Introduction

The key Polish political parties as of 2015 constitute an element of a political system that has arisen over the last 25 years as a consequence of the difficult departure from the totalitarian rules underpinning the communist system.

At the beginning phases of the transition period, reforms were carried out amidst political chaos. These included introducing democratic political solutions, reinstating a pluralist party system, and reconstructing political programs (Kurczewska 1995). With each passing year, the remnants of communist solutions were eliminated and replaced with democratic principles and institutions, not fully anchored in the social consciousness of the Polish people. Consequently, the political parties that have emerged since 1989 have undergone many structural and organizational changes.

In the four parliamentary elections that took place from 1991–2001, only three parties ran under the same name each time. Two of these – the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD – Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej) and the Polish People's Party (PSL – Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe) – were stable contenders to power until 2001, exist until this day and are analyzed in this work. The year 2001 was a key turning point in post-communist Polish party system, as it marks the emergence of a new group of parties more stable than those formed in the 1990s. Among these are Civic Platform (PO – Platforma Obywatelska) and Law and Justice (PiS – Prawo i Sprawiedliwość). The last of the parties examined here, Your Movement (TR – Twój Ruch), emerged in 2011. Originally named Palikot's Movement (Ruch Palikota) after its founder Janusz Palikot, the party adopted its current name in 2013. These five parties will be subject of our analysis. We will begin with a treatment of their origins to give context to our subsequent examination of their structures and functioning.

Aside from being among the oldest Polish parties, the SLD and PSL are in the truest sense “post-communist”, as they inherited some organizational and programmatic elements from their communist predecessors (Antoszewski et al. 2003). The SLD emerged in 1999 as a homogenous party, functioning previously as a coalition of several dozen political parties and organizations centered around SdRP, a social democratic party created in 1991 out of the remnants of the former Polish communist party (PZPR – Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza) (Sieklucki 2006).

Several years ago, our team, established at both the Institute of Political Science and International Relations of the Jagiellonian University, and the Institute of Political Science of the Pedagogical University in Cracow, took on the task of analyzing the organizational structures of Polish political parties. In further pursuit of this interest, we then decided to widen the territorial range of the analysis to include political parties from Central and Eastern Europe. We believe that such research is especially important given that the organizational aspects of parties in CEE countries are currently very dynamic, due to both the young age of these parties, and the fast-changing political and social environments in which they have evolved. Our specific aim was to paint the widest possible picture of the organizational structures of the most relevant parties in Central and Eastern Europe, and to provide a basis for further comparison between them and their Western European counterparts. We focused specifically on the formal aspects of organizational structures of political parties in CEE, as reflected in their statutory rules.

In order to implement our project, we asked scholars from the region to prepare papers on the organizational structures of parliamentary parties in their respective countries, based on the formal statutes of those parties, as well as on the laws that govern their operation. The choice of countries included in the project was based on two inclusive criteria: geographic location, i.e. the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; and political history, i.e. post-communist countries, regardless whether or not they are democratic. These are: Albania; Belarus; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Czech Republic; Estonia; Hungary; Kosovo; Latvia; Lithuania; Moldova; Montenegro; Poland; Romania; Russia; Serbia; Slovakia; Slovenia; and Ukraine. The authors from these countries agreed to take part in the project, and the results of their work are presented in 20 chapters of this book. The introductory chapter contains a detailed outline of the project, and the final chapter summarizes the most important research findings. We thus submit to readers this 22-chapter book concerning the organizational structures of political parties in post-communist countries from Central and Eastern Europe.

Some Determinants of Political Party Development in Emerging Democracies of CEE

Democratic political parties have developed in the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) since the beginning of the 1990s, when political parties in well-established democracies were undergoing organizational transformation. The latter weakened their ties with society and strengthened their relations with the state using its resources. This influenced the development of parties in CEE countries, as they followed Western patterns to a certain degree. But whereas parties in developed democracies were usually well-rooted in society, represented social cleavages, had mass membership, were financed by membership fees, and changed only subsequently; parties in CEE did not manage to create strong relations with society before they took part in elections. There was a lack of clear social cleavages, and parties were created by political elites rather than social groups or movements, thus they oft en became a part of the state institutions even before they tried to establish roots in society.1 While in Western Europe mass political mobilization preceded the building of party structures and participation inelections, “party formation in newly established democracies generally followed a different trajectory, as parties engaged in mass electoral competition before developing their party organization” (van Biezen 2003: 30). Consequently, such parties gained representation in parliament, and sometimes even executive power, before creating extra-parliamentary organizations. This clearly weakened their structures to a large degree.

