Post Communist and Soviet Parliament - Norton and Olson

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Post-Communist and Post-

Soviet Parliaments: Divergent
Paths from Transition
David M. Olson & Philip Norton
Published online: 05 Jun 2008.
To cite this article: David M. Olson & Philip Norton (2007) Post-Communist and
Post-Soviet Parliaments: Divergent Paths from Transition, The Journal of Legislative
Studies, 13:1, 164-196, DOI: 10.1080/13572330601165477
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13572330601165477
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Post-Communist and Post-Soviet
Parliaments: Divergent Paths from
Transition
D A V I D M . O L S O N and P H I L I P N O R T O N
The initial decade experience of six post-authoritarian parliaments following the end of
the Cold War suggests four types: the transitional presidential-conflict parliaments
(Moldova, Poland, Russia), and at the end of the decade, the pluralist democratic par-
liaments (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia), the majoritarian democratic parliament
(Hungary), and the presidentially dominated parliaments (Moldova, Russia). They
experienced changes through four paths: constitutional and party system contexts,
the members, internal organisation and parliamentary– government relationships. At
the end of the initial decade, the Central European parliaments act more as legislating
parliaments and the post-Soviet parliaments more as presidentially dominated, than the
legitimising parliaments in Southern Europe.
Among the more than two dozen post-communist and post-Soviet parliaments
and their political systems, the six examined in this volume display two
distinct and very different patterns of development in the initial decade.
They lend plausibility to a number of our hypotheses but challenge the
thesis as to the move from legislation to legitimation. One set of countries
– the Central European parliaments of the Czech Republic, Hungary,
Poland and Slovenia – are becoming stable democracies, while the other
set – the post-Soviet states of Russia and Moldova – are becoming authoritar-
ian. In the first set, the parliaments are becoming stable, organised, active and
independent bodies, while in the second set, the parliaments are becoming
subject to presidential control. We can also identify notable differences
within the emerging democracies, leading to the development of three types
of parliaments: presidentially dominated, pluralistic democratic, and
majoritarian democratic. There was also a fourth, transitional type, of
presidential – parliamentary conflict early within the initial decade.
David M. Olson is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science, University of North
Carolina at Greensboro. Philip Norton (Lord Norton of Louth) is Professor of Government at the
University of Hull.
The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.13, No.1, March 2007, pp.164–196

ISSN 1357-2334 print=1743-9337 online
DOI: 10.1080=13572330601165477 # 2007 Taylor & Francis
POST-COMMUNIST AND POST-SOVIET PARLIAMENTS 165
THE CHANGING INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS OF
BEGINNING PARLIAMENTS
In our introduction, we identified the election process and the party system, as
well as the system of government established by the constitution, as key vari-
ables in shaping the legislature and forming the basis of equilibrium. To what
extent has the experience of the post-communist and post-Soviet regimes lent
plausibility to our hypotheses? To what extent has there been the development
of competitive elections, a rationalisation of the number of parties and changes
in the electoral process to facilitate competition between large parties or
coalitions?
Elections and Party Systems: From Votes to Power

In Central European states, anti-communist reform movements dominated the
initial elections in the 1989– 92 period. The initial election was dominated by
broad ad hoc reform movements, illustrated by Solidarity in Poland, Civic
Forum in the Czech Republic and Demos in Slovenia, all of which began to
collapse into fragments in the first term of office. In Moldova, Poland and
Slovenia, pre-democratic term elections produced parliaments which were
instrumental in the development of post-authoritarian parliaments.
In only the Czech Republic has any portion of the initial anti-communist
movement continued as a single large party (Civic Democrats – Civic
Democratic Party (ODS)). In Hungary, the initial reform party (Hungarian
Democratic Forum (MDF)) continues as a small party, displaced by a new
party (Fidesz). In Slovenia, several anti-communist parties continue, while
in Poland, the reform (and also post-reform) parties are many and ephemeral.1
In three countries (Hungary, Poland, Slovenia), the reformed survivor of the
Communist Party has become a full participant in democratic politics, while
in the Czech Republic it has not been accepted by other parties as a genuine
democratic party.2
In the two post-Soviet states considered in this book, the initial reform
parties have disappeared, with Communist parties continuing as important pol-
itical forces. The Communist Party won a majority of parliamentary seats in
Moldova in 2001 and 2004 and remained as one of the few viable opposition
parties to President Putin in Russia in the elections of 2000 and 2004.3
Each of our six countries has multi-party systems, electing parliament
through some form of proportional representation in multi-member districts.
As variations, both the Russian Duma and the Hungarian Parliament have
mixed systems, in which a set of members is elected in single-member districts
in a majority election system, together with a set of members (usually half)
from multi-member districts.4 Moldova has the most distinctive election
system in that the whole country (because a part is under secessionist military
166 THE JOURNAL OF LEGISLATIVE STUDIES
control and thus does not vote) serves as a single district. Very different elec-
tion systems and district configurations are employed in the senates. The result
in the Czech Republic has been a different party configuration in the Senate
than in the Chamber of Deputies, while the party results in Poland and
Russia have been similar in the two chambers.
Each election system concentrates votes from many voters into a few
parties. The vote concentration process continues beyond the election into par-
liament in the conversion of shares of votes into shares of power. Parliaments
impose their own rules to concentrate small numbers of party deputies into
fewer and larger parliamentary party groups.
While there is considerable variation in electoral systems in our set of six
parliaments, the trend is consistent both over time and among countries:
reduction of the number of political parties over time, and, in any one election,
through successive stages from votes to parliamentary party groups in a
system of electoral filters. The one exception, Moldova in 2004, illustrates
the tenuous links between electoral slates and party formation both externally
and within parliament.
The progressive reduction of the number of party participants through five
successive stages from election into parliament is shown as a set of electoral
filters in Table 1. In each of the several elections for each of the parliaments in
the initial decade, the number of parties usually declines through the five steps
from initial election to parliamentary party group (PPG) formation.
The number of parties exceeding the electoral threshold (usually five per
cent of the vote) is smaller than the number of parties in the election (measured
parsimoniously as those receiving 1.5 per cent of the vote or more). The
‘effective number’ of parties in the election, an index measuring the number
and relative size of the vote received by each of the parties, is likewise
smaller.5
The number of electoral parties, however, is not the same as the number
of parliamentary party groups (PPGs) actually formed in parliament
following any one election, as measured by the last two sets of numbers in
the table.
Electoral slates do not easily or simply translate into parliamentary party
groups. In addition to the complications of electoral slate composition and
electoral system effects, each parliament, as we have seen, has its own rules
and procedures imposing limitations on the formation of party groups. The
intended consequence is to further concentrate the dispersed vote into a
small number of organised participants in the exercise of power. In the
early elections, however, the number of parliamentary party groups was
larger than the number of electoral slates, especially in Poland and Russia.
Electoral slates were sometimes temporary coalitions of disparate elements
which, upon entry into parliament, split into its constituent parts.6
TABLE 1
ELECTORAL FILTERS: NUMBER OF PARTIES BY VOTES AND SEATS IN SIX
PARLIAMENTS BY FIVE MEASURES, TERMS 1 – 4
Terms
Parliament Pre 1 2 3 4
Czech Republic 1990 1992 1996 1998 2002

N parties over 1.5% of vote 8 15 9 7 6
N parties over threshold 4 8 6 5 4
Effective N electoral parties 3.5 7.3 5.3 4.7 4.8
N PPGs 4 8 6 5 5
Effective N PPGs 2.2 4.8 4.15 3.17 3.81
Hungary 1990 1994 1998 2002

N parties over 1.5% of vote 11 10 8 6
N parties over threshold 6 6 5 3
Effective N electoral parties 6.7 5.5 4.5 2.8
N PPGs 7 7 7 4
Effective N PPGs 3.78 2.88 3.45 2.5
Moldova 1990 1994 1998 2001
N parties over 1.5% of vote – 8 10 10
N parties over threshold – 4 4 3
Effective N electoral parties – 3.9 5.7 3.5
N PPGs 6 4 4 3
Effective N PPGs 3.37 2.62 3.43 1.85
Poland 1989 1991 1993 1997 2001
N parties over 1.5% of vote – 13 15 9 8
N parties over threshold – 9 6 5 6
Effective N electoral parties – 13.8 9.8 3.5 4.5
N PPGs 5 20 7 5 8
Effective N PPGs 3.37 10.96 3.88 2.95 4.14
Russia 1993 1995 1999 2003
N parties over 1.5% of vote 10 15 6 6
N parties over threshold 8 4 6 4
Effective N electoral parties 6.2 5.2 3.2 2.01
N PPGs 11 7 9 4
Effective N PPGs 8.4 5.6 7.7 2.01
Slovenia 1990 1992 1996 2000 2004
N parties over 1.5% of vote – 12 9 8 10
N parties over threshold – 8 7 8 7
Effective N electoral parties – 8.4 6.2 5.2 5.9
N PPGs 9 9 8 9 8
Effective N PPGs 8.21 6.59 5.52 4.85 4.89
Source: Center for Legislative Studies ’The Initial Decade: Elections and Parliamentary Parties in
Post-Communist and Post-Soviet Parliaments. Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Poland,
Russia, and Slovenia’ Greensboro, NC: UNCG.
Over the decade span of four elections (three in Moldova), each of the
five measures of party and party system in Table 1 has declined (except for
Slovenia), showing a progressive concentration of the party system. But
variation in the parliamentary party numbers is much less than in the
electoral measures. After major changes in the early terms of the Central
European parliaments, the effective number of parliamentary party groups
has not varied much across terms. Restrictions on parliamentary group for-
mation operated much earlier and with greater effect than did electoral
restrictions.
Changes in the number and concentration of parliamentary party groups in
the post-Soviet parliaments, however, has been much more pronounced than
in the Central European cases. Few parties have lasted over two election
cycles and the number and configuration of parties has varied markedly
from one term to the next.
There have been many attempts to revise electoral law to alter election
outcomes. The electoral threshold, for example, has been raised by a per-
centage point or two, with dramatic effect in Moldova. As detailed by Nale-
wajko and Wesołowski in this volume, Poland has several times revised its
election system to counter persistent fragmentation of the vote. At the end
of the decade, the electoral law for both Russian chambers was under major
change. The Baltic States provide other examples of election system exper-
imentation.7 The most drastic attempted revision of electoral law occurred
in an agreement between the Czech Social Democrats (in minority govern-
ment) and its largest opposition party (ODS) to increase a likelihood of a
two party system (themselves) through the introduction of many new and
small districts with a revised seat allocation formula. As we have seen,
the law was passed by the Chamber, in which they together had a majority,
but was subsequently declared unconstitutional.
Constant dissatisfaction with existing election law and outcomes illus-
trates the way in which an institutional constraint is neither acquired nor
accepted in the initial decade of new parliaments in new political systems.
The constraints are continuously being designed, often in reaction to the
most recent election. Nevertheless, the proportional representation election
systems, with many variations, have had a cumulative and fairly consistent
impact. The threshold requirement appears to have been a major factor in
the reduction of the number of parties in the many steps between an election
and the formation of parliamentary parties, as especially observed in Poland
and Moldova.8
While all six parliaments have been multi-party throughout the first
decade, they vary in both the number of parliamentary party groups and in
their relative strengths. The relatively stable and continuous parties and
party systems of Hungary and the Czech Republic contrast with the instability
and discontinuity of party system and of party in Russia and Moldova. Slove-
nia with many continuous small parties, and the Polish party system with a
continuing core of parties contending with a flow of new and episodic
parties, are intermediate conditions.
The party systems of Central European parliaments have stabilised in the
range of four to seven electoral parties over the threshold, with five to eight
parliamentary party groups each term. Ilonszki notes a ‘majoritarian’ trend
in Hungary. The post-Soviet states have three to four electoral parties as
well as parliamentary party groups, though both Russia and Moldova have
had major fluctuations from one election to the next. Further, single large
parties in each parliament result in the effective number of parties at two or
below. There is thus a difference between our two sets of countries, though
also a difference between all six and established democracies. Compared
both to longer term democracies and to new parliaments elsewhere, there is
a pervasive instability and tentativeness in both party system and in individual
party existence in post-communist and post-Soviet states.9

