John Wiley.
Ragin C. C. 1987. The Comparative Method: Moving beyond Qualitative and Quantitative Strategies. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Ragin C. C. 2008. Redesigning Social Inquiry: Fuzzy Sets and beyond. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Ramonaitė A. 2006. “The Development of the Lithuanian Party System: From Stability to Perturbation.” Pp. 76–81 in Post-communist EU Member States, edited by Jungerstam-Mulders Susanne. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Remmer K. L. 1985. “Redemocratization and the Impact of Authoritarian Rule in Latin America.” Comparative Politics 17:253–75.
Rihoux B. 2006. “Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Related Systematic Comparative Methods: Recent Advances and Remaining Challenges for Social Science Research.” International Sociology 21:679.
Rihoux B., Ragin C. C., eds. 2009. Configurational Comparative Methods. London, UK: Sage.
Roberts K. M., Wibbels E. 1999. “Party Systems and Electoral Volatility in Latin America: A Test of Economic, Institutional, and Structural Explanations.” American Political Science Review 93:575–90.
Sartori G. 1976. Parties and Party Systems. A Framework for Analysis. Vol. I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Scarrow S. E. 2006. “Party Subsidies and the Freezing of Party Competition: Do Cartel Mechanisms Work?” West European Politics 29:619–39.
Schneider C. Q., Rohlfing I. 2013. “Combining QCA and Process Tracing in Set-theoretic Multi-method Research.” Sociological Methods and Research 42:559–97.
Schneider C. Q., Wagemann C. 2010. “Standards of Good Practice in Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and Fuzzy-sets.” Comparative Sociology 9:397–418.
Schneider C. Q., Wagemann C. 2012. Set-theoretic Methods for the Social Sciences: A Guide to Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Spirova M. 2007. Political Parties in Post-communist Societies: Formation, Persistence and Change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stegmaier M., Linek L. 2014. “The Parliamentary Election in the Czech Republic, October 2013.” Electoral Studies 35:385–88.
Stockton H. 2001. “Political Parties, Party Systems, and Democracy in East Asia: Lessons from Latin America.” Comparative Political Studies 34:94–119.
Tarrow S. 2010. “The Strategy of Paired Comparison: Toward a Theory of Practice.” Comparative Political Studies 43:230–59.
Tavits M. 2005. “The Development of Stable Party Support: Electoral Dynamics in Post-communist Europe.” American Journal of Political Science 49:283–98.
Tóka G. 2004. “Hungary.” In The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe, edited by Berglund Sten, Ekman Joakim, Aarebrot Frank H., 289–336. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.
Toole J. 2000. “Government Formation and Party System Stabilization in East Central Europe.” Party Politics 6:441–61.
Tucker J. A. 2006. Regional Economic Voting: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, 1990-1999. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vachudová M. 2008. “Tempered by the EU? Political Parties and Party Systems before and after Accession.” Journal of European Public Policy 15:871–79.
Biographies
Fernando Casal Bértoa is a Nottingham Research fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations. He is also the codirector of the Centre for Comparative and Political Research (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ccpr/index.aspx) at the University of Nottingham. His work has been published in Party Politics, Democratization, Government and Opposition, International Political Science Review, South European Society and Politics, and East European Politics.
Supplementary Material
Files in this Data Supplement:
