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• Electoral Systems in East Central Europe

  26-50

  Gyorgy Fabian

  Views:

  47

  The democratic transition in Eastern and Central Europe provides a good opportunity to
  examine how to apply the findings of the science of elections in a new dimension. This study
  based on 167 elections in 23 countries shows the formation, evolution and political consequences
  of the new electoral systems. The hypothesis of the paper is that the elections and electoral
  systems in this region not always correspond to the conventional wisdom. Our analysis divides
  into five parts the region (Central Europe, Western and Eastern Balkans, Baltic States and the
  other former republics of Soviet Union). This division helps to get an sophisticatad picture about
  the emergence and changes of the new electoral systems. By showing country by country we can
  demonstrate the similarities and differences between and within subgroups as well. Finally
  using three well-known indices (least square index, effective electoral and parliamentary
  number of parties) the study summarizes – country by country and subgroups by subgroups by
  type – the political consequences for the proportionality and party structure. The analysis of the
  167 elections demonstrates that Eastern and Central Europe does not show uniformity regarding
  the political consequences of the electoral systems. Their influence is more moderate than in the
  established democracies and they are also much more volatile. Their changes have shown rather
  diverging than converging trend in the last quarter century. The conventional findings are
  difficult to apply for this region, they are only partially valid, especially the formation of party
  structure differ from the previous experiences. In sum the Eastern and Central European elections
  do not invalidate the conventional statements of the elctoral studies but they offen do not show
  corresponding image. So they significantly contribute to the further development and refinement
  of the previous findings.

• Competitive elections and the challenges of the concept of competitiveness

  37-52

  Anna Unger

  Views:

  136

  The paper relates to the literature on contemporary non-democratic systems with multi-party elections. It aims to prove that electoral competitiveness is a key concept for understanding these systems, but this concept is currently underdeveloped. It first reviews the main approaches of competition and competitiveness, then, using the widely accepted type of competitive authoritarian hybrid regime, argues that the concept developed by its inventors does not provide sufficient support to detect competitiveness, because the factor of uncertainty used by the concept creators to justify its existence is not accompanied by any real indicators. The conclusion of the article is that competitiveness should therefore be derived not from the unidentifiable uncertainty factor, but from the concept of electoral integrity, which indicates the existence or the absence of genuine (competitive) elections, and from the concept and characteristics of electoral manipulations.

• Incumbency advantage of mayors in cities with county rights in Hungary

  40-51

  László Petrovszki

  Views:

  46

  There are twenty-three cities with county rights in Hungary. These cities are playing extremely important role because of their location, population and their administrative duties. For these reasons they can fall prey to national parties and political actors even during local elections. The aim of this study is to analyze these settlements in regard to the incumbency of mayors. Incumbency means the holding of an office, and the incumbent politician is the current holder of a political office. My goal is to show – by quantitative comparison – that the so-called incumbent advantage is prevalent in these cities. I also examine whether the candidates of the winning parties at the first order general elections are faring better than their competitors.