In Central-East European democracies, coalition politics has been affected by the instability of party systems. High electoral volatility is among the most cited evidences of party system instability. This paper presents more nuanced analysis of this phenomenon.
Theoretically, high volatility is not necessarily a problem, when volatility represents party system adaptability to the changes of voter preferences (“demand side effects”). It may lead to the creation of a coalition government along the voter preferences. However, in CEE countries, "supply side effects", namely the creation of new parties, are the main reasons for high volatility (R. Rose). In contrast, "demand side effect" is considerably small. The differences in the cause of volatility may have meaningful implication for coalition politics.
In this paper, the effects of the formation of new parties on the performance of coalition government are examined. Is the emergence of new parties beneficial in terms of accountability? Looking at the examples of 14 new parties which gained parliamentary seats from the 2000s in six CEE countries, this paper finds that many of the "new parties" are not "new" in regard to policy orientation and it is difficult to say that the new parties contribute to higher accountability. Worse yet, new parties disturb "In" and "Out" alteration of governing coalition. It is often the case that “new” parties are formed by the split of coalition parties and re-enter the coalition.
In the first half of the paper, quantitative approach is used. In the second half, qualitative analysis of Czech and Slovak cases is given. In addition, to highlight the importance of “new party by split”, comparison with Japanese case is added to show the institutional bias of new parties’ influences.
