Post-Communist Parliaments Change and Stability in the Second Decade [Hardcover]

At the end of the founding or initial decade, the new parliaments of post-Communist Europe had developed two distinct types: democratic and presidentially-dominated. Whilst in the early years, they had been characterised as parliaments in adolescence, they have - through the second decade - continued to improvise but also elaborate their working relationships with both their chief executives and electorates.

This book examines these adaptations in seven parliaments, comparing both among them and with parliaments of west Europe. Their changes are traced through four distinct sets in context, members, internal structure, and working relationship with the executive. This research develops a common perspective for our understanding of both new and developed legislatures by tracing the steps through which new parliaments begin, adapt and become established.

This book was published as a special issue of Journal of Legislative Studies.

Part 1: Introduction  1. Questions about Legislative Institutional Change and Transformation in Eastern and East Central Europe: Beyond the Initial Decade  Gabriella Ilonszkiand David M. Olson  Part 2: The Parliaments  2. Central European Parliaments over Two Decades  Diminishing Stability? Parliaments in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia  Zdenka Mansfeldov?  3. Second Decade, Second Chance? Parliament, Politics and Democratic Aspirations in Russia, Ukraine and Moldova  William E. Crowther  Part 3: Post-Communist Parliaments Compared  4. Negative Agenda Control and ExecutiveLegislative Relations in East Central Europe, 19972008  Radoslaw Zubek  5. Internal Organisation of Post-Communist Parliaments ovelsª