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For about one decade and a half (1990-2004), party competition in Romania was mostly a conflict between two major blocs, left and right. Things changed radically in the last few years; what we see now is a three-party competition between left (PSD), right (PNL) and center (PDL). In this paper we seek for an explanation for this change. One promising candidate is the electoral system, which was changed prior to the 2008 parliamentary election, from party list PR to 'personalized' (Single Member District) PR. The goal of this change was to give voters the possibility to choose from among candidates, rather than parties. If voters did change their behavior as a result of this reform, 'ideological' voting should decrease, so aggregate support for a party in the previous election (2004), held under party list PR rules, should be a less reliable predictor of support for the same party in the last election (2008) than 2000 results were for the 2004 results. Indeed, if we correlate the locality-level party vote in 2000 and 2004, and then in 2004 and 2008, the former correlations are substantially higher than the latter, which seems to indicate a shift from ideological to personalized voting. However, if we compute the correlations cross-sectionally rather than longitudinally, i.e., we correlate the Chamber and the Senate vote for the same party in 2000, 2004 and 2008, we see that the correlation in 2008 is as high as it was in previous elections, a result that disconfirms the hypothesis of an impact of the electoral system change. Instead, we advance an alternative hypothesis, one that is consistent with both results, namely, that realignment took place in the last few years (post-2004). If that is the case, aggregate support for a party in the previous election should become a less reliable predictor of its support in the last election (2008). Yet on the other hand, voters who switched party allegiance will vote for their new preferred party in both Chamber and Senate elections, so the 2008 correlation will be as high as it was in 2004, a result inconsistent with an institutional explanation (one that looks at the effects of electoral system change), but consistent with a structural (i.e., realignment) account. To show that this is indeed the case, we present a theory of party system change applied to Romania, one that accounts for the change as the joint effect of structural, external, political and institutional factors. We are confident that institutional factors play an important role; however, we argue that the increased importance of the presidency and the staggering of presidential and parliamentary elections play a more important role compared to the change of the electoral system. In the last part we analyze survey and exit poll data to show how the change in the party system is reflected in the changing profile of the constituencies of major parties, particularly the PD-L. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the popularity of extreme right-wing political parties across Eastern and Western Europe. Several theories contrasting the relative and absolute deprivation concepts are discussed. A structural account is offered about the emergence of extreme right-wing parties in two countries including Romania and France.

What are the main partisan divisions in Romania, and what accounts for them? What isthe sociological, demographic and attitudinal profile of the main constituencies in thiscountry? These are the questions that I seek to answer. I argue that political life in post-Communist Romania was characterized until recently by the existence of three majorblocs: left, right, and extreme right, and that the constituents of each of these blocs are, inone way or another, a product of modernization. The left is representing mostly ruralRomania, one that has yet to modernize. The right is a product of successfulmodernization - an urban, young, well-educated, dynamic constituency. The extremeright constituency, the voters of Greater Romania Party (PRM), emerged after thetransition from the prior regime as the side effect of a kind of "defective modernity," theprocess of rapid urbanization and industrialization imposed from above duringCommunism. As new generations of voters come of age, voters who were socializedunder very different conditions from previous generations, conditions became ripe for theemergence of a new extreme right party - the Party of the New Generation (PNG). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I present a theory about the institutional determinants of democratic performance. Parliamentary systems and party list proportional representation are more conducive to a strong party system with competitive, programmatic and institutionalized political parties, and consequently to a better democratic quality. To show this, I take a closer look at a subset of post-Communist polities, those with a majority Orthodox population, thus controlling for the effect of culture or religion. When we look at the relationship between economic development (another important explanatory variable) and democracy, we see that in this group the relationship is actually negative. I offer an institutional explanation for this paradox: less economically developed Orthodox polities have made better institutional choices than more economically developed Orthodox polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the inclusion in governance of ethnic minority or integral nationalist parties in seven post-communist states, 1990-2004; and the frequency, costs/benefits, stability and electoral success of such coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years we have witnessed significant electoral successes of radical nationalist parties across Europe. This paper seeks to shed light on an important aspect of the emergence of these parties: the rise of radical nationalist constituencies. I focus on two of the most visible examples of success of such parties, the French National Front and the Greater Romania Party. This provides a type of most-different cases design: I identify explanatory variables (most importantly, economic transition) that account for the success of radical nationalism in both countries, notwithstanding many important differences between the two polities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of political competition as one-dimensional (left-versus-right) is widespread. This single dimension is a useful shortcut for a number of positions on a variety of issues and policies. Nonetheless, political conflict is often multi-dimensional. Using a single dimension for describing political competition in such circumstances is inappropriate. I present a simple model with two dimensions and three actors (constituencies) with preferences over policies associated with each of the two dimensions. I use this model to analyze the most recent presidential elections in three European countries: France, Romania, and Ukraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008, Romania changed its electoral system from PR to single ballot mixed. A major reason behind this reform was to strengthen the ties between the candidates and their constituents, and our goal is to test whether this has happened. To this end, we analyze aggregate electoral returns from Romania's 3,000 localities, and rely on the notion of 'uniform partisan swing,' which states that the level of local support for a given party in an election is an excellent predictor of its level of support in the same locality or region in the next election. We expect that the change of the electoral system will lead to a decrease in ideological voting and a larger impact of the qualities of individual candidates. We test this by comparing the correlation between support for a given party at the locality level in the 2000 and 2004 parliamentary elections with the correlation between support for the same party in the 2004 and 2008 elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I use survey data to map the constituents of two extreme right-wing parties, the French National Front and the Greater Romania Party, in a two-dimensional policy space. The presence of these constituents has similar consequences for political competition in the two polities, making their politics two-dimensional. On the one hand, we have moderate left and moderate right constituencies, divided primarily by "Old Politics" economic conflicts. On the other hand, we have "New Politics" conflicts, dividing the authoritarian and xenophobic constituents of extreme right -wing parties from all other constituencies. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]