The greatest reduction in the effective parliamentary party index has
occurred only in the last two terms of the Russian Duma and more recently
in Moldova, showing that the concentration of the vote is approaching the
status of a non-competitive political system. What the index cannot show is
that the largest parties are each allied to a constitutionally powerful president.
The Basis of Government: Parliament or President

The prime minister and governing cabinet are, potentially at least, both the
creatures of parliament and its leaders in policy and politics. A parliament-
dependent government is found in each of the four Central European states,
but in both post-Soviet states, Russia and Moldova, the president is the
appointing and dismissal authority. While this distinction is grounded in
their hybrid constitutional structures, the ways in which the relative powers
and capacities of president, government and parliament are utilised are both
contingent and variable.10
In the four Central European post-communist democracies, parliamentary
elections are the key to government formation and survival. In only a single
election during the first post-communist decade has any one party held a
majority of parliamentary seats (Hungary, 1994). In all cases, the government
has been a multi-party coalition forged from the distribution of party seats
resulting from the previous election (Table 2). In each case, with exceptions
of several mid-term substitute cabinets, the new prime minister has been the
leader of one of the coalition parliamentary parties. In each, however, the
replacement cabinet has had parliamentary approval. The cabinets have
varied in size and also durability.11
There have been only two genuinely minority governments, both of which
failed mid-term (Poland, 1991; Czech Republic, 1996). The 1998 Czech
government, though based upon only a 37 per cent share of party seats
(Social Democrats – CSSD), was not fully a minority government; it
enjoyed support in office but not policy agreement by the leading opposition
TABLE 2
PARLIAMENTARY BASIS OF GOVERNMENT SUPPORT BY COUNTRY AND
ELECTION YEAR
Prime Minister Government Parties

Election
Country Years Name Party % seats N Parties
Czech Rep. 1992 Klaus ODS 52.5 4

1996 Klaus ODS 49.5 3
1998 Zeman CSSD 37 1
2002 Špidla CSSD 50.5 3
Hungary 1990 Antall MDF 59.3 3
1994 Horn MSZP 72.2 2
1998 Orban Fidesz 55.1 3

Moldova 1994 Sangheli PDAM 53.9 1
1998 Ciubuc Indep. 61 2
2001 Tarlev PCRM 70.3 1
Poland 1991 Olszewski PC 27.5 4
1993 Pawlak PSL 65.9 2
1997 Buzek AWS 56.7 2
2001 Miller SLD 56.1 2
Slovenia 1992 Drnovšek LDS 61.1 4
1996 Drnovšek LDS 54.4 4
2000 Drnovšek LDS 68.8 4
2004 Janša SKD 54.4 4
Notes: Government formation at beginning of each term; information as of 31 Sept. 2004. Russian
Duma not relevant to this table.
Party abbreviations: ODS: Civic Democratic Party; CSSD: Czech Social Democratic Party; MDF:
Hungarian Democratic Forum; MSZP: Hungarian Socialist Party; Fidesz: This term has how now
become the party name; PDAM: Democratic Agrarian Party of Moldova; PCRM: Party of commu-
nists; PC: Center Alliance; PSL: Polish Peasants’ Party; AWS: Solidarity Electoral Action; SLD:
Democratic Left Alliance; LDS: Liberal Democratic Party; SKD: Party of Christian Democrats.

Indicates government changed midterm; replacement governments not included.
Sources: (2001) Specific parliament chapters this volume and S. Berglund, J. Eckman and
F. Araebrot (eds.), The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe (Cheltenham: Edward
Elgar).
party (ODS). All other governments in the four Central European countries
have been multi-party majority coalitions, half of which have also failed
mid-term and been replaced by successor governments.
The almost accidental vote of no confidence in an early Polish government
did lead to an early election to conclude a difficult term. As a direct result, the
new constitution requires a ‘constructive vote of no confidence’, as does Hun-
gary’s. The new Polish constitution was written by parliament to curb powers
originally designed for a communist, but also transitional, president (General
Jaruzelski), and then vigorously exercised by his Solidarity successor
(Wałe˛sa). The Sejm’s declaration of a limited presidency, that ‘[a] dissolution
of Parliament by the President . . . will be considered illegal by the Sejm’ was
issued in the midst of constitutional negotiations.12 The Hungarian provision
for a constructive vote of no confidence is part of the strong constitutional
status of the government and especially the prime minister, leading to the
characterisation of Hungary as a ‘Chancellor democracy’.13 Coupled with
the majoritarian tendencies in the party system, the government has been
much more stable than in the other three democratic post-communist parlia-
ments considered in this volume.
Parliamentary support has been useful to Russian governments, but not
essential to their survival. Though the Russian constitution expresses the prin-
ciple of separation of powers, governments serve at the pleasure of the presi-
dent. In addition, unlike in Central Europe, the Russian president has

unfettered decree powers, resembling those of Latin American presidents.14
The cabinet – parliament relationship has been more precarious in Moldova.
Governments can be defeated by parliament. More importantly, however, pre-
sidents and rivals both create their own parties in parliamentary elections and
contest the powers of parliament in the constitution. Similar politico-consti-
tutional contests have been observed in Slovakia15 and Croatia16 and also in
other post-Soviet states, illustrated by Ukraine and Armenia.17
The democratic post-communist countries resemble the parliamentary
government model of Western Europe, with either majority or minority
governments supported by parliament. By contrast, the two post-Soviet
countries are developing their own model of a presidentially dependent parlia-
ment. Attempts by presidents to expand their constitutional powers in both
Russia and Moldova illustrate, along with the Polish experience, how the
constitution can be more a source of dispute than of stability. With the asser-
tion of strong and successful presidential leadership of party and parliament in
both Russia and Moldova, then, as Remington has observed in this volume,
‘Parliament’s actual role . . . is shaped less by the constitutional setting than
by the way in which constitutional processes and institutions work in practice’.
Interactive Contexts of Party System and Constitutional Structure

in the Beginning
Parliaments have been active participants in the shaping of both the electoral
and governmental contextual relationships within which they have functioned
in the initial decade. At the same time, both relationships form the immediate
context within which they think and act in any one term. The relatively stable
party systems of Hungary, Slovenia and the Czech Republic interact with the
relatively stable relationships among parliament, government and president.
The more troubled relationships in Poland in the first half of the decade
both reflected and helped shape its more fluid and shifting party system
during the whole decade. Likewise, the persistent fragmentation of many
parties coupled with the emergence of a presidential single dominant party in

the post-Soviet states both reflects and impacts upon the presidential –
government –parliament relationship.
The intersection of constitution and electoral system creates the major con-
textual boundaries within which new political systems function. A comparative
analysis of privatisation policy-making, for example, noted the many differ-
ences between Poland and the Czech Republic.18 While in Latin America fac-
tionalised parties can undermine presidential authority, in post-Soviet states
presidential power can overwhelm political parties.19 The constitution task
may be quiescent but is never completed. Nalewajko and Wesołowski note
the revival of constitutional issues at the end of the fifth term in Poland,
leading to the possibility of a new constitution for a new republic.

One of the main functions of parliaments and also of presidents in the
initial decade has been to form political parties and shape an entirely new
party system. In democratic political systems of Central Europe, party
formation has been parliament-centric, while party formation has been more
presidentially stimulated in the post-Soviet states. In these respects, party
system formation in neither the post-communist nor post-Soviet states has
closely followed the experience of West European party systems.20
The party formation function has accompanied the constitutional design
function.21 While some of the original pacts, especially in Hungary, have sur-
vived as the frame for post-communist democracy, constitution creation was
required in each of the new states resulting from the collapse of federations
and also in Poland. But constitutional conflict has continued in the post-
Soviet states.
Models of parliaments in stable Western democratic systems emphasise
the importance of known and fixed constraints to shape immediate behaviour,
while in both the new democracies and the post-Soviet states, those contexts
are subject to controversy and change. They are being shaped and put into
place as part of the process by which political actors in new political
systems enter and act in office. The beginning contexts are a moving target.
THE NEW MEMBERS OF NEW PARLIAMENTS
Members of parliament in the initial decade, as noted by Ilonszki and Edinger

in this volume, have gone through a progression of types from the non-political
amateurs of communist legislatures to political amateurs of transitional
bodies. Whether they are in the process of becoming political professionals
at the end of the decade was not clear.
The social mirror profile of members, imposed earlier by communist self-
definition, has been replaced by a changing profile of members in the post-
authoritarian decade. The initial or transitional set were largely from teaching
and a variety of professions. These occupations, under communism, were rela-
tively free from party control and thus had the greatest opportunity to develop
both ideas and skills useful upon communist system collapse. By the end of the
decade, however, the largest occupational group in parliament consisted of
managers and businessmen. In addition, the proportion of deputies drawn
from the higher civil service has increased, while the proportion of the
initial major occupational groups declined. The Russian Duma, as an excep-
tion, has had a marked increase in members from the military. The increase
in engineering and agricultural occupations in Moldova includes managers
of agricultural state farms and large-scale cooperatives, and in the Duma man-
agers of state enterprises.
A marked change over the decade has been the rapid increase in the political
experience of new deputies. In the first or transitional election, the proportion of
members with prior political experience, as noted by Ilonszki and Edinger,
varied from a low of 15 per cent in Hungary to a high of 67 per cent in
Russia and 86 per cent in Poland. The very high rate in Poland indicates the
powerful transitional effect of the 1989 ‘contract’ election, occurring prior to
the Hungarian and Czech initial elections. For seven parliaments together,
the members with prior political experience have risen from an average of 42
per cent in the initial election to 74 per cent in the fourth election. Poland and
Russia are exceptions to this trend in prior political experience. Poland has con-
tinued at a very high rate, in which 80 per cent or more of members in any one
term have had prior political office experience. Russia, among the seven parlia-
ments reviewed in the contribution on member attributes, is the only one in
which the proportion of members with prior political experience has decreased.
The bulk of prior political experience has been at the local level, for turn-
over in parliament has remained fairly high. For nine parliaments (including
four examined in this volume), the average turnover rate in the second election
was 70 per cent, declining to 54 per cent in the fifth election. Hungary, the
Czech Republic and also Slovenia had the lowest average turnover rates (50
per cent) in the fifth election, while Poland and Russia (and also Moldova)
had the highest average turnover rates at around 60 per cent.
In the Hungarian parliament, a set of ‘core’ members has served several
terms.22 Compared to newcomers, they serve in leadership positions in both
parliamentary party groups and in committees. A similar set of highly
active and long-term members served in the Polish Sejm through the initial
three terms; by the fifth term, however, most were no longer members.
Some type of affiliation with the communist past, through either party
membership or service in nomenclatura posts, has been and continues an
important trait of MPs. This trait varies among countries – higher in post-
Soviet parliaments and Croatia and the Baltic States – and also among politi-
cal parties, being higher in reformed former communist parties. Deputies with
dissident backgrounds are much fewer in all of the post-authoritarian parlia-

ments. As in Southern European parliaments, high turnover diminishes the
importance of both adherents of the old regime and the dissidents.23
The educational and political experience profile of MPs in post-
authoritarian parliaments is trending toward, but does not exactly match,
West European patterns. The profile of MPs in the new parliaments is becom-
ing fairly stable even though there is, compared to West Europe, a low rate of
incumbency. The political class concept depends upon both a uniform set of
prior experience and a stable set of individual participants; the former con-
dition is slowly emerging at the end of the initial decade but not the latter.
The profile of attributes, if not the membership, is becoming stable. The
Sejm members, as noted by Nalewajko and Wesołowski, are ‘half-new’.

The continued high turnover rate among MPs – who generally are middle
aged – suggests that they have the option of important post-parliamentary
careers. If prior occupational and political experience is important in the
preparation to become an MP, perhaps experience in parliament is also an
important component in subsequent careers in either public service or in
private occupations.
INTERNAL STRUCTURES AND RULES
Three major internal structures of parliaments that we identified in the intro-

duction – party, steering bodies and committee – are interdependent and
interactive structures, none of which appeared magically upon the first day
of the first democratically elected post-communist legislature. They have
emerged and changed over time, both reflecting and contributing to the
ability of a legislature to function within its external constraining environ-
ments of party system and government.
Structure interacts with Rules of Procedure, as the fourth essential internal
component of legislative organisation. Beginning with the inheritance of
unsuitable communist era rules, each parliament has developed new rules
which have stabilised the formation and function of the internal organisations
which, in turn, have helped stabilise parliament’s external relationships.
Though communist era legislatures had committees, an internal structure of
autonomous and competitive parties could not, and did not, exist. Likewise,
the governing Presidium reflected the external leadership of the Communist
Party. Simply by meeting in the existing legislative buildings of the commu-
nist system (which were often inherited from the pre-communist period) post-
communist reformers took control of the communist-era internal structures,
none of which was adequate for the free expression of diverse views of
independently elected members. As our Czech authors observed, the past
era rules ‘were not suitable for a competitive democratic order’.
All six parliaments now have similar organisational forms. Their struc-
tures, once formed and shaped for the newly activated legislatures, have
become fairly stable and thus institutionalised. Both of our post-Soviet contri-
butions remind us, however, that the ways in which those structures function
vary with both the party system and the stresses of external relationships,
especially when confronted by an assertive president.
Parliamentary Party Groups

In the early efforts to organise and manage post-communist parliaments, the
formation of nascent party groups came first. Parliamentary party groups
were permeable and fragile in the early terms. Deputies changed parliamen-
tary parties within parliamentary terms in Central Europe, as they continued

to do during the whole decade in post-Soviet states. Furthermore, in post-
Soviet states, parties and other electoral fronts were often formed by either
presidents or presidential aspirants.
Parliamentary party groups, as they existed at the beginning of each par-
liamentary term, were the building blocks of both the government and the
internal parliamentary leadership. Though the parliamentary party groups
were fragile, what quickly developed was the understanding that the party
group as an organisational form was essential in the construction of the
other organs of parliament. Reliance upon parliamentary party groups was
common to both post-communist and post-Soviet parliaments.
Parliamentary party groups are formed in accordance with chamber rules,
which often specify a minimum size. However, the new parliaments illustrate
the ingenuity of member group formation. The Duma, for example, authorised
‘registered deputy groups’ to permit the many deputies elected in single member
districts as independents to form workable units in parliament following their
elections. Other parliaments have ‘mixed’ groups to enable deputies from
small parties to meet size requirements for participation in parliamentary work.
Neither parliamentary nor external parties can be assumed as unitary
actors.24 PPGs, even the one remaining unreformed (Czech) Communist
Party in Central Europe, were subject to factionalism within parliament.
There were also conflicts between and also cross-cutting the parliamentary
and external units of the party, as Ilonszki notes for Hungary. Internal div-
isions within government parliamentary parties greatly complicated life for
governments, especially for multi-party coalition cabinets, as has also been
observed in The Netherlands.25
Leadership Bodies
There was suddenly, upon the collapse of the old system, no dominant party in
either power or ideology. The inherited communist leadership structure of a
Presidium was quickly abandoned for a steering committee consisting of the
leaders of all the parliamentary party groups. As Remington observes of the

Duma, in the beginning, ‘politicians agreed that something other than a Presi-
dium should be the steering committee’ and that the ‘chairman should be sub-
stantially weakened in comparison to the previous system’. The travails of the
transitional Moldovan legislature, elected as the Supreme Soviet in the last
USSR election, were chronicled in a highly critical internal report, leading,
as Crowther notes, to extensive structural changes in the successor legislature.
In the initial parliaments, each party group was represented on a newly
formed steering body. Their initial mode of decision-making was to seek
unanimous agreement among all of the nascent parties and their aspiring
leaders. This mode of consensual decisions proved unworkable. Agreement
was hard to obtain on the agenda for a parliament session, much less for
time constraints on debate.
A majority coalition, however, would soon monopolise all the positions on
a parliamentary steering body, as in the Czech Chamber of Deputies when a
coalition had a clear majority. In the multi-party Duma in the first term, as
another example, each party group was represented on the Duma Council
by its leader. The all-party mode was displaced by a more majoritarian pro-
cedure following the 2004 election, which Putin’s party won massively. His
party held eight of the 11 seats on the Council of the Duma, which has
come to resemble, as Remington observes, the old Soviet-style Presidium in
both its composition and responsiveness to external authority.
The diverse composition and internal divisions of the majority, however,
greatly complicate the formation of a steering body. The Moldovan Permanent
Bureau, for example, ballooned out in size as the majority coalition grew. But
given the ‘quite hostile parties’ in the coalition, as noted by Crowther, the
Permanent Bureau was handicapped in making decisions.
Both the post-communist and post-Soviet parliaments share steering
committee positions depending upon the distribution of seats among the parlia-
mentary party groups, and also in accordance with, and as part of, the formation
of a government coalition. Representation of parliamentary party groups in
steering bodies and also as committee chairpersons follows the election returns.
Committees
The communist era set of legislative committees, usually based upon policy
sectors and administrative structures,26 was accepted at the beginning as a
useable organisational device.
Every new problem, however, led to the creation of a new temporary
committee, each of which experimented with its own structure and pro-
cedures. The many innovative, experimental and ad hoc devices, all called
‘committees’ or ‘commissions’, by which the new parliaments attempted to
cope with their ever-changing workload, became unmanageable.
Rules revision brought order out of organisational chaos. By the end of the
decade, new committees continue to be formed, but within an established set
of procedures for the definition of membership, the management of its work
responsibility and for its reporting requirements to the whole chamber. Each
parliament seeking or obtaining EU membership, for example, has formed a
new committee for that purpose.
Committee jurisdiction is largely defined by sectors of public policy,
which only roughly correspond to the structure of government ministries.
Ministry portfolios change not only with each new government but unpredic-
tably within a term as well. As a result, parliamentary committees use policy
definitions rather than the distribution of ministerial portfolios as a more
permanent definition of their responsibilities.27 This definitional criterion

