Exploring Party Switching in East-Central European Legislatures

This book challenges the approach of relying on election outcomes to analyse party systems, contending that changes can be also identified and documented beyond the scope of parliamentary elections through legislative party switching. It argues that significant party system changes occur often within parliamentary terms, and legislative party switching is not a pathological feature of democracy but rather an integral component of democratic party systems. Offering a comprehensive and specific theoretical framework for party switching and based on a novel and exhaustive database from Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Poland, the book examines the determinants for, and implications of, legislative party switching in Central and Eastern Europe. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of legislative studies, party politics, Central and East European Politics and more broadly to comparative politics and government.