This article examines ticket splitting under Mongolia's new mixed-member majoritarian system used for the elections in 2012, reaching several conclusions. First, we confirm that strategic ticket splitting depends on party size, as especially candidates of larger parties receive, on average, more district votes. Second, we show that strategic voting is not a universal phenomenon under the Mongolian mixed-member majoritarian system. Finally, as personal vote rather than strategic voting generally influences electoral behaviour of Mongolian voters at the district level, we hypothesize that institutional factors alone are not sufficient to explain both ticket splitting and strategic voting.

Almost twenty five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and several Central Asian republics appear to be converging on what may be termed a ‘hierarchic party system’, characterised by controlled and unequal competition between parties. Addressing the juncture between international politics and party politics, this article explores this convergence and considers Russian authoritarian norm diffusion as a possible explanation. This article argues that although Russia continues to build significant party-based linkage in Central Asia, similarities between party systems are the result of complex, multidirectional norm diffusion, as regimes look to liberalise or close their respective political systems.

The successor party to the Lithuanian Communist Party (LCP) has shown amazing adaptability in weathering the transition period to remain a major political force throughout the post-communist period. The LCP severed all formal ties with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and became the independent Lithuanian Democratic Labor Party (LDLP) in late 1989. As the LDLP, the party was the governing party from 1992 to 1996. In early 2001 it merged with the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) to become the new LSDP. The LSDP has been the major party in governing coalitions from 2001 to the present. We explore the challenges that Lithuania’s successor party has faced and the reasons for its remarkable success.

Research on successor parties in the former Soviet Union has mostly focused on leftist parties and paid little attention to their interplay with centrist forces which equally have their roots in the Soviet system. This article examines the development of both leftist and centrist successor parties in post-Soviet Ukraine. After consideration of the role of legacies of the old regime as well as the current legal and societal framework, the evolution of leftist parties and the so-called parties of power is explored. The analysis shows that the leftists were weakened by internal splits and a partial inability to modernize. But equally important was the logic of power preservation in the Leonid Kuchma regime, which promoted the formalization of the party of power and crowded out the leftist competitors.

This article examines how the choice of Ukraine’s constitutional system affects both the relationship among key constitutional actors and the prospects of institutional change. It analyzes the character of the relationship between the president and parliament in the context of their competition over control of the cabinet. It then examines how and why the institutional interests and preferences of key political and public policy actors who inhabit the presidency, the legislature and the cabinet affect the prospects of maintaining or changing the constitutional status in Ukraine. It concludes that the institutional stability in Ukraine is still in a state of flux.

The Polish parliamentary elections of 2001 took place in a context of fresh upheavals in the configuration of political parties. The architects of the new electoral law aimed to reduce the seats gained by the social democrats and increase their own. They succeeded in the first aim by a change of electoral formula, forcing the victorious social democratic electoral coalition to seek a third coalition partner. They did not achieve the second aim, as their own failures in government drastically reduced their electoral support and facilitated the breakthrough of populist formations. The result had implications for party development and the composition and workings of both parliament and government. While representation was enhanced by a parliament more accurately reflecting the voters’ choice, the impact appeared potentially harmful to Polish democracy as a whole.

The paper is an attempt to analyse Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS), the biggest political coalition in Poland, in the context of the historical development of the Solidarity movement. In particular, two aspects are considered: the value system of the “old” and “new” Solidarity, and the relative importance of the trade union and political goals and modes of activity. The basic hypothesis advanced in the paper is, that the AWS is an attempt to institutionalise trade union control over the political party in the name of clearly defined values. Thus, compared with the “first Solidarity”, the movement has become both more exclusive and more focused in its goals. Values and interests converge in defining its new identity. The paper distinguishes three stages in the existence of the movement (1980–81, 1988–89, and 1996–98) and investigates all three of them. The stress, however, is put on the last of the three.