permits the committees to review the conduct of administration at an operating
or agency, rather than ministerial, level and also to review annual budget
requests.
The policy and departmental jurisdiction of committees indicates the
utilitarian purposes for committee formation by the new parliaments. This
criterion also indicates that policy knowledge is the desired attribute of com-
mittees. For this reason committees are a recruitment source for new ministers,
as noted in the Slovenian and Czech cases. From the foundation of expertise,
committees have acquired additional attractions especially in the division of
labour between floor and committee stages of bill consideration. As commit-
tees become important in legislative life they become important to parliamen-
tary parties, particularly in the allocation of party shares among committee
members and chairpersons.28
Rules Revisions
The essentially unworkable structure and set of procedures inherited by the
new parliaments has led to four structural modifications through revised
Rules of Procedure. Rules revision was a major indicator of increasing insti-
tutionalisation of post-communist committee systems and also of Southern
European parliaments.29 Similar rules changes in the post-Soviet parliaments,
however, did not protect them under circumstances of both political and con-
stitutional conflict against external executives.
The first of four sets of rules changes was to restrict the chamber’s steering
body to the larger and more continuous parliamentary parties; the second
restructured the committees to introduce greater effectiveness; the third modi-
fied floor procedures, and the fourth regulated the formation of parliamentary
party groups.
As an example of the first rules change, the Organisation Committee of the
Czech Chamber of Deputies and the House Agenda Committee in Hungary
function as majority bodies. They have increased authority to set the agenda
of plenary meetings, to limit time for debate and to refer bills to committees.
The second major rules change was to both clarify and empower the system of
committees. The committee device was used on an ad hoc basis in the early
years in response to immediate problems, leading to a profusion of tasks, pro-
cedures and actions. Rules changes, as noted above, led to a more uniform
committee structure, with fewer and more permanent committees, more expli-
cit and uniform procedures, and with a clearer definition of membership and
responsibilities.
The third major change in rules was to clarify floor procedure and to
specify stages of legislative consideration. The definition of specific stages
of legislative procedure is a way for parliament not only to maximise its
time and effort but, perhaps even more importantly, to protect itself against
the government as well as from hasty floor amendments. The Czech
change, for example, specified three distinct times at which a bill would be
considered in the plenary, while the previous procedure permitted omission
of first reading. With new rules, first reading debate became the standard prac-
tice, after which bills were referred to committee, leading to greater consist-
ency in successive stages of bill consideration. One practical consequence
of this change was to lengthen the time for consideration of bills through all
three stages of floor debate and voting, together with intermediate committee
review in between each plenary debate. Time is a parliamentary resource
against the government.30
By contrast, governments frequently seek expedited consideration of their
legislation in committees. The Sejm reaction was to change its rules against
that procedure.31 More recently, governments have asked for accelerated
and simplified procedures in adopting EU-related legislation to qualify their
country for admission to the EU.32 The definition of specific legislative pro-
cedures is a way for parliament to protect itself against the government’s
desire for quick, and thus affirmative, decision.
The fourth major change in the Rules of Procedure has been to regulate the
parliamentary party groups themselves, mainly by defining the circumstances
under which MPs can form PPGs.33 The main criterion is size: the minimum
number of MPs has been raised in several parliaments; for example, from five
to ten in the Czech Chamber of Deputies, from five to 15 in the Sejm and from
15 to 55 in the Duma.
All four of these rules revisions reflect change from unstructured and
unlimited member freedom of debate and action in a consensual mode to a
more restricted majoritarian basis of decision-making. Nevertheless, the con-
tributions to this volume also emphasise the importance of negotiation and
bargaining among all party leaders as the immediate source of specific
decisions. The rules provide a stable framework within which ad hoc nego-
tiations can usefully occur.
The Development of Internal Structures
The changes in organisation and procedure, as most clearly illustrated by the
set of four inter-related rules changes, mirror similar developments in the new
parliaments of Southern Europe,34 though in different decades of develop-
ment. While the Southern European changes occurred mostly during their
second decade, the post-communist rules changes have occurred earlier, in
their initial decade.
The more rapid internal restructuring process in this set of six post-Cold
War new parliaments than in those of Southern Europe may reflect not only
an institutional transfer process35 but also international learning, by which
the earlier Southern European developments were known to the emerging

leadership of post-communist parliaments.36
The Southern European changes in internal structure and rules have been
characterised as ‘rationalisation’, to emphasise effectiveness and efficiency.37
While the requirements of post-Cold War political system tasks have rapidly
led post-communist parliaments towards reorganisation and internal stability,
they have also been responsive to the changing puzzle of representation –
shares of power – in internal decision-making procedures. One by-product
of stability is predictability, an important resource not only for large
parties, but for all parliamentary party groups and for all individual
members as well.
One precondition for rules and structural order in both sets of parliaments
is party system stability.38 The rapid changes in party system profiles of post-
Soviet parliaments compared to the relative stability of post-communist par-
liaments, illustrate the underlying importance of party system as a factor in
parliamentary development. Parliamentary parties themselves, however,
would appear to control parliament and its members to a lesser degree in
the post-communist parliaments than noted in Southern Europe. Obser-
vations about the ‘iron’ ties of party, noted in the first decade review of
Southern European parliaments39 and continued in the second decade,40
have not been made in the post-communist parliaments in their initial
decade. As a result, the revised rules are applied with flexibility and both
members and leaders, as noted in the Czech example, use the threat of resi-
gnation/expulsion from the PPG more as a bargaining tool than as the appli-
cation of sanction.
PARLIAMENTS IN ACTION: SCHEDULE AND VOLUME OF LEGISLATION
Meeting and Work Schedules

The new parliaments tend to function on a 3– 6 week cycle, providing for
plenary sessions, committee meetings and time for visiting districts. Some
of the cycles have been extended, with the effect of limiting time for plenary
sessions. In Hungary in the third term, plenary sessions were rescheduled for
every three weeks, a reduction of time from previous terms, as one tangible
expression of the government’s desire to devalue the importance of parlia-
ment. These short term cycles contrast with the Western European parlia-
ments’ schedules of plenary sessions lasting for months at a time.
The meeting time of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, illustrating a general
trend, has gradually increased from 11.5 to over 13 sessions annually at an
average of five days each. The average number of bills considered has risen
from ten to 16 monthly. The number of votes per day’s meeting also increased,
from 15 to 25, as a consequence of the three-readings procedure introduced by
the rules changes of 1996. Similarly, the Polish Sejm plenary meetings took 82
days in one year of the third term, but 99 days in one year of the fourth term.
The Czech Senate has also had an increasingly rushed schedule because the
growing number of bills must be considered and acted upon within constitu-
tionally specified time limits of 30 days for ordinary legislation.
Each organisational unit of the parliament requires its own meeting
schedule and imposes its own time demands. In 1996, for example, the
Constitution Committee met the most often in the Hungarian Parliament, 70
times, while the Social Organisations Committee met least often, 14 times
in the same year. In 2000, occurring in the middle of a term, the Constitution
and Economic Affairs Committees met most frequency, 41 and 42 times
respectively, while the Auditing Committee, the least active committee, met
ten times that year.41 All the Sejm committees in the third and fourth terms
have held approximately 1,500 meetings annually.
Time is an important resource for parliaments, providing an opportunity
for work and thus also for power. Restricted meeting time is an important
limitation upon the capacity of parliament to function.42
Legislation
Though legislation is only one function of parliaments, we include the number
of bills introduced and passed as another measure of parliamentary workload
and use of time.
Central European parliaments have considered hundreds of proposed laws
each term. The usual range has varied from 400 bills to over 1,000 per term,
with usually about 60 per cent being adopted (Table 3). The marked exception
in the enactment rate was in the chaotic and short first term of the Polish Sejm.
The extremes in enactment rates have been the second Hungarian and Slove-
nian terms as the highest (at 64 per cent) and the first two Polish terms as the
lowest (28 per cent and 50 per cent). In the post-Soviet parliaments, the Duma
considered over 2,000 bills in the third term and the Moldovan parliament
even more in its 15th term. Their enactment rates, in most terms, have been
TABLE 3
GOVERNMENT BILLS INTRODUCED AND PASSED: CZECH CHAMBER OF
DEPUTIES, HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT, POLISH SEJM AND SLOVENE NATIONAL
ASSEMBLY BY TERM
Government
Total Bills Government Bills Success Rate
Introduced Passed % of total Govt. Bills

Passed as % of
Parliament Govt. Bills
and Term N N % Introduced Passed Introduced
Czech Chamber of Deputies

1 436 260 59.63 58 76 78

2 221 116 52.49 52 76 77
3 785 465 59.24 60 73 72
Hungarian Parliament
1 762 432 56.69 52 63 69
2 776 499 64.3 61 87 92
3 858 464 54.08 52 86 90
Polish Sejm
1 335 94 28.06 27 50 52
2 826 584 70.7 42 53 89
3 1152 774 67.19 48 60 84
4 1264 980 77.53 64 75 91
Slovene National Assembly
1 645 375 58.14 62.17 79 74
2 538 341 63.38 55.02 82 95
Sources: Each chapter this volume; Informacja o dzialalnosci sejmu, I kadencja (Warsaw 1998);
Private communication from Sejm Bureau of Expertise and Research; D. Zajc, Razvov Parlamen-
tov (Ljubljana: FDV, 2004) tables 8 and 9.
at about 65 per cent. These bill introduction and enactment rates approximate
the volume of bill activity in Western European parliaments.43
Not all laws are equal, or at least they are not handled through the same
procedures. In several parliaments, the budget is considered under special
rules. A further distinction is between constitutional laws and ordinary ones.
The former usually require extra large majorities with special privileges for
the other chamber in bicameral parliaments. Thus one important consequence
of the election results is the definition, not only of a majority of 50 per cent
plus one for government formation and ordinary legislation, but a super-
majority, of 66 per cent for example, required to adopt constitutional laws
and to amend the constitution. Only in Russia and Moldova have single
parties obtained that super-sized majority in parliament.
Another need for bills in later terms has been the necessity to revise laws
passed earlier. The rush of new policy enactments in the early terms has
created a rush of revisions in the later terms. The revisions reflect not only
the magnitude and rush of early decisions but also the difficulties of making
inter-party decisions within government coalitions. In addition, successive

governments have had different policy views, for typically (with the exception
of Slovenia) the opposition in one term has become the government in the
next. There is also a realisation that broad reforms in practice have had ambig-
uous results, as indicated in our Hungarian paper, leading to legislation with a
narrower scope in subsequent terms. In addition, the many specific legal
changes required by the EU are enacted in hundreds of detailed bills rather
than expressed through a few bills of broad legal principles. Several of our
authors have also emphasised the rush of legislation at the end of a term.
Governments and members alike introduce bills both late and poorly prepared.
PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT AND PRESIDENT
Relationships between parliament and government are greatly complicated in

post-communist and post-Soviet states by the dual-executive structure of their
constitutions. We observe the same range of government –parliament relation-
ships in the initial decade of post-communist democracies as in Western
Europe in several different combinations of party support and opposition.44
Interactions among these entities in post-Soviet states, in addition, have also
been characterised by conflict and increasing presidential control.
Executives Dependent and External

