Although much has been written about the process of party system institutionalization, the reasons why some party systems institutionalize while others do not remains still a mystery.
Seeking to solve the above-cited quandary, and using a mixed methods approach (MDSO/MSDO, csQCA and “process tracing”), this paper constitutes a first attempt to answer the following three questions: (1) what specific factors help party systems to institutionalize (or not)?; (2) which and how do they affect every particular party system?; and (3) what are the causal mechanisms behind such relationships?
With these goals in mind and in order to undertake such an ambitious enterprise the current work, adopting a “comprehensive” approach, reviews the literature on the causes of systemic institutionalization (section 2). Before that, the paper starts with an analytical perspective on the concept and measurement of party system institutionalization, establishing to what degree party systems in post-communist Eastern Europe have institutionalized (section 1). Trying to reduce “causal complexity”, the number of possible “key” variables is condensed to the minimum in section 3. Once the model has been specified section 4, dealing with the problem of “complex causation” (Ragin, 1987), identifies 5 different combinations of “conditioning” factors leading to the outcome. Finally, section 5 looks at the “causal mechanisms” linking each of the relevant “explanatory” sources with party system (under-)institutionalization in two “representative” case-studies.