Also important here is that parties from CEE countries have undergone some changes similar to their counterparts in Western Europe in terms of mediatization, personalization, and prezidentialization of party politics (Poguntke and Webb 2005). In well-developed democracies, these processes have altered the mechanisms of political communication, and strengthened the positions of party leaders at the expense of other party structures. In Central and Eastern European countries, such changes had occurred before the organizational structures of political parties were fully formed, thus their effects were even stronger, and the power of party leaders in relation to other party bodies has become very significant. Th fact that some parties have not experienced alternation of leadership, and are still governed by their “founding fathers” is an additional incentive to strengthen the power of party chairmen. These parties are oft en perceived as “the property of the founder.”

Although the activity of political parties is a popular and widely studied issue, the nature of their organizational structures receive relatively less attention. While most research is focused on Western Europe, since the countries of Central and Eastern Europe experienced the process of democratization, there appeared a number of studies concerning also parties in this part of Europe. Paul G. Lewis was among the first authors to take an interest in this field. In 1996 he edited Party Structure and Organization in East-Central Europe, which contained several case studies regarding party formation and organizational structures of: Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and even former East Germany. Even though written in the early phases of the democratic transition, reflections concerning the organizational aspects of party formation still prove valuable. Several years later P.G. Lewis authored Political Parties in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (2000). Chapter 4 of this book is devoted to organizational aspects of political parties in the region, and includes author's analysis of party structures, finances, factionalism and relationships between models of party organization in CEE and in established democracies.

Also relevant to the study of party organizational structures in CEE coun-tries are works by Ingrid van Biezen (2003) and Maria Spirova (2007). Van Biezen discusses the formation of political parties amidst democratic transition, with particular emphasis on their organization. Her research is based on examples from Southern Europe (Portugal and Spain), and Central and Eastern Europe (Czech Republic and Hungary). Spirova focuses on the formation, evolution, and organization of Bulgarian and Hungarian political parties. Apart from specifics, the book contains insightful general reflections on the organizational evolution of CEE political parties. For instance, she shows how politicians, at the beginning phases of post-communist party formation, did not stress the importance of organizational structures. Later however, they came to appreciate organization as a valuable asset to party functioning.

Another book containing chapters focusing on political parties in CEE, which includes some discussion of their organizational aspects, is Party Politics in New Democracies, edited by Paul Webb and Stephen White (2007). Likewise, Stephen D. Roper and Jānis Ikstens published a book in 2008 which discusses the question of party financing in post-communist countries. Other relevant papers also introduce and analyze theoretical models (Kopecký 1995; Szczerbiak 1999; Hanley 2001; Enyedi and Linek 2008), and touch on other aspects of party organization (Toole 2003; Tavits 2012a, 2012b; Gherghina 2014).

Reflections collected here come from researchers from various academic centres in Europe and support the notion that political science, with its long tradition of analysing the development of societies in nation-states, is constantly searching for ever-newer ways to describe and explain the modern world. This search is visible in the undertaken research problems, methods and techniques used and the way research and education of political science are organised. This should not come as a surprise, as it seems highly probable that we are caught in the middle of a process of breaking up the continuity of social development and are witnessing a deep transformation. The changes seem to have outpaced not only science but also politics. We may be in need of a new approach, a different strategy for how the discipline of political science functions and how research is organised in order to truly see this new world being born.

We believe that reflection on political science as a scientific discipline at the dawn of the 21st century can become a good reference point to open a discussion among competent researchers, on the basis of which they could work out thorough and informed suggestions regarding revisiting the organizational structure and the basic programme to be taught to students of political science. Our activities should be aimed at making political science an important field of knowledge indispensable in political practice, a discipline which not only describes and explains but also allows us to make sense of the rapid changes taking place in the political organization of society and a discipline capable of improving the quality of state-society relations.

The rapidly growing complexity of the modern world, the Internet, new methods of communication and co-operation, and an incredibly fast-growing stream of information force ever more narrow specializations to be created, ever newer questions to be asked and areas to be researched within the field of political science. They also make the old question relevant again: How do we study such a multifaceted phenomenon as ‘politics’? How can we even begin a theoretical and generalizing reflection on a set of completely new events and tendencies associated with politics today? How can we understand them as unpredictably varied as they are? For we do not even know the boundaries of politics.