In Central European post-communist democracies, unlike in the post-Soviet
states, governments are created by and are responsible to parliaments.
Presidents have at least the passive authority to appoint and dismiss ministers;
they vary in the ways and the extent to which they actively exercise that
constitutional authority.
Presidents on occasion, especially President Wałe˛sa of Poland, have
attempted both to create and dismiss individual ministers as well as whole
government cabinets. Conflicts can become a three-way struggle among pre-
sident, cabinet and parliament, with the last two often divided by both party
and faction. President Wałe˛sa in the first half of the decade had ample oppor-
tunity to exploit those many internal divisions;45 a similar situation, as
Crowther notes, also exists in Moldova.
The government –parliament relationship is greatly complicated in multi-
party systems, at least in Central Europe, in which every majority cabinet in
the initial decade has been multi-party. Two and three party cabinets are
common, while Poland holds the record of a seven-party cabinet, in 1992–
93. Cabinets have varied in size from minority through minimal winning to
oversized.46 As we have noted, governments often fail mid-term, even
though they are typically formed as majority coalitions. Parliaments may
dismiss governments, though in Hungary and Poland (with a new constitution)
only through a constructive vote of no confidence. The most unusual govern-
ment tenure relationship with a democratic parliament in Central Europe was
the ‘Opposition Agreement’ in the Czech Republic detailed by Linek and
Mansfeldova in this volume, where the Social Democrats (CSSD) formed
the minority government for the entire four-year term with the explicit
support of the largest opposition party, the Civic Democrats (ODS), who, in
return, obtained the speakership of the Chamber of Deputies and appointment
to a variety of positions. The lynchpin of the agreement was the pledge to
negotiate a new election law to favour themselves as the two largest parties
against the several other smaller parties.
The Czech effort to engineer a two-party system has been achieved sooner
and more directly in Hungary. The majoritarian result has been, as Ilonszki
notes, increasingly difficult relations among all the parties coupled with the
government propensity, though formed with parliamentary support, to deni-
grate if not ignore parliament as an institution.
Struggle over the constitution has been a growing feature of both post-
Soviet states considered in this volume. The current Duma itself results
from a constitutional struggle culminating in violence. In Moldova, presidents
have attempted to expand their constitutional powers against parliament.
Though the Russian president is directly elected and the Moldovan president
elected by parliament, the occupants of both presidencies have assumed lea-
dership of dominant political parties and both have attempted to gain legal
as well as political ascendancy over their parliaments. Command of admini-
strative resources, as Crowther observes in Moldova, has been an important
asset to the president.
Confrontations between President Wałe˛sa and the Sejm in Poland,
however, also illustrate how the external office of president can provoke par-
liament into an all-party institution-wide stance against the president. The pre-
sident – parliament confrontations of Russia and Moldova, by contrast,
exacerbated conflicts both between and within parliamentary parties.
Ministers
Among 11 post-communist countries, three in our set, Czech Republic, Hungary
and Slovenia, have had the most stable cabinets and cabinet members,
while Poland ranks with the Baltic States as having the least stable. Comparable
data for our two post-Soviet states are not available. These rankings include
both duration of single cabinets as well as length of cabinet experience of
individual ministers. In these rankings, Slovenia is the only exception in that,
while individual cabinets have been of short duration, the individual members
acquire considerable personal experience over a series of cabinets.47
The frequent changes of governments and ministers have had a disruptive
impact upon parliaments, especially in small parliaments. As members
become ministers in dual membership parliaments, they leave openings in

their committees and if dual membership is prohibited, in their seats as
well. In dual membership parliaments, returning ex-ministers must be
absorbed back into committee and parliamentary party group life during the
term, while in others, ministers must wait for the next election for an oppor-
tunity to return to parliament.
Parliaments, and especially committees, often serve as recruitment pools
for government ministers and they may return to parliament. The personal
connection is an important bridge between institutions which seek to differen-
tiate themselves from each other. Former ministers in one term, given party
changes in government from one election to the next, can become leaders
of the opposition in the next.

In the following sections, we discuss the activities of parliament and their
impact upon government – parliament relationships.
The Passage of Bills

In each Central European parliament, the government is the main source of
both proposed and adopted legislation. The other sources of bills include
members in all parliaments, committees in most, but variously in others the
second chamber and also local governmental units.
The government introduced from 27 per cent to 64 per cent of all bills in a
single electoral term (Table 3). Government bills accounted, however, for a
higher proportion of all enacted bills, varying from 50 per cent to 87 per
cent. The success rate for government bills was even higher: from 52 per
cent to 95 per cent of all government bills were enacted in any one term.
Variations in government bill introduction and enactment rates among the
four Central European parliaments are consistent by neither parliament nor
time. While all our accounts attribute increased government sponsorship of
legislation to the time pressures of EU accession, which reached their peak
toward the end of the first decade, variations in legislative activity also
reflect internal political factors specific to each term and parliament,
especially as noted in respect of the Czech Republic and Poland and weak
minority governments. An added consideration is that in Hungary government
bills have a more protected status than in the Czech Republic.
Through the three to four terms of the initial decade, the total number of
bills introduced has increased and the proportion passed has tended to
increase. The proportion of bills sponsored by government shows no clear
trend, though the proportion of passed bills with government sponsorship
has increased over time. The government bill success rate, the proportion of
its bills which pass, has increased over time with the exception of the
Czech Republic.
Our authors often observe, however, that government bills are frequently
amended, though the origins of amendments are not directly known. The
Czech Chamber of Deputies makes increasing use of legislation introduced
by sets of multi-party deputies within a single standing committee. Amend-
ments in other parliaments may come from joint action by the several commit-
tees which share jurisdiction on any one bill. Second chambers, especially in
the Czech Republic and Poland, are additional sources of amendment.
Our authors also note that government legislation is often inadequate in
both content and in drafting. As governments ask that their bills be handled
through expedited procedures, the risk of inadequate legislation increases.
Parliaments are increasingly resistant to such requests.48 Several Latin
American legislatures are faced with much stronger executive ‘urgency

powers’ than are the post-communist bodies.49
These observations, applicable to Central European parliaments, must be
modified for post-Soviet states. Bills offered by the government, which itself
increasingly has come under presidential control, are usually adopted. In
Russia, there is little distinction made between presidential and government
legislation. In Moldova, by contrast, Crowther notes the increase in the pro-
portion of bills sponsored by the president, while the proportion with govern-
ment (that is, cabinet) sponsorship has remained fairly constant across terms.
The measurement of government bill success differs between democratic
and presidential-dependent legislatures. Remington suggests the test in the
Duma is the proportion of passed bills which the president signs: while the
president signed 61 per cent of passed bills in the first term, that proportion
rose to 74 per cent in the second and to well over 95 per cent in the third. Pre-
sident Yeltsen, facing a multi-party parliament, bargained and negotiated with
parliament on every bill. However, he increasingly utilised his extensive
decree powers to by-pass the Duma. President Putin, with growing majorities
of his parliamentary party group, has both escaped any impeachment effort
and obtained increasing Duma support of legislation. Only Moldova during
the whole decade, and Poland early in the decade, have had such an extensive
range of stormy executive – parliamentary interactions.
Government bills go through clearance procedures within the cabinet and
between affected ministries prior to submission to parliament. We know little
of how government bills have been developed in the initial decade; we do
know of the considerable resentment by parliaments about the quality and
procedures of government legislation. Our Czech contribution refers to the
difficulties in arranging a legislative schedule when the government does
not meet its own announced schedule for submitting its bills.
Advance consultation in a ‘zero reading’ stage has become a major feature
of government – Duma interactions involving members of both chambers
through special working groups preceding the introduction of legislation.
This practice applies particularly to finance and appropriation bills. This set of
policy clearances prior to formal Duma action paves the way for presidential
signature of passed bills, and makes the president’s decree power unnecessary.
These advance procedures, based upon his party’s control of the Duma,
Remington observed, permitted Putin to propose and pass ‘a far more sweep-
ing legislative agenda than Yeltsen’. A concomitant result, however, was the
complete dependence of the Duma upon the Kremlin for policy, power and
privileges.
Negotiations for accession to the EU have required the Central European
parliament to adopt hundreds of bills to harmonise their national law with EU
law. Since negotiations were conducted by government ministers and special-
ised administrative units, parliaments were often asked to adopt, rapidly,

detailed legislation about which they had little information and even less
control. Governments varied in their internal organisation and procedures
for these negotiations50 and varied also in the ways in which parliament and
especially the newly created committees on European affairs were involved.
Our authors note, however, the enactment rate of EU-related bills was at the
same levels as were government bills generally.
Legislation is voted upon through a wide variety of party combinations. If
some bills are adopted on a government – opposition alignment, others (30 per
cent in one Czech term) are adopted unanimously on an all-party basis. Other
bills can be endorsed by the government and by some opposition parties
against other opposition parties. There is scope for intra-party factionalism
as well; party cohesion has been calculated at about 80 per cent (in the
same Czech term), a somewhat lower rate than in Western European
parliaments.51
Administrative Review
The potential capacity of parliaments to review the conduct of government
and administration has not been highly developed in the initial decade.52
While the democratising Central European parliaments have developed
internal working organisations and procedures which could be used to
review the conduct of administration, the exercise of that function has
varied with the party basis of government support.
In Hungary, for example, no select investigation committees were created
during the third term, though they had been authorised by extensive rules
revision in the previous term. Similarly, in Bulgaria, several investigation
committees were created but never issued reports to trouble either parliament
or government.53 In both parliaments the majority did not permit serious
investigations of the government.
The Polish Sejm has the most extensive oversight activity among the
Central European parliaments, through its committees. Utilising procedures
developed during the communist period, committees often examine problems
in public administration, asking both ministers and lower administrators for
information and justification of their actions. In some instances, the commit-
tee’s remedy is to urge the government to increase funding in the next annual
budget.54 Administrative review of detailed questions within committees is
conducted on a non-party, or perhaps all-party, basis.
Review of administration, however, is not exclusively conducted by legis-
lative committees; separate oversight ‘commissions’ have been formed with
jurisdiction over specific administration agencies which themselves have
broad discretion to make personnel, expenditure and policy decisions. Floor
time for questions and interpellations is regularly scheduled, though, as
demonstrated in Hungary, government supporters can use that time to

express approval rather than to ask probing questions of the government.
While question time in plenary sessions can be an occasion for non-party
interaction with (if not against) government ministers, it more typically has
become an opportunity for inter-party conflict within the Hungarian
parliament.
Several parliaments annually review the government’s administration of
the previous year’s budget, culminating in a formal vote by which the parlia-
ment approves the government’s conduct.55 Portions of the government’s
annual budget report, submitted to the parliamentary budget committee,
are then allocated to the relevant policy committees for their examination.
While this process provides a potential occasion for a serious examination
of the government, the Czech experience is that the review has been
more symbolic than substantive, resulting in a pro-forma plenary vote of
approval. The annual post-expenditure review is, nevertheless, one source
of the Polish committees’ requests to the government for revision of
administration.
The administrative review function has not been an important activity,
with the exception of the Polish Sejm, in the initial decade. The similar experi-
ence of the Southern European legislatures in their initial decade was,
however, followed by increased review activity in their second.56
VARIETIES OF BICAMERALISM
Four of the six parliaments considered in this volume have some form of bica-
meralism, of which only Russia is a federation. (Hungary and Moldova are
single chambered parliaments.) These parliaments display not only a revival
of bicameralism but a variety of bicameral forms and purposes.
The Polish and Czech Senates are the most active second chambers among
the four parliaments. They both have powers to amend legislation adopted in
the more active and powerful chamber and share authority with the active
chamber in selected ways, such as, in the Czech Republic, election of the pre-
sident. Senate concurrence is usually required in the adoption of constitutional
amendments.
Each second chamber is smaller than the main chamber and also has a
different election system.57 Though both chambers have the same term and
are elected on the same day in Poland, the Senate is elected in single
member districts. The Czech Senate, also elected in single member districts,
serves staggered terms of six years. Its election days do not coincide with
those of the main chamber. A distinctive feature of the Czech Senate is that
it exists permanently; it is not disrupted by the fall or change of government
and neither can it be dissolved by the president.
The senates have become a refuge for deputies from the main chamber.
Parties in Poland have nominated experienced and active Sejm members to
the Senate, both to attract newcomers to the Sejm and to protect valuable
members from impending electoral defeat. The single member district
system permits the election of persons who have either lost support within
their own party or whose parties are no longer competitive in multi-member
proportional representation districts for the main chamber.
Although the election system for the Russian Federation Council has been
changed several times, it represents constituent republics and autonomous
regions of the federation. While both districts and election system can be
changed for the Czech and Polish Senates, only the election system is change-
able for the Russian second chamber.
The Slovenian National Council, with the most limited powers, is selected
on an entirely different basis. Reflecting more a corporate philosophy than a
population representation goal, it is indirectly selected by groupings of
localities and interest groups.
A factor specific to the Czech parliament is the increasing independence
and activism of the Senate, compounded by minority government in the
more powerful Chamber of Deputies as well as by the different party compo-
sition between the two chambers. Careful multi-party negotiations in the
Chamber of Deputies have sometimes been undone by the need for equally
careful negotiations between the two houses of the parliament. As Linek
and Mansfeldova observe, on those bills on which the Senate wields equal
power with the Chamber of Deputies, the Chamber leadership discovered
the need for pre-negotiation with the Senate. The Russian Federation
Council members, too, as noted by Remington, are active in negotiations on
legislation before they must act as a collective body. Inter-chamber disagree-
ments are resolved through ad hoc three-way commissions.
In all four countries, the second chamber is intended to place limits upon
the reach of deputies popularly elected through political parties. They act to
limit, however, not only the main chamber, but also the government and
president.58 On the whole, the second chambers do not so much initiate new
legislation as receive and amend legislation from the main chamber. In
none of the four parliaments are the two chambers equal in authority.
Bicameralism, by itself, is a complication in the enactment of legislation in
Western Europe.59 The Czech and Polish experiences, as well as the Russian,
indicate that bicameralism, along with all other aspects of legislative organis-
ation and life, takes time to develop. Though all four bicameral systems were
adopted as parts of the transitional process, the second chambers are taking on
a post-transitional life of their own. The second chambers have survived the
rationale at their creation.
TYPES OF POST-COMMUNIST AND POST-SOVIET

PARLIAMENTS AND PATHS OF CHANGE
The four post-communist and two post-Soviet parliaments examined in this

volume have had, in their initial decade, very different experiences. As we
noted in the introduction, they began – in different ways – as a consequence
of abrupt major system change within a short period of time. They can be
compared not only among themselves but also with the Southern European
parliaments at the end of their second decade.
Three Types of Parliaments

The post-communist and post-Soviet parliaments have become very different
bodies, functioning differently in very different political and constitutional
environments. They have become three distinct types of parliaments: pluralis-
tic democratic, majoritarian democratic and presidentially dependent
(Table 4).
The six parliaments examined portray more the two end points of a
continuum of parliamentary types than a full range of intermediate types, of
which Romania, Slovakia and Croatia are possible examples.
The Czech, Slovene and Polish parliaments have become active, indepen-
dent and multi-party. They are post-communist stable pluralistic democratic
parliaments. Their parliamentary system of government, with a Hungarian
variation of a strong prime minister, provides that the government is chosen
and removed by parliament, not by a president.
The Hungarian party system has become, at the end of the initial decade, a
majoritarian system in which a single party obtains a majority of seats, and
tends to govern unilaterally, ignoring both the parliament as a whole insti-
tution and the parliamentary party groups including its own. The Hungarian
parliament has become, not through constitutional change but through elec-
toral dynamics, a stable democratic majoritarian parliament on the model of
the Westminster system.
TABLE 4
TYPES OF PARLIAMENTS BY CONSTITUTION AND PARTY SYSTEM: POST-
COMMUNIST AND POST-SOVIET PARLIAMENTS – THE INITIAL DECADE
Constitutional Structure
Party Parliamentary System in Presidential

System System Conflict System
Multi Democratic pluralistic Contingent

Czech Republic Moldova I, II
Hungary I, II
Poland III, IV Poland I, II
Slovenia Russia I
Majority Democratic majoritarian

Hungary III
Dominant Presidentially dependent
Moldova III
Russia II, III
Note: Terms for parliaments which have changed categories are designated by Roman numerals.
The Czech, Slovene and Polish parliaments have become stable demo-
cratic multi-party parliaments more on the Scandinavian model. As a compari-
son with Southern European democratic parliaments at the end of their second
decade, the Hungarian majoritarian parliament, more than the pluralist democ-
racies, resemble the parliaments of Spain, Portugal and Greece.60
The post-Soviet parliaments, by contrast, have become president-
dependent parliaments, each with a single dominant majority party led by
the president. The Russian and Moldovan presidents have merged their con-
siderable formal constitutional authority with an active personal leadership
of the current majority parties which they have created. A parliament
capable of forming its own party (or coalition) majority independently of
the president and thus capable of thinking and acting independently on
policy, has not emerged in either the French or Portuguese model. Instead,
the presidentially dependent parliaments of post-Soviet states have become
subordinate to single party leadership of the external executive. The model
is, as observed by both Crowther and Remington, more the previous Soviet
system than any Western European democracy.
The three emergent types of parliaments have developed within the inter-
section of the two major constraining contextual characteristics of consti-
tutional structure and party system. The parliamentary systems of Central
Europe contrast strongly not only with the formal design but also the practice
of powerful presidencies. In parliamentary systems, the absence of a strong
external president permits a wide variety of working relationships between
parliament and the government it creates, mainly varying with the
configuration of parties following any one election. In the authoritarian-
inclined post-Soviet parliaments, presidents combine constitutional authority
with party leadership to dominate their parliaments.
Both Southern and Central European sets of new parliaments have vari-
ations not found in the other. The presidentially dependent parliaments of
post-Soviet states are not found in Southern Europe, though presidents are
directly elected in some (Portugal, Greece, Turkey). Neither the Turkish
experience of military coups nor the Italian experiment with major electoral
system change has yet occurred in the former communist region.
As we anticipated in the introduction, the several different types of post-
authoritarian parliaments have emerged through four paths of change: con-
texts of party and electoral system and constitution, the members, internal
organisation, and parliamentary – government relationships.
THE CONTINUAL LEGISLATIVE TASK: PARLIAMENT – EXECUTIVE

RELATIONS
The analysis of change from legislation to legitimation functions in the first

two decades of Southern European parliaments is based, at least in part,
upon the twin development of increased government sponsorship and enact-
ment rates of legislation and of increased parliamentary activity in administra-
tive oversight or scrutiny.61
The experience of post-communist parliaments suggests a somewhat differ-
ent interpretation. The new legislatures at the end of the first decade are better
prepared to consider legislation than previously. At the beginning, they were
more a source of endorsement and celebration of political system change
than of implementing legislation. To amend the constitution, to prepare new
electoral law, to pioneer in the development of new political parties and to
begin reorganisation of the economy were serious tasks shared by government
and parliament. Neither was well prepared. Both were caught in the opportu-
nity –capability paradox. Each improvised as best they could at the moment.62
The legislative tasks of both government and parliament have changed
during the initial decade from broad to detailed questions. Our contributions
indicate that, with a continued high rate of adoption of government legislation,
government bills are variously amended and committees have become the
major location of serious consideration of legislation and of inter-party nego-
tiation. Governments, too, are perhaps increasing in their abilities though all
our authors note that government bills are prepared inadequately and often late.
The term ‘legitimation’ implies a passive acceptance by parliament of
government preferences. Passive acceptance has been more the parliamentary
response to government-initiated agreements with the EU, much to the com-
plaint and discomfort of members of parliament. But even in EU-related
detailed legislation, the government bill success rate is not much higher than
for ordinary legislation.
While Hungary, with a strong majority party and government, began to
approach the Southern European circumstances, the multi-party composition
of the other post-communist parliaments has both continued their indepen-
dence from their own governments and limited the capacity of governments
to develop their own programmes. The post-Soviet parliaments, increasingly
responsive to presidents and presidential political parties, may be character-
ised more as passive legitimation bodies rather than the post-communist
parliaments of Central Europe.
CONCLUSION
In summary, the initial decade experience of six post-authoritarian parlia-

ments suggests four types of parliaments, of which three were viable at the
end of the decade. Two democratic parliamentary-centred types varied
mainly by the concentration of their party systems: the Czech Republic,
Poland and Slovenia are multi-party, while Hungary tends towards a two
party majoritarian system. The post-Soviet parliaments, the third type, have
become presidentially dependent. The fourth type of parliament, occurring
early in the decade, featured a contest for power between parliament and pre-
sident both constitutional and electoral. These conflicts had been resolved,
though very differently, in Moldova and Russia and in Poland.
The initial decade’s experience of the parliaments lends credence to our
hypotheses. Adjustments to the constitutional and electoral arrangements to
reduce the number of parties and retain the prospect of electoral success for
the principal parties (as opposed to the dominant party) have contributed to
the development of a stable polity. The experience of the post-authoritarian
parliaments also highlights the importance of member continuity and the
internal structure and dynamics within parliaments. Attempts to define the
Rules of Procedure both express and symbolise the capacity of parliament
to equip itself to function as an independent body. There is a dynamic inter-
action effect between external events and internal structure, which has contin-
ued throughout the initial decade. The differences among our examples of six
new parliaments indicate the cumulative effects of those interactions.
What we have not witnessed, though, is the shift from legislative to legit-
imising assemblies. The post-authoritarian parliaments of Central and Eastern
Europe have not followed the pattern of the post-authoritarian parliaments of
Southern Europe The post-communist parliaments of Central Europe are more
pluralist in party composition in the initial decade and have more frequent
changes in government, while the post-Soviet parliaments are more dominated
by a president-led party.
The building blocks we identified in the introduction are being laid in post-
authoritarian parliaments in their initial decade, creating patterns that are
not identical and which differ from legislatures elsewhere. The initial post-
authoritarian decade has been a founding decade of parliamentary
development.
NOTES
1. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore,

MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.227; F. Millard, Elections, Parties and Rep-
resentation in Post-communist Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp.32–46.
2. A.M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist

Parties in East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002);
J. Ishyama, ‘Sickles into Roses: Successor Parties and Democratic Consolidation in Post-
Communist Politics’, in P.G. Lewis (ed.), Party Development and Democratic Change in
Post-Communist Europe: The First Decade (London: Frank Cass, 2001).
3. Millard, Elections, Parties and Representation in Post-communist Europe, pp.58–61.
4. R.G. Moser, ‘Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States’, World
Politics, 51/3 (1999), pp. 359 –84; J. Bielasiak, ‘Party System Competitiveness in Emerging
Democracies: Post-Communism in Comparative Perspective’, paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 28 –31 Aug. 2003.
5. R. Taagepera and M.S. Shugart, Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral
Systems, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989).
6. D.M. Olson, ‘Party Formation and Party System Consolidation in the Democracies of Central
Europe’, in R. Hofferbert (ed.), Parties and Democracy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), pp.10–42;
P.G. Lewis, ‘European Parties East and West: Comparative Perspectives’, Perspectives on
European Politics and Society, 2/3 (2001); P. Kopecký, Parliaments in the Czech and
Slovak Republics: Party Competition and Parliamentary Institutionalization (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2001).
7. M.M. Kaminski, ‘Do Parties Benefit from Electoral Manipulation? Electoral Laws and Heres-
thetics in Poland, 1989–93’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 14/3 (2002), pp. 325–58;
B. Moraski and G. Loewenberg, ‘The Effect of Legal Thresholds on the Revival of Former
Communist Parties in East-Central Europe’, Journal of Politics, 61/1 (1999), pp. 151– 70.
8. Moser, ‘Electoral Systems and the Number of Parties in Postcommunist States’; Moraski and
Loewenberg, ‘The Effect of Legal Thresholds on the Revival of Former Communist Parties in
East-Central Europe’.
9. S. Birch, ‘Electoral Systems and Party Systems in Europe East and West’, Perspectives on
European Politics and Society, 3/2 (2001), pp. 355–77; I. van Biezen, ‘On the Theory and
Practice of Party Formation in New Democracies’, European Journal of Political Research,
44 (2005), pp.147– 74; A.H. Miller, G. Erb, W.M. Reisinger and V.L. Hesli, ‘Emerging Party
Systems in Post-Soviet Societies: Fact or Fiction?’, Journal of Politics, 62/2 (2000), pp. 455 –
90; P.G. Lewis, ‘European Parties East and West: Comparative Perspectives’, Perspectives on
European Politics and Society, 2/3 (2001), pp. 481 –94; Bielasiak, ‘Party System Competi-
tiveness in Emerging Democracies: Post-Communism in Comparative Perspective’.
10. J.P. McGregor, ‘Constitutional Factors in Politics in Post-communist Central and Eastern
Europe’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 29/2 (1996), pp.147–66; Linz and
Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation; J.M. Carey, F. Formanek
and E. Karpowicz, ‘Legislative Autonomy in New Regimes: The Czech and Polish Cases’,
in G. Loewenberg, P. Squire and D.R. Kiewiet (eds.), Legislatures: Comparative Perspectives
on Representative Assemblies (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002).
11. F. Mueller-Rommel, ‘Cabinets in Post-communist East-Central Europe and the Balkans’, in
J. Blondel and F. Mueller-Rommel (eds.), Cabinets in Eastern Europe (London: Palgrave,
2001); C. Nikolenyi, ‘Cabinet Stability in Post-Communist Legislature’, in
Z. Mansfeldová, P. Rakušanová and D.M. Olson (eds.), Central European Parliaments: First
Decade of Democratic Experience and the Future Perspective (Prague: Institute of Sociology,
Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, 2004).
12. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, pp. 279–82;
L.L. Garlicki, ‘The Presidency in the New Polish Constitution’, East European Constitutional
Review, 6/2–3 (1997), pp. 81–89; K. Jasiewicz, ‘Poland: Walesa’s Legacy to the Presi-
dency’, in R. Taras (ed.), Postcommunist Presidents (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), pp.130–67; A. van der Meer Krok-Paszkowska, Shaping the Democratic
Order: The Institutionalization of Parliament in Poland (Leuven-Apeldoorn: Garant,
2000), pp.37–44; E. Karpowicz and W. Wesołowski, ‘Committees in the Polish Sejm in
Two Political Systems’, in D.M. Olson and W.E. Crowther (eds.), Committees in Post-Com-
munist Democratic Parliaments: Comparative Institutionalization (Columbus, OH: Ohio
State University Press, 2002).
13. A. Korosenyi, Government and Politics in Hungary (Budapest: CEU Press 1999), p.162;
J.W. Schiemann, ‘Hungary: The Emergence of Chancellor Democracy’, The Journal of

Legislative Studies, 10/2–3 (2004), pp. 128– 41.
14. Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, pp.398–400;
S. Morgenstern ‘Explaining Legislative Politics in Latin America’, in S. Morgenstern and
B. Nacif (eds.), Legislative Politics in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002).
15. D. Malova and M. Rybar, ‘The Troubled Institutionalization of Parliamentary Democracy in
Slovakia’, Politicka misao [Croatian Political Science Review], 37/5 (2000), pp. 30–46; K.D.
Krause, ‘The Ambivalent Influence of the European Union on Democratization in Slovakia’,
in P.G. Kubicek (ed.), The European Union and Democratization (London: Routledge, 2003).
16. G. Čular, ‘Political Development in Croatia: Fast Transition – Postponed Consolidation’,
Politicka misao [Croatian Political Science Review], 37/5 (2000), pp. 99 –115; D. Lalovic,
‘Crisis of the Croatian Second Republic (1990–1999): Transition to Totalitarianism or to
Democracy?’, Politicka misao [Croatian Political Science Review], 37/5 (2000), pp. 47–60.
17. R.K. Christensen, E.R. Rakhimkulov and C.R. Wise, ‘The Ukrainian Orange Revolution
Brought More than a New President: What Kind of Democracy Will Institutional Changes
Bring?’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 36/2 (2005), pp. 207–30.
18. P. Keefer and M. Shirley, ‘Privatization in Transition Economies: Politics as Usual?’, in
S. Haggard and M.D. McCubbins (eds.), Presidents, Parliaments and Policy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001).
19. S. Birch, Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-Communist Europe
(London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp.140– 42.
20. Van Biezen, ‘On the Theory and Practice of Party Formation in New Democracies’.
21. J. Elster, ‘Afterword: The Making of Postcommunist Presidencies’, in R. Taras (ed.),
Postcommunist Presidents (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
22. A. Schwarz, ‘The Central Core in the Hungarian Parliament’, in Mansfeldová et al. (eds.),
Central European Parliaments: First Decade of Democratic Experience and the Future
Perspective.
23. G. Pridham, ‘Political Parties, Parliaments and Democratic Consolidation in Southern
Europe’, in U. Liebert and M. Cotta (eds.), Parliament and Democratic Consolidation in
Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey (London and New York:
Pinter Publishers, 1990) p.240.
24. R.Y. Hazan (ed.), Cohesion and Discipline in Legislatures: Political Parties, Parliamentary
Committees, Party Leadership and Governance (London: Routledge, 2006).
25. M. Laver, ‘Divided Parties, Divided Government’, in Loewenberg et al. (eds.), Legislatures:
Comparative Perspectives on Representative Assemblies, pp.217–20.
26. D.M. Olson and M.D. Simon, ‘The Institutional Development of a Minimal Parliament:
The Case of the Polish Sejm’, in D. Nelson and S. White (eds.), Communist Legislatures in
Comparative Perspective (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 47 –84.
27. I. Mattson and K. Strøm, ‘Parliamentary Committees’, in H. Döring (ed.), Parliaments
and Majority Rule in Western Europe (New York: St. Martins Press, 1995), pp.149–307;
M. Shaw, ‘Conclusion’, in J.D. Lees and M. Shaw (eds.), Committees in Legislatures:
A Comparative Analysis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979), p.230.
28. W.E. Crowther and D.M. Olson, ‘Committee Systems in New Democratic Parliaments:
Comparative Institutionalization’, in Olson and Crowther (eds.), Committees in Post-
Communist Democratic Parliaments: Comparative Institutionalization.
29. Olson and Crowther (eds.), Committees in Post-Communist Democratic Parliaments: Com-
parative Institutionalization; P. Norton and C. Leston-Bandeira, ‘The Impact of Democratic
Practice on the Parliaments of Southern Europe’, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 9/2
(2003), pp.177–85.
30. See P. Norton, ‘Playing by the Rules: The Constraining Hand of Parliamentary Procedure’,
The Journal of Legislative Studies, 7/3 (2001), pp.13– 33.
31. Krok-Paszkowska, Shaping the Democratic Order: The Institutionalization of Parliament in
Poland.
32. D. Zacj, Razvov Parlamentarizma: Funkcije sobodnih parlamentov (Ljubljana: FDV, 2004),
pp.192–3.
33. P. Kopecký, ‘Power to the Executive: The Changing Executive–Legislative Relations in
Eastern Europe’, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 10/2–3 (2004), pp.146–7.
34. U. Liebert, ‘Parliaments in the Consolidation of Democracy – a Comparative Assessment of
Southern European Experiences’, in Liebert and Cotta (eds.), Parliament and Democratic
Consolidation in Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, pp.249–72;
C. Leston-Bandeira, From Legislation to Legitimation: The Role of the Portuguese Parlia-
ment (London: Routledge, 2004).
35. A. Àgh, ‘Parliamentary Committees: Changing Perspectives on Changing Institutions’, in
L.D. Longley and R.H. Davidson (eds.), The New Roles of Parliamentary Committees
(London: Frank Cass, 1998).
36. A. Àgh, ‘The Role of the First Parliament in Democratic Transition’, in A. Àgh and S. Kurtan
(eds.), The First Parliament: Democratization and Europeanization in Hungary (1990–1994)
(Budapest: Hungarian Centre for Democracy Studies, 1995).
37. Norton and Leston-Bandeira, ‘The Impact of Democratic Practice on the Parliaments of
Southern Europe’, pp.180–82.
Southern Europe’, p.182.
39. Liebert, ‘Parliaments in the Consolidation of Democracy – a Comparative Assessment of
Southern European Experiences’, p.253.
Southern Europe’, p.178; Leston-Bandeira, From Legislation to Legitimation: The Role of
the Portuguese Parliament, pp.42–4.
41. These data are not included in the paper on Hungary but have been provided separately.
42. J. Blondel, Comparative Legislatures (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973).
43. Zacj, Razvov Parlamentarizma: Funkcije sobodnih parlamentov, pp.176–8.
44. A. King, ‘Modes of Executive– Legislative Relations: Great Britain, France and West
Germany’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 1/1 (1976), pp.11–34.
Poland, pp.149–57.
46. Nikolenyi, ‘Cabinet Stability in Post-Communist Legislature’.
47. K. Fettelschoss, ‘Continuity and Change of Ministers and Ministries’, paper presented to
ECPR General Conference, Budapest, 8– 10 Sept. 2005.
Poland, p.153, n.13.
49. Morgenstern and Nacif, Legislative Politics in Latin America, p.437.
50. D. Fink-Hafner, ‘Europeanization of the Core Executive in the Transition from Circumstances
of EU Accession to Full EU Membership’, paper presented to the EUSA Ninth Biennial Inter-
national Conference, Austin, TX, 2005.
51. L. Linek and P. Rakušanova, ‘Parties in the Parliament: Why, When and How Do Parties Act
in Unity? Parliamentary Party Groups in the Chamber of Deputies in the Years 1998–2002’,
Sociologicke texty; Sociological Papers (Prague: Sociologicky ustav Akademie ved Ceske
republiky; Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2005).
52. This function is usually termed ‘oversight’ in the American literature, and ‘scrutiny’ in the
British.
53. G. Karasimeonov, ‘Bulgaria: Parliamentary Committees – Institutionalization and Effective-
ness’, in Olson and Crowther (eds.), Committees in Post-Communist Democratic Parliaments:
Comparative Institutionalization, p. 105.
54. Karpowicz and Wesołowski, ‘Committees in the Polish Sejm in Two Political Systems’, pp.
63–64.
55. Mansfeldova, Zdenka and P. Rakušanova, ‘Legislative Budgeting in the Czech Republic’,
in: R. Pelizzo, R. Stapenhurst and D. Olson (eds.), The Role of Parliaments in the
Budget Process (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Institute Working Papers #37254, 2005),
pp.18–28.
56. Norton and Leston-Bandeira, ‘The Impact of Democratic Practice on the Parliaments
of Southern Europe’; Leston-Bandeira, From Legislation to Legitimation: The Role of the

Portuguese Parliament, pp.79–90.
57. Birch, Electoral Systems and Political Transformation in Post-Communist, pp.33–4.
58. D.M. Olson, ‘The Parliaments of New Democracies and the Politics of Representation’, in
S. White, J. Batt and P.G. Lewis (eds.), Developments in Central and East European Politics
(London: Macmillan Press, 2nd edn. 1998), pp.139–42.
59. G. Tsebelis and J. Money, Bicameralism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Southern Europe’.
61. Norton and Leston-Bandeira, ‘The Impact of Democratic Practice on the Parliaments
of Southern Europe’; Leston-Bandeira, From Legislation to Legitimation: The Role of the
Portuguese Parliament.
62. D.M. Olson, The Paradoxes of Institutional Development: The New Democratic Parliaments
of Central Europe’, International Political Science Review, 18/4 (1997), pp.401–16;
Kopecký, ‘Power to the Executive: The Changing Executive–Legislative Relations in
Eastern Europe’.

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Post-Communist and Post-

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The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol.13, No.1, March 2007, pp.164–196

Elections and Party Systems: From Votes to Power

Czech Republic 1990 1992 1996 1998 2002

Hungary 1990 1994 1998 2002

party existence in post-communist and post-Soviet states.9

The Basis of Government: Parliament or President

Prime Minister Government Parties

Czech Rep. 1992 Klaus ODS 52.5 4

1998 Orban Fidesz 55.1 3

dent. In addition, unlike in Central Europe, the Russian president has

Interactive Contexts of Party System and Constitutional Structure

parties coupled with the emergence of a presidential single dominant party in

leading to the possibility of a new constitution for a new republic.

THE NEW MEMBERS OF NEW PARLIAMENTS

Members of parliament in the initial decade, as noted by Ilonszki and Edinger

dissident backgrounds are much fewer in all of the post-authoritarian parlia-

Sejm members, as noted by Nalewajko and Wesołowski, are ‘half-new’.

INTERNAL STRUCTURES AND RULES

Three major internal structures of parliaments that we identified in the intro-

Parliamentary Party Groups

tary parties within parliamentary terms in Central Europe, as they continued

leaders of all the parliamentary party groups. As Remington observes of the

permanent definition of their responsibilities.27 This definitional criterion

the earlier Southern European developments were known to the emerging

PARLIAMENTS IN ACTION: SCHEDULE AND VOLUME OF LEGISLATION

Meeting and Work Schedules

Introduced Passed % of total Govt. Bills

Czech Chamber of Deputies

1 436 260 59.63 58 76 78

inter-party decisions within government coalitions. In addition, successive

PARLIAMENT, GOVERNMENT AND PRESIDENT

Relationships between parliament and government are greatly complicated in

Executives Dependent and External

become ministers in dual membership parliaments, they leave openings in

of the opposition in the next.

The Passage of Bills

American legislatures are faced with much stronger executive ‘urgency

ised administrative units, parliaments were often asked to adopt, rapidly,

demonstrated in Hungary, government supporters can use that time to

TYPES OF POST-COMMUNIST AND POST-SOVIET

The four post-communist and two post-Soviet parliaments examined in this

Three Types of Parliaments

Party Parliamentary System in Presidential

Multi Democratic pluralistic Contingent

Majority Democratic majoritarian

THE CONTINUAL LEGISLATIVE TASK: PARLIAMENT – EXECUTIVE

The analysis of change from legislation to legitimation functions in the first

In summary, the initial decade experience of six post-authoritarian parlia-

1. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore,

2. A.M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist Past: The Regeneration of Communist

J.W. Schiemann, ‘Hungary: The Emergence of Chancellor Democracy’, The Journal of

of Southern Europe’; Leston-Bandeira, From Legislation to Legitimation: The Role of